Idea 153 of 500. Cluster 7: The infrastructure that makes the rest possible
Product storytelling: someone who goes to the maker, learns the story and checks that every word on the label is true
The mechanism, from the book
The tiny business pathway. A rural woman with an exceptional product should not need photography, English copy, packaging design and a distributor before the world can find her.
Every idea in cluster 7 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Visit one small producer near you, spend a morning watching the work, and write the story of the product in plain words: who makes it, where, how, and from what. Check every claim on the label against what you saw, and strike out any you cannot confirm. Give the producer the story free for a month and compare their enquiries before and after. Then offer the next producer the same visit at a fixed price.
- Who pays first
- A producer selling to foreign buyers who knows the product is good but cannot tell its story, and whose label makes claims nobody has checked.
- What leaves today
- Without a true story, island products sell as anonymous commodities, and the story is written by whoever repacks them abroad.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. SeventeenOne Building
The dozen small things that turn a product into money that stays
More from cluster 7
Idea 153 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.