Idea 156 of 500. Cluster 7: The infrastructure that makes the rest possible
Export paperwork and rules advice for small producers
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
Pick one product type, jarred food or cosmetics, and write down every document it needs to reach one market, from the island to the shelf, by asking an export agent and reading the importing country's official guidance. Turn it into a two-page checklist. Show it to five small producers who want to export and ask whether they would pay you to prepare the documents for their first shipment.
- Who pays first
- A small producer with a foreign buyer ready to order, who is stuck on paperwork they have never done before.
- What leaves today
- Small producers sell to middlemen who export on their behalf, because nobody walks them through shipping finished goods themselves.
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 156 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.