Idea 173 of 500. Cluster 7: The infrastructure that makes the rest possible
Translation services for product labels into German, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic
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
Take the label of one product that is already exported, a tea or a spice pack, and have it translated into German, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic by qualified translators. Show the four versions to the producer and ask whether a buyer in any of those markets has asked for one. Then offer the same service to five more producers at a fixed fee per language.
- Who pays first
- A producer whose importer in Germany, Japan or the Gulf has asked for a label in the local language before placing an order.
- What leaves today
- Labels only in English limit where a product can be sold finished, so it leaves in bulk to be relabelled by the importer.
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 173 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.