Idea 23 of 500. Cluster 2: Sell the making, not the object
Your own perfume, blended from Sri Lankan cinnamon, vetiver, citronella and sandalwood oils, in a bottle with your name on it
The mechanism, from the book
The craft cannot be copied and the object can. In Europe people queue to watch glass being blown and then buy the glass.
Every idea in cluster 2 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Buy small bottles of cinnamon, vetiver, citronella and sandalwood oil from producers you can name, and learn from a trained perfumer or chemist which blends are safe on skin. Set up a table in a guesthouse or a spice garden where a visitor blends a scent, names it, and takes home a labelled bottle. Run it for ten visitors at a trial price. Paid sessions are the proof.
- Who pays first
- A visitor at a spice garden or a boutique hotel who wants a souvenir nobody else has, with their own name on it.
- What leaves today
- An oil sold by the litre earns little; a bottle blended here by the visitor, with their name on it, sells the making as well as the oil.
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. FiveThe Most Photographed Rock in the World
Courses instead of meals, the one the book would build first
More from cluster 2
- 21Cooking classes, from a half-day of two curries and rice to a week-long residency
- 22Kite-making on the beach: build a Sri Lankan kite in the morning and fly it at sunset
- 24Batik workshops where you take home what you made
- 25Pottery workshops, your own signature on the base
- 26Handloom weaving demonstrations and short courses
- 27Mask-carving workshops
Idea 23 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.