Idea 25 of 500. Cluster 2: Sell the making, not the object
Pottery workshops, your own signature on the base
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
Visit a potter who still throws by hand and ask whether visitors could sit at the wheel for an hour and sign the base of their own pot. Offer to bring the first guests and handle payment. Run three sessions, collect honest feedback, and ask each guest what they would pay. The potter's agreement and three paid sessions are the proof.
- Who pays first
- Families and couples travelling with time to spare, who want an hour of making and an object with their own name on it.
- What leaves today
- A pot sells for little at the roadside; the hour at the wheel sells the potter's skill at the price of an experience.
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
Idea 25 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.