Idea 38 of 500. Cluster 2: Sell the making, not the object
Lacquerware workshops
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
Track down a lacquerware workshop and spend an hour watching how colour is worked into the turned wood. Ask the maker to run a short session where visitors decorate a small bowl themselves. Set a price, then offer it to two tour operators whose routes pass nearby. One operator adding the stop to a scheduled tour is your proof.
- Who pays first
- Tour operators running cultural routes who want a hands-on stop their groups will talk about, and the groups themselves.
- What leaves today
- Lacquerware survives as a small souvenir trade; a workshop sells the skill and keeps the makers working at a better rate.
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
Idea 38 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.