Entrepreneurship
Bricoleurs are the best bootstrappers
Bricolage makes entrepreneurs resourceful endlessly
The best thing about brewing coffee in Shahpurjat is meeting fellow bootstrappers. Yesterday I met a fashion designer, who had started her boutique last month. She left her job at JJ Valaya. One of my customers at Shack Coffee is a lady, who runs a popular jewellery brand for women. Earlier, she tried running a restaurant, but couldn’t. My neighbours are two or three people team, running production houses and agencies. They are my first customers. They hop in for coffee, and we share our journeys. One thing is common among all of us. It’s bricolage.
Bricolage is an act of using whatever is at hand, and recombining them to make something new. The boutique owner has brought the dining table for home. It is not a workstation. The jewellery designer uses the furniture from the last business to design jewelleries. She uses a make-shift studio, with wooden sticks and metal hooks, to shoot videos. I am also practicing bricolage at Shack Coffee.
“In The Savage Mind (1962), the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss used the word bricolage to describe the characteristic patterns of mythological thought. Bricolage is the skill of using whatever is at hand and recombining them to create something new. Levi-Strauss compares the working of the bricoleur and the engineer. The bricoleur, who is the “savage mind”, works with his hands in devious ways, puts pre-existing things together in new ways, and makes do with whatever is at hand. What Levi-Strauss points out here is that signs already in existence are used for purposes that they were originally not meant for.” — Source
The jewellery designer started with buying cheap earrings from a local market, and polishing it, to sell to customers. She would buy scarves, and beautify it, before selling. She was profitable from the first day. It took her seven years to set up a workshop and an online shop. She never lets materials go in waste. If there is a wastage from one collection, it becomes a limited release jewellery item. If the metal is rusting, it becomes the rust themed jewellery. She is a true bricoleur. She is looking to expand. Can marketing help her?
Evelia Coyotzi has recently upgraded from a food cart to a shopfront. Her story is that of a bricoleur and grit. She came to New York from Mexico with her two-year-old son. After she lost. In her job to 9/11, she started selling tamales on a shopping cart. With time, she started using a push cart. For twenty years, she would park her cart at 4:30am. Common people and celebrities like Anthony Bourdain loved her food. ( Source: New Yorker & NYT) .
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