“Our budget was tiny, so we had to be creative.” That’s how a team explained its award-winning business success. They meant “tiny” as an excuse. It may have been the reason they won.

Many breakthroughs began with scarce resources:

• When Apollo 13’s oxygen tank exploded, the astronauts couldn’t fit the Command Module’s carbon dioxide filters into their Lunar Module’s life-support system. So they made an adapter from a plastic bag, cardboard, a spacesuit hose, and duct tape.
• Red Bull couldn’t outspend Coca-Cola, so it built a brand through extreme sports and funny little cartoons.
• Ukraine couldn’t match Russia’s massive navy, so it developed small sea drones, damaging or sinking vessels many times their size.
• Dollar Shave Club couldn’t afford a glossy launch campaign. It spent $4,500 on a funny video instead. The traffic crashed its website and generated 12,000 orders within 48 hours.

More resources make things easier. Scarce resources make us think harder.

Sometimes, smaller budgets lead to bigger idea.