This paper studies how divergent organizational novelty can emerge and be sustained in seemingly powerless and resource constrained new ventures entering a highly institutionalized field. Our study of seven new ventures in the industry of written news surprisingly indicates that ventures facing high tangible resource constrains yield higher divergent organizational novelty than ventures facing lower tangible resource constrains. We observe that this happens because severe material resource constraints direct the new venture’s attention to intangible resources -available in the personal background of the entrepreneurial team- that creatively combine in new organizational functionalities. Another key finding is that although a process of novelty emergence can be triggered by external formative events and facilitated by organizational conditions, it can only result in divergent organizational novelty when driven by organizational growth. We complement traditional views on institutional entrepreneurship and contribute to concepts in institutional change. Our research also conceptually tightens the process of entrepreneurial bricolage for the outcome of divergent organizational novelty.