Sawdust

We love to talk about “thinking outside the box.”
But what about thinking inside the bin?

When Ford started cranking out the Model T, they were left with mountains of wood scraps. Rather than tossing them, someone had the bright idea to turn those leftover bits into Kingsford Charcoal — now a brand that owns 80% of the BBQ charcoal market.

The idea taking byproducts and turning them into businesses — is essentially the framework for what we now call the circular economy. There are loads of examples of companies that are turning waste into wealth:

• Brewers Spent Grain: Craft breweries are turning their used grains into everything from dog treats to pizza dough.
• Coffee Grounds: Companies like GroCycle are using spent coffee grounds to grow gourmet mushrooms. I even have a caps created by Coffee grounds
• Textile Scraps: Fashion brands are recycling fabric remnants into new clothing lines, addressing waste in one of the world’s most polluting industries.

Digital sawdust?

But the concept doesn’t just apply to physical waste. Digital sawdust can be just as valuable.

Take when I was working on Pie Menu, for example. I realized that some of the code I’d written for detecting mouse movement and identifying apps could be reused in another context. That code ended up forming the foundation for Hot Corners — an app that launches other apps when you move your cursor to the corners of the screen. What looked like scrap turned out to be the basis for something new.

What’s in your bin?

That app feature you cut? That might be a standalone product.

Those blog post drafts you never published? Maybe they’re the seeds of your next book.

The code you didn’t end up using? That could become the backbone of something entirely new.

Innovation doesn’t always mean starting from zero. Your next big breakthrough might be hidden in plain sight, pretending to be waste.