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How to Turn Waste Into More Sales
A Guide to Building in Public: Process Your By-products
In 2013, my friend Robleh showed me Sell Your By-products, perhaps one of the most seminal blog posts at Signal v. Noise.
The idea is simple enough: Whatever you’re selling, you’re also creating something valuable that you haven’t sold yet. Sell it!
Selling By-Products, In Action
Exhibit A: The lumber industry chops and sells wood. They also sell the by-products, the sawdust, wood chips, shredded wood.
Exhibit B: (Apologies in advance, animal lovers.) Meatpackers slaughter animals, and package, distribute, and sell meat. They make soap, fertilizer, buttons, glue, combs and ornaments, felt, from all the animal parts they don’t use for meat.
Exhibit C: A chef creates and sells culinary experiences. They also sell the recipes, techniques, and memories as TV shows, books, memoirs, etc.
Exhibit D: Basecamp builds and sells software. They also sell the by-products, the knowledge and processes that emerge from this process, via books and courses.
Exhibit E: Amazon creates a platform that sells almost everything. They also sell infrastructure services and data centre operations, through Amazon Web Services.
