Play-Doh started as a compound for cleaning soot off walls. Then the market for wallpaper cleaner died — and a nursery-school teacher saw a toy. In this episode of Optimized Entrepreneur with Jeremy Hanson, the colorful history is also a business lesson: when the original use disappears, the product is not automatically dead. The use might be.

That is the pivot. Same stuff. New customer. New name. A company that adapted instead of mourning coal heat. Quirky history on the surface. Underneath: innovation, timing, and the humility to let the market rename what you sell.

You’ll learn

• How Play-Doh began as a wallpaper cleaner
• Why the original market collapsed
• How a new use turned leftover product into a cultural staple
• What the story teaches about reinvention
• Why adaptability beats falling in lov ...