Brad Feld

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What Is Your Hardware Business Gross Margin?

May 04, 2016

I’m seeing an endless stream of hardware-related companies these days. In our world, we are focused on software wrapped in plastic, a line I think I first used some time in 2012. If you understand our themes, it fits squarely within human computer interaction for us.

There was a point in time – probably less than six years ago – where very few VC firms would even consider an investment in a hardware related company that was aimed at consumers. Every financing for every company we’ve invested in this area has been extremely difficult. We were not the first, nor are we the only, but in 2010 it was a very large, very dusty, and very dry desert landscape.

Suddenly, hardware related startups are all the rage.

While there has been more clarity on the core long-term economics of a hardware business, I continue to be baffled about the lack of understanding – by both VCs and entrepreneurs – of the core economics of a business like this at scale. A few folks, like our friends over at Bolt, have written great blog posts on this, but I fear that they are being overlooked, unlike the 3,671 blog posts on SaaS software, especially around SaaS metrics.

I was listening to a panel recently where several hardware entrepreneurs were discussing their businesses. I asked a simple question: “How do you think about your gross margin?”

The answer was all over the place. There was a lot of focus on current gross margin %, vagueness about how to compute gross margin, and discussion on subsets of cost inputs. There was no consistency in definition or view, especially at different scale points of the business. I could tell the panelists were uncomfortable with the discussion and the audience seemed to want to just move on and talk about something else.

I expect over the next year there will be 174 VC-based content marketing posts about how to build a successful hardware business. If they emulate the 3,671 posts about SaaS-based businesses, there will be plenty that discuss gross margin and how to think about it. Hopefully they’ll include a bunch of derivative metrics around pricing, BOM, shipping, and channel mix. Maybe they’ll even include information at different scale points of the business and tie the metrics to marketing and sales expense.

For now, if you are a founder building a hardware-based business, I encourage you to get to know other founders who have built successful hardware-based businesses at scale and go deep on the financials of their journey. You might be surprised how little equity is actually required to build a marketing-leading, cash flow positive, high growth, hardware related company.