Five years of Framework

Framework turned five years old this week! It feels both like an eternity ago and no time at all since we kicked off our mission to remake Consumer Electronics. In that period of time, we’ve:

• Developed and shipped seven repairable, upgradeable laptops (five generations of Framework Laptop 13, the Chromebook Edition, and Framework Laptop 16) and a wide range of modules.
• Launched in 32 countries across four continents.
• Built an amazing team of 60 people (and growing, check out the new roles we’re hiring for).
• Enabled an awesome community of developers, creators, and hardware hackers expanding our modular platforms beyond anything we could have imagined.
• Most importantly, with your help, proven that there is a better way to make Consumer Electronics products!

We say this every year, but this year is going to be insanely exciting. All of the learnings we’ve captured and investments we’ve made across these five years are bearing out in an incredible set of products that we can’t wait to share with you. In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the original manifesto and game plan that I wrote in September through November 2019 in the final stages of preparing to formally start this company. Some parts have gone exactly as hypothesized, some have gone faster than planned, and others are still on our long-term roadmap. Five years in, with growing success in our mission and business, we’re still just getting started. We have a whole industry we’re going to fix with you!

Framework

By Nirav Patel

Context

As consumer electronics categories mature and improvements come on slower cycles, consumers want to hold on to products for longer. However, if a part of a device breaks, wears down (as is guaranteed to occur with batteries), or goes out of date, the product becomes non-functional. This is because they are designed as disposable: sealed boxes that can’t be easily or inexpensively repaired and can’t be upgraded at all. Although they are among the most advanced outputs of civilization, they end up landfilled or in the best case recycled like any other waste.

Consumer electronics can and should instead be made as durable goods like bicycles and automobiles are, with the expectation of long usage lifetimes and designed-in serviceability. If a part breaks or wears down on a bike, it isn’t disposed of. The most common repairs can be done by the end consumer with readily available tools, while those and more complex problems can be solved by going into a local shop. There are robust ecosystems of product, part, and service providers built up around the modularity of durable goods, and the same can be done for electronics.

This is an ecological issue in addition to an economic one. Converting consumer electronics from disposable to durable goods saves consumers money, but also saves the planet from a difficult to recycle and hazardous waste stream.

Mission

Framework’s mission is to end the disposability of consumer electronics.

Strategy

We’ll do this with a three pronged approach:

1. Great products designed to be repairable and upgradeable that we release with open specifications to foster ecosystems around.
2. A marketplace that monetizes the ecosystems, selling our products and parts alongside third party and used ones.
3. An aggregator of local service providers to support the ecosystems with repairs.

Each of these could stand on its own as a business, but successful execution of any of them strengthens the others.

Audience

Success of Framework’s mission is tied to a mindset shift in consumers from electronics being disposable and immutable to being durable and mutable. Like any mindset shift, this will be a long and slow process that needs to start with early adopters before addressing the majority.

We are confident we can create excellent products in the near term that align well to early adopter audiences interested in customization or reduction of environmental footprint. With these audiences, we’ll bootstrap the brand credibility and infrastructure required to expand to the majority in the longer term.

Products

First and foremost, our products must be best-in-class, with utility, usability, and consumer desire taking precedence over repairability and openness. We’ll do this by setting a high level prioritization of:

1. Making products great.
2. Making products repairable and upgradeable.
3. Making products open.

While we could change that ordering, doing so would limit our audience to only the most enthusiastic users already passionate about repair and modification or open hardware. Achieving our mission requires that we push further into the mainstream, fielding products that win consumers over on their quality and introducing them to the benefits of repair and modularity as part of their overall experience. This means choosing the ideal components for each product, even if they come with contractual and license restrictions on what we can share around them. This approach differs from other repairable, open hardware companies that have been limited to enthusiast audiences like Fairphone [editor’s note in 2025: Fairphone has since done an excellent job of scaling to additional audiences] and Purism.

Product Types

It’s crucial to pick the right types of products to focus on. These are products that:

1. Benefit from repair and upgrade. Any consumer electronics product with a lithium ion battery sealed in falls into this category, but products with parts like keyboards or cases that undergo high mechanical wear or have high-value components like CPUs that are updated annually are especially interesting. On the latter, upgradeability enables valuable product differentiation.
2. Benefit from network effects. The more consumers there are with a shared design of a device, the more interesting it is for Framework or third parties to create replacement parts and upgrades for it. The more parts and upgrades there are, the more interesting it is for consumers to buy the product and enter the network.
3. Have audiences underserved by existing offerings. As more companies chase Apple down the path of building sealed products that were once more modular and repairable, audiences who value the latter are being left behind.
4. Most importantly, are achievable from a cost, marketing, and consumer trust perspective. For example, for the foreseeable future we’re not going to attempt to compete in the smartphone space where even giants like Google are losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year and seeing minimal traction for it. This also means avoiding products that require excessive CapEx or logistical complexity at the outset.

With each product, we’ll also build the technical capabilities, partnerships, supply chain infrastructure, and brand credibility to move to adjacent products. Our mission ultimately dictates that we add categories and products as quickly as we can execute on them well until repairability is the norm across the space.

Initial Product: Laptop

For the initial product, it’s also crucial to not be under-ambitious and to choose a category that establishes the brand well. Even if the initial audience is smaller as a result, we consider this a better trade than being lost in the noise of Kickstarter-like lower impact products.

Our working plan is to start with a laptop for PC power users and the environmentally conscious. This fits the product criteria well:

1. Laptop batteries reduce in capacity over a few hundred cycles, which may be as quickly as a couple of years. Parts like keyboards and trackpads undergo high wear, and screens and cases are occasionally broken in transport and use. Additionally, laptops can trivially be made to have the most expensive components, the CPU+motherboard (and GPU for a gaming laptop), storage, and RAM independently upgradeable. The CPU+motherboard is on a roughly yearly upgrade cycle from both Intel and AMD and some users will choose to buy that each time it is available.
2. A common laptop design with well specified module interfaces can also foster network effects. Replacement motherboards, case parts, keyboards, I/O boards, and screens are all interesting options that come into play. I/O and accelerator board modularity via a standard M.2 interface is an especially interesting opportunity for the target audience and has high potential for third party module development. There is also an opportunity to build products around the high value modules themselves. For example, we can trivially design an external monitor around the display module, a desktop small form factor PC around the mainboard, or a power bank around the battery, all of which could use either new modules or used ones pulled from laptops.
3. As mainstream consumers move away from laptops onto smartphones and tablets, laptop makers are increasingly making their products more smartphone and tablet-like with no replaceable or upgradeable parts. At the same time, the remaining customers for laptops are often enthusiasts, hobbyists, power users, and other audiences who are not well served by the iPad-ization of laptops. A competitive laptop that not only retains the ability to upgrade and replace RAM, storage, and batteries, but also allows CPU+motherboard updates can appeal to these audiences.
4. The laptop manufacturing space is also extremely mature, making it plausible to for us to partner with Quanta, Pegatron, Inventec, Compal, or Wistron in a joint development model and build something competitive with any other laptop OEM without significant custom infrastructure.

Repairability, Upgradability, and Environmental Friendliness

We’re taking a pragmatic approach to design for repair and upgrade. There have been high-profile initiatives like Motorola/Google’s Ara modular smartphone that failed to launch or failed to gain traction. We believe the “Lego block” approach used there resulted in insurmountable challenges around cost, power, and form factor. We’re taking a different trade-off: that you’ll need a screwdriver. By constraining repairs to use easily found, standard tools rather than being toolless, we can design products to still have competitive form factors. Following the bike or car analogy, if a user is uncomfortable with tools, we want to enable repair service providers to do the work for them easily and inexpensively.

Similarly on upgradeability, we will constrain that to sensible boundaries. This means splitting high value components apart from each other where possible, and ensuring high wear and high obsolescence parts are separated and easy to access. We’ll also split modules off where standard physical interfaces exists. For example, for laptops, the motherboard, DRAM, and storage each have high value and can split along standards without much issue. On the other hand, separating the CPU from the motherboard would incur a significant form factor hit that would likely make the laptop non-competitive. For another example, in an A/V receiver, the rarely changing analog audio boards would be kept separate from the digital video module for which standards change almost annually. Beyond that, we’ll follow the guidelines laid out in https://repair.org/policy

This philosophy of modularity and mutability also allows us to make products more environmentally friendly. We can offer users products containing only the parts they need. For a laptop for example, we can offer a barebones SKU where users bring their existing DRAM and storage. We can also enable checkout options to not include a power adapter or cable that a user may already have dozens of, or have a checkbox for rechargeable NiMH cells rather than including disposable alkalines with every unit.

We can also creatively extend environmental friendliness beyond that. Selling components like displays and products that are out of spec and can’t be sensibly reworked as B-stock could be economically beneficial for all parties while also being the greenest option. We’ll additionally work on minimizing the use of non-biodegradable material, minimizing packaging, avoiding plastic clings, and finding ways to do bulk distribution where possible.

Marketplace

While releasing our products as open specification and open source may accelerate the race to the bottom typical in consumer electronics, building a marketplace around them flips that into an advantage. In addition to selling first party products, replacement parts, upgrades, and repair kits, the Marketplace allows for derivative products and parts sold directly by third parties. As previously noted, this is especially beneficial where we can build network effects around a specification. More parts and products around a spec draws more consumers into the ecosystem, which in turn draws in more businesses to participate.

To avoid sellers going directly to Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba, key partners will be presented contracts where they get access to the designs of our products ahead of launch in exchange for time-based exclusivity where they sell only on the Framework Marketplace. This is a win-win situation for us and for our partners, and serves as a way to bootstrap before there is a critical mass of consumers regularly participating in the Marketplace to draw sellers directly. Open source hardware ecosystems like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and Prusa Research likely could have benefitted from similar approaches. Instead, they have been undercut by third parties selling on marketplaces they don’t own and see relatively low return on their design investments.

Curation

To differentiate from big marketplaces like Amazon in the near term, the Framework Marketplace will be curated. For consumers, this means being presented with a well organized hierarchy of categories and products. Within each product page, the consumer can see both the new first party and derivative options available, as well as B-stock, refurbished, and used versions. Alongside each product as well as on a central page for each product they own, users can also find repair and upgrade parts and instructions. Because we know which products users bought, we can also intelligently expose them to upgrade parts and replacement batteries when most relevant.

With a more curated marketplace, we also have the opportunity to promote third parties who we can certify maintain compatibility and reliability, practice fair labor standards, and use environmentally friendly practices.

Multi-sided Marketplace

We call this a marketplace rather than a store since it will ultimately have multiple sellers and buyers. Our product model is uniquely well suited for this.

B2C

The most obvious transaction type will be the typical business to consumer one. As noted, this includes Framework selling products and parts as well as third parties. In addition to new products, we have the opportunity to sell B-stock, refurbished, and used products and parts that come in from manufacturers and consumers. In this model, Framework generates revenue from first party products as well as a cut of third party marketplace transactions.

To reduce complexity for consumers, we will present a “Buy Box” with the best versions of a product for each consumer based on their location and preferences. We also have the option to set market-clearing prices rather than leaving pricing fully open to third parties, which has resulted in a range of problems for Amazon’s Marketplace.

C2C/C2B

There is also an opportunity for consumer to consumer and consumer to business sales of products and parts. Since each part has a well known use and established market price, used parts will retain value better than for traditional consumer electronics products. Consumers can use this to either sell parts (e.g. last year’s motherboard) directly on the Marketplace or sell it into a business who could resell it directly or refurbish it into a full product. In either case, it’s possible for us to establish market-clearing prices for all parts rather than relying on high-variability auctions. We can also offer consumers marketplace credit at better than cash face value, and additionally offer trade-in options. For businesses, we can offer avoiding double-charging on parts by refunding purchase fees if the part is resold on the marketplace.

B2B

Equally interesting is a B2B side of the Marketplace where component and module suppliers can post availability of bulk inventory or ongoing supply to integrators or refurbishers. While we would expect large transactions in this space to ultimately happen off-platform, there are methods we could use to capture initial finders or listing fees. Additionally, both parties in transactions between smaller repair shops and manufacturers may prefer to stay on-platform for the volumes they’ll be handling rather than establishing purchasing terms.

Global Marketplace

The multi-sided Marketplace model is especially interesting as we consider a global marketplace. The most efficient path to any individual consumer is governed by both production costs and tariffs. With open designs and a B2B side to the Marketplace, a Framework-designed product can get to the end user in the most efficient path possible. Atoms pay tariffs, but bits travel for free. Using the laptop as an example, an integrator in Brazil can find the lowest cost combination of foriegn and local modules and assembly to minimize tariffs and offer consumers a better final price. As long as any of the transactions involved over the lifetime of the product occur through the Marketplace (e.g. from time exclusivity or later consumer upgrades), Framework generates revenue.

Services

The final of the three parts of Framework is an aggregator for repair services. Like parts stores, repair services today are largely either uncurated or are vertically integrated. There is an opportunity to offer a web portal and application that categorize by product and repair type, list pricing, and allow the transaction to be completed directly. This simplifies repairs for consumers and offers repair shops a better venue for leads. This aggregator can work for existing consumer electronics products, but is especially useful for Framework products where repairs can be done rapidly and with parts of known good provenance. Additionally, we can augment the Marketplace by offering customers the option to ship parts or upgrades they order directly to their local repair shop to have the work done there for a discount or for free.

Like the Marketplace, there is also a longer term opportunity to introduce C2C services around repair, especially taking advantage of locality. For example, a college student could easily offer repair services through the app to everyone in their dorm building, or a handy person to their neighborhood.

Timeline

The working plan is as follows:

• 2019 H2 - Lay the initial groundwork for Framework and interview potential customers, partners, and suppliers to check the validity of our assumptions and strategy.
• 2020 H1 - Bring on teams to work on initial Product, Marketplace, and Services. Raise seed funding.
• 2020 H2 - Launch Marketplace MVP to exercise payment flows.
• 2021 - Launch initial product, expanding Marketplace to support it. Bring on initial third parties, signed pre-launch. Begin work on second product. Raise Series A funding.
• 2022 - Launch second product. Launch updates and upgrades to first product. Expand Marketplace to include C2C, C2B, and B2B. Launch Repair Services. Expand Services to include C2C. Begin work on additional products. Expand countries. Raise additional funding as required.
• 2023 - Field additional products. Expand countries further.
• 202x - IPO. Take over the world.

Note that this timeline is deliberately aggressive and makes a few assumptions:

1. That the strategy and high level tactics laid out above are sound.
2. That we execute on schedule on each pillar.
3. That we don’t find a more optimal path as we learn.

It’s highly unlikely that all of those assumptions will hold true, and there are a few key milestones at which we will re-evaluate the plan:

1. At the end of 2019 based on research and interviews with potential suppliers, customers, and partners around each of the pillars. At this point we will have a better read on whether a laptop is achievable, whether repair service providers will be interested in participating in a platform, and what challenges we may face convincing users that repair is valuable.
2. At the announce of the first product and launch of the Marketplace in late 2020, where we’ll determine how much repairability resonates with the target audience.
3. At the launch of the first product in mid-2021, where we’ll learn whether consumers are truly interested and are willing to purchase through the Marketplace.
4. At the launch of the second product and upgrades to the first product, at which point we’ll have a read on whether network effects around open designs are plausible to strengthen the Marketplace and whether users are interested in upgrades.

Appendix

Product Risks

There are a number of risks and challenges we need to overcome to succeed in the Product pillar. Any of the following would result in failure:

1. If our products aren’t good enough to be competitive in their categories, we can expect only the most extreme repair enthusiasts to be interested. This includes the risk of not being able to strike the right balance between integration and modularity.
2. If our products are good enough, but we’re unable to make traction due to execution failure on marketing and go to market, we’ll similarly be limited to enthusiasts. This is especially a risk as we tie it into the Marketplace.
3. We saturate initial innovator audiences, but can’t successfully bridge into early adopters and then early majority. In addition to potential brand credibility, product appeal, and marketing failures, this may be the case if we’re unable to solve making repair services convenient and inexpensive. We can expect that the early majority will largely not be opening products themselves.
4. If we’re unable to get enough users onto a specific model either through low total sales or a need to make significant architecture changes, we’ll fail to establish one side of the network that is likely necessary to get third party parts and upgrades available, reducing the long term value of the products.
5. The initial product is complex enough that it will take 18-24 months to bring to market, which is a significant length of time to operate with little to no revenue or market validation. There is risk that we fail to raise enough funds to get into market.
6. We’re unable to “get over the hump” to profitability and positive cash flow in a product segment to fund adding products and categories. This may be the case if we’re unable to keep NRE and staffing costs low, if we’re undercut and unable to capture profits off of derivative parts and products, or if margins in the categories we’re competing in are thin enough that they demand volume we’re unable to achieve. While we will raise venture capital as necessary to get off the ground, it’s unclear what the funding climate will look like over the next few years or how long of a runway we can build off of that.
7. Either through legislation or market forces, other products could become repairable enough to satisfy the most common needs, but not enough to satisfy Framework’s mission.

Marketplace Risks

1. The seeding model using existing products is largely undifferentiated from other stores and may be a distraction.
2. Holding first party products to the Marketplace will limit reach drastically and may prevent necessary adoption. It may also make potentially incompatible third party derivatives on other stores more popular and result in center of mass forming elsewhere. This is especially the case if we’re unable to offer fulfillment convenience approaching that of Amazon.
3. Similarly, it will be operationally complex and slow to add each country for first party and third party and for selling and buying.
4. Mixing third party and first party sellers on the same page may result in consumer confusion and unhappiness, especially if we’re unable to successfully hold third party quality high through certifications.
5. Third party and consumer participation in the marketplace is highly trust-based, and we may not be able to establish initial trust proxies to bootstrap with.
6. Legislation may result in marketplace providers being unable to sell their own products alongside independent sellers.