Paige Finn DohertyFounding Partner, Behind Genius · Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures

understanding what the supply chain looks like for building a business

18 Sept 2023 · 1 min

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In this segment, the speaker—representing the hardware startup Gameboard—explains why the current hardware supply chain is especially challenging for new businesses. They argue that the difficulty scales with product complexity and reliance on proprietary components, which can lock a company into a limited set of suppliers. As a concrete example, they discuss issues obtaining Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth modules, and propose designing products to accept multiple module types as a strategy to broaden supplier options and reduce risk.

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I think for folks unfamiliar with hardware investing, it could be really helpful to understand what the supply chain looks like for building a business. Yeah, yeah. The supply chain is a nightmare right now. I will sugarcoat that. No, I'm kidding. No, I think it's difficult, and I think the more complex your product is, the more difficult it's going to be. The more that you have to have proprietary hardware structures in place, or you're pigeonholing yourself into certain suppliers, I think that the more difficult it is for you to get product right now. And one of our fundamental issues at Gameboard has been like, you know, like Wi-Fi modules, Bluetooth modules, like smaller things that you feel like should be more readily available. But if you're designing a product that can take a lot of different types of Wi-Fi modules or Bluetooth modules, then it's like easy for you to get different types of suppliers.