Ask HN: Product led growth for hardware startups? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Product led growth for hardware startups?

2 pointsogarten2 comments

Is there anyone who works in a hardware startup that tries to create product led growth?

PLG in SaaS is an old topic now and is much more straight forward due to self-service and easy user analytics.

I have worked in a number of hardware based startups, still do, and most have been product led or at least try to be. There isn't a one size fits all answer for what I think you are asking, and without more details it is unlikely anyone can give you great insights.

Generically, most hardware based companies today are really software services or data companies that have a hardware "interface" product. e.g. pick a consumer wearable product, what's really the product there? the hardware? or the users data? The answer is generally the user's data and insights that can be pulled from that data. So product led there generally starts with the insights and data, the hardware is just a means to acquire it.

My main point is unless you are selling primarily disconnected hardware, e.g. a non-connected toaster, you almost always are focused on the software services and data around the product and the hardware is just the bow you wrap it in to get what really is your product. So being product led for hardware isn't so different than SaaS or others. The one key difference is part of the user experience is the hardware, so you spend more time around optimizing the hardware and convincing customers why your shiny object is the one they need to buy. In the end though, usually those reasons to buy still boil down to the insights that come from the software. Hence you are still looking at all those growth metrics, engagement etc that most SaaS or software based business are watching.

If you are a truly non-connected or have severely limited software in the product then I'd have some different comments, but those are pretty rare in today's market.

Thanks for your answer. I am just trying to understand how that works in the field but seeing such companies as software companies with a hardware aspect makes a lot of sense.

My main interest in this case is B2B hardware, e.g. some kind of robot (mobile or stationary). What I see is that the main problem that is being solved is done by the robot and the software on top isn't all that interesting to many users and therefore it's not as easy to track.

When they log into a (web) app it becomes much easier track usage.

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