Inspired by the conundrum of 3rd party mainboard manufacturing that @James3 brought up in his comment here, I was thinking about how 3rd parties could make products, meaningfully for Framework laptops. Then I thought about who might want to make something aesthetic rather than electronic for the laptop owners which leads me to…
Brand Collaborations! I could imagine that limited run chases and lids could be made in collaboration with brands that might want to spend some of that money on marketing in interesting domains. I imagine such deals could be with fashion brands like Louis Vuitton:
Or with toy companies like LEGO:
Etc. etc…
These brands get to do a marketing stunt about supporting an Earth-friendly company, and Framework gets more household name recognition. Seems like a good deal to me.
I’d imagine that to ensure that Framework stays true to its mission, that these brand collaboration products would be sold primarily as the outer shells only so that if you want to switch to one, you’d have to bring your own internal parts. You could even have celebrity versions and make a commercial / marketing video where that person shows how easy it is to repair by upgrading a standard laptop to the collaboration version. That being said, I think it would also be wise to sell some of the branded ones as pre-builts to entice first-time buyers too.
Anyways. Since I believe in Framework’s mission (and have a minor financial incentive for them becoming more popular Cough SNACK Drawers Cough) I thought I’d share this musing with you all. I hope it happens one day.
P.S. These example companies don’t necessarily represent my support for them. They were just what popped into my head.
P.P.S. If this post belongs in the General section instead, please feel free to move it there, moderators.