Founded in 1994, Amazon started its journey as an online retailer of books, then added clothing, electronics, music, and so on to diversify the range of products delivered by it. In 2006, the company started offering IT Infrastructure services that are now commonly known as cloud services. A startup has to be very specific regarding overhead expenses and opting for a conventional web hosting service requires paying a fixed amount irrespective of the space that your website uses on the server. This is where cloud-based services like AWS come in very handy not only to save on IT infrastructure but to scale up your business’ performance and productivity. This post will discuss the top benefits of using AWS for startups and how it proves to be a smart business decision in today’s competitive business environment.
Exponential Growth of the Cloud Market
According to Statista, the global SaaS (software as a service) market witnessed an annual growth rate of 16% in 2022(source) and AWS dominates the market with USD 469.8 billion in net sales revenue leaving behind the prominent tech giants like Google and Microsoft.
Amazon has proved to be a boon for the eCommerce industry and not only this, among its 1 million users, only 10% are large-scale enterprises and the rest are small and medium-sized businesses. This simply depicts the way startups and small-scale businesses have gained maximum advantages out of Amazon Web Services.
AWS Products That Startups Can Choose
You can choose among ample AWS products to elevate your business’ performance and discover opportunities to develop go-to-market strategies and explore a new customer base across the globe.
Amazon S3: Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is an object storage product that startups can use to retrieve data as and when required. You can keep your data protected for a variety of use cases like websites, mobile apps, IoT devices, and enterprise apps.
Amazon EC2: This service offers you a virtual server to save both time and money. It offers comprehensive tools for developers to create virtual machines with desired features to manage security, storage, and necessary ports.
Amazon RDS: As a startup, you would always prefer to dedicate your maximum time to the core functionalities of your business rather than indulging in untidy database updates, patches, and backups. Amazon’s Relational database Service supports simple database maintenance where you can easily set up several instances depending on your database requirements.
Amazon Auto Scaling: As a startup, you never know when your website traffic grows extensively which requires high-level scalability on the server. Amazon offers a group of servers so that your business app or website can easily handle huge traffic with adjusted memory.
Elastic Beanstalk: A growing startup will always desire hassle-free infrastructure maintenance and if you are using EC2 and S3 storage, Beanstalk is known for its efficient load management across different data centers by automating new EC2 instances in case of overloading.
Top Reasons Why Startups Should Choose AWS
Let’s have a look at how these AWS products can prove to be advantageous for your startup offering complete control over finance, decision making, and overall management.
Lower IT Infrastructure Cost
For any startup, managing IT infrastructure costs can be quite troublesome, especially if you are using a conventional web hosting service. Switching to AWS consulting services allows you to save up to 70% on bottom line costs. Using the AWS Free Tier, you can easily estimate the use and need keeping costs in control and this gives you a better idea of your actual infrastructure requirements. Aws offers a pay-as-you-go model where you only need to pay for the cloud resources being used by your startup website or apps. Moreover, among ample AWS features, you can easily choose the one which best fits your business requirements.
Flexible & Highly Scalable
Having a flexible IT infrastructure is quite essential & advantageous for any startup to grow and compete. AWS offers you on-demand scaling with complete freedom to expand your cloud resources when the traffic is high and shrink when you experience a slump. You can easily deploy your app within multiple geographical regions with few clicks and reach a wider audience making your startup go global. With AWS, you also get some additional tools to layer up your critical data and keep it secure from any kind of intruding. Its user-friendly interface makes it hassle-free to migrate your software or host website without requiring serious IT skills and the well-documented APIs will help you to find a suitable solution for your every IT requirement.
AWS Comes with High-Security Standards
Did you know that almost 30000 websites are hacked every day around the globe? Online breaches and cyber attacks are growing extensively and you need to be very conscious regarding data security in such an online environment. The good thing is that AWS is much more serious regarding the security aspect, and therefore, it adheres to all crucial IT security standards. It uses multiple encryption layers allowing users to set up access controls and allow only trusted people to access any information available on the cloud database. Choosing AWS development will prove to be a more proactive approach toward data security as AWS includes enforcing multi-factor authentication for all user accounts and this makes sure that no credential can give any kind of access to data by itself.
Requirement-based Pricing Model
AWS has a more flexible pricing model as compared to Microsoft and Google (leaving discounts) where the chances to save money increase as your usage goes up. Sounds weird right? But it’s as true as Earth is round. AWS offers a flexible approach toward purchasing instances with the following pricing models:
# Reserved Instances: This model charges an upfront fee depending on the usage of cloud resources and an instance can easily be reserved for up to three years.
# On-demand Instances: This model has no upfront cost and the fee depends simply on the amount of your usage.
# Spot Instances: In case you realize extra capacity, AWS allows you to bid for it depending on the availability of capacity.
Compete with Industry Leaders
Large-scale enterprises have sufficient budgets to create and manage huge data centers using which they often deploy the finest development tools to attract maximum customers. With AWS, startups also get an opportunity to compete with them with easy access to advanced hardware and development tools. The peace of mind offered by AWS services and products allows you to focus on core business competencies and drive more results with the help of AWS’ comprehensive cloud-based solutions. AWS development offers custom environments for varied workloads making it easier for startups to scale up their performance at a significant level without worrying about the IT infrastructure.
Easy Set Up
Installing and setting up an AWS account is no rocket science. It’s a straightforward process.
Step1. Go to the AWS homepage and choose “Create an Aws Account”
Step 2. Verify your email address by entering the code you receive and then click “Verify”
Step 3. Create your password, enter your root user password, confirm it and then click “Continue”
Step 4. Add your contact information like personal or business, and avoid using personal emails and contact numbers. Read the AWS Customer Agreement, accept it and then click “Continue”
Step 5. Add a payment method including card details, verify your contact number, and choose a suitable AWS Support plan. The account activation may take up to 24 hours and once it is activated, you will get a confirmation mail from the AWS team.
Endnote
There has been a massive shift towards cloud services as businesses have started witnessing exponential growth with cloud computing solutions. Using the right set of tools and AWS features, you can easily eliminate the complexities and costs involved in maintaining IT infrastructure and focus much on your business’s core functionalities and marketing strategies.
