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Running a business on AWS is like taking Uber to work every day. At some point it makes sense to just buy the car.

stevewilhelm 11y ago
> Running a business on AWS is like taking Uber to work every day. At some point it makes sense to just buy the car. To make the analogy accurate: Running a business on AWS is like taking Uber to work every day. At some point it makes sense to just buy the car, hire a driver, find a good mechanic, lease a parking spot, purchase automobile insurance, remember to buy gas, deal with speeding tickets, schedule regular maintenance .... At some point it makes sense, but it is way, way down the road for most startups.
- bkeroack 11y ago
  Empirically I've found that point to be at approximately the $30k/month spend rate (somewhere around 4-5 years in--arguably no longer strictly a "startup"). Of course it's pretty context-dependent, YMMV, etc.
  - samstave 11y ago
    For what type of service though? Netflix spends millions on AWS -- but it would never make sense for them to do it themselves. My average was ~$140K per month -- and it would NOT have made sense to do self DC. Right now, im deploying from DC to AWS and dropping my cost and increasing my performance...
- scott_karana 11y ago
  > At some point it makes sense, but it is way, way down the road for most startups. Thing is, unlike the "get driven to work" analogy, programmers/etc are in the same problem domain as the required services. It would be like a mechanic taking an Uber to his garage every day because he couldn't be bothered personally owning a car. What?! "Car leases" (rented dedicated servers [possibly even managed]) are a happy medium everyone should consider.
  - stevewilhelm 11y ago
    > Thing is, unlike the "get driven to work" analogy, programmers/etc are in the same problem domain as the required services. But programmers should be focusing on delivering their startup's unique technology or service, not building and maintaining commodity infrastructure.
    - scott_karana 11y ago
      Yeah, I agree that initially, startups should focus on building value over lowering infrastructure costs. But I'm continually embarrassed when companies who raised $100Mns in Series B funding continue to rely on AWS when they could have build out much sooner, and reduced their burn rate measurably.

> Running a business on AWS is like taking Uber to work every day. At some point it makes sense to just buy the car. To make the analogy accurate: Running a business on AWS is like taking Uber to work every day. At some point it makes sense to just buy the car, hire a driver, find a good mechanic, lease a parking spot, purchase automobile insurance, remember to buy gas, deal with speeding tickets, schedule regular maintenance .... At some point it makes sense, but it is way, way down the road for most startups.

bkeroack 11y ago
Empirically I've found that point to be at approximately the $30k/month spend rate (somewhere around 4-5 years in--arguably no longer strictly a "startup"). Of course it's pretty context-dependent, YMMV, etc.
- samstave 11y ago
  For what type of service though? Netflix spends millions on AWS -- but it would never make sense for them to do it themselves. My average was ~$140K per month -- and it would NOT have made sense to do self DC. Right now, im deploying from DC to AWS and dropping my cost and increasing my performance...
scott_karana 11y ago
> At some point it makes sense, but it is way, way down the road for most startups. Thing is, unlike the "get driven to work" analogy, programmers/etc are in the same problem domain as the required services. It would be like a mechanic taking an Uber to his garage every day because he couldn't be bothered personally owning a car. What?! "Car leases" (rented dedicated servers [possibly even managed]) are a happy medium everyone should consider.
- stevewilhelm 11y ago
  > Thing is, unlike the "get driven to work" analogy, programmers/etc are in the same problem domain as the required services. But programmers should be focusing on delivering their startup's unique technology or service, not building and maintaining commodity infrastructure.
  - scott_karana 11y ago
    Yeah, I agree that initially, startups should focus on building value over lowering infrastructure costs. But I'm continually embarrassed when companies who raised $100Mns in Series B funding continue to rely on AWS when they could have build out much sooner, and reduced their burn rate measurably.