In 2014, I built some tools to make it easier to automate AWS and Google Cloud deployments. I did the following: - Applied to devops jobs on Angelfish, target

In 2014, I built some tools to make it easier to automate AWS and Google Cloud deployments. I did the following: - Applied to devops jobs on Angelfish, target companies with 10-20 employees - Passed their phone screen, learned about the particular automation problems they had - Offered them a SaaS subscription with a promise to set up a working solution in my product for their problems. - Explained that subscribing to my service would be much cheaper than hiring me. Most declined, a few were offended at my bait and switch, but 3 of them became my early customers and used my service for years, eventually taking over and maintaining their own solutions. I think identifying the right customers- other startups with VC cash that were too small to have too much red tape and had big problems without tools and staff- made this work in the early days. It was a blast working on this stuff back then.