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Skill 29 · Knowledge Base For Startups
Subchapter 29.263
references/learn/getting-started/how-to-get-started-with-aws.mdMarkdown11 KBView on GitHub
Whether you’re an early-stage founder with a fresh idea or a technical lead building your next product, AWS provides comprehensive support, AI, automation, resources, and tools to help you innovate and grow, and much more.
Trusted by more startups worldwide, AWS makes the power of cloud computing accessible for all by giving founders everywhere access to the same technology that powers the world’s largest companies.
With nearly 20 years of experience supporting hundreds of thousands of startups that have come before, we help founders prove that their world-changing ideas are possible, at any growth or level of funding.
On this page, you’ll learn what to do after signing up, how to access different support options, and which AWS services you may want to explore first. Let’s begin!
AWS has helped thousands of innovators begin with a concept, then launch and scale their products. We see a wide range of maturity stages, for example:
Wherever you fall in this spectrum or a different one, our goal is to empower you to focus on innovation rather than infrastructure alone.
A founder’s journey can feel lonely, but with AWS, you don’t have to go it alone.
The AWS Startups team comprises experts from across the global ecosystem, including former founders and CTOs, venture capitalists, angel investors, and mentors who upskill today’s founders to navigate technical challenges and commercial opportunities as they build their business.
Sometimes, you need immediate, expert help with AWS infrastructure, billing questions, or product configuration. AWS Premium Support (opens in a new tab) offers various plans designed to fit your business and technical needs. AWS Activate Credits can be used with both the Developer Support Plan and the Business Support Plan. You can learn more about both at AWS Support Plans and Activate Credits (opens in a new tab).
Are you looking for more than just technical troubleshooting? AWS provides several programs and resources to help founders plan, fund, and operate their startups successfully:
AWS Activate (opens in a new tab): Qualifying startups can gain access to credits, training, and best practices to jump-start development. This includes architectural reviews, personalized tips, and discounts on partner solutions—all designed to accelerate your cloud journey.
AWS Support Plans (opens in a new tab): AWS Support Plans offer tiered assistance if you want peace of mind that your infrastructure is backed by 24/7 technical guidance. Whether you need a place to submit tickets or a dedicated engineer who helps optimize your environment, there’s a plan that meets your startup’s needs.
AWS Free Tier (opens in a new tab): If you’re just starting, the AWS Free Tier offers a wide range of no-cost services for building, testing, and learning—helping you explore AWS without significant upfront expenses.
No matter your stage, these services and programs help reduce operational burden, stretch your budget, and receive expert guidance as you innovate and scale on AWS.
Since the beginning, AWS has continually innovated and expanded our solutions offering rapidly to help startups launch, build, and scale, empowering you with innovative tools to build today, and keep growing tomorrow.
This includes emerging technologies like generative AI, with access to impactful AI models and services that startups are using to transform entire industries, enhance customer experiences, solve social issues, and prove what’s possible when you combine a big idea with the advanced tech tools and expert support to bring it to life.
Below are standard AWS services that early-stage startups often explore. Each service has comprehensive AWS documentation (opens in a new tab) to guide your setup.
Store and retrieve any amount of data at any time. S3 is a flexible, scalable foundation for storing files, images, backups, and more, making it a go-to for startups of all sizes.
If you’re exploring Generative AI, Amazon Bedrock provides a fully managed service for building, training, and deploying large language models securely on AWS.
Get resizable computing capacity in the cloud. EC2 lets you launch virtual servers, customize your operating environment, and pay only for what you use.
For machine learning projects, SageMaker helps you build, train, and deploy models at any scale. It simplifies the ML workflow so that you can focus on insights instead of infrastructure.
Elastic Beanstalk is an easy way to deploy and manage web applications. You simply upload your code, and the service automatically handles deployment, capacity provisioning, and load balancing.
Build scalable, full-stack web and mobile apps fast. With Amplify, you can integrate authentication, data storage, and analytics without managing a complete back end on your own.
Whether your startup is just starting to ideate an MVP or is on track for an IPO, AWS offers a broad range of programs and resources to help you reach your next milestone.
From the earliest stages, the AWS Activate program provides startups with cloud credits, technical support, business mentorship, and a global startup community that helps founders innovate together for a bolder, brighter future.
Additional programs and resources to empower startup success:
The broadest and deepest set of technology tools to invent and build
No matter what you want to do, with AWS, founders can leverage the latest cloud technologies to experiment and innovate faster. Launch, build, and scale with the broadest and deepest set of services on the most secure cloud, enabling startups to accelerate time to market.
Explore the AWS Documentation (opens in a new tab) library for everything from quick-start guides to in-depth architecture references. You’ll find user guides, code samples, SDKs & toolkits, tutorials, API & CLI references, and more, including:
Discover how other customers are using AWS to realize success and drive further growth and innovation:
Noetik (opens in a new tab), an AI-native biotechnology company, is powering a new generation of precision cancer treatments. It’s using multiple AWS services—including Amazon EC2 (opens in a new tab), Amazon Athena (opens in a new tab), and Amazon SageMaker HyperPod (opens in a new tab)—for automated data processing and to scale training workloads more efficiently.
poolside (opens in a new tab) partnered with AWS to make it easier and more affordable for enterprises to access its powerful AI tools. poolside is expanding access to its proprietary models in Amazon Bedrock (opens in a new tab) and enabling cost-effective inferencing on AWS Trainium (opens in a new tab), empowering millions more developers to shape the future with code.
Miracle (opens in a new tab) is working with AWS to help biopharmaceutical companies run clinical trials more efficiently, securely, and accurately. Using a range of AI-powered solutions from AWS, including Amazon Cognito (opens in a new tab) and AWS CloudWatch (opens in a new tab), it’s innovating healthcare and improving patient outcomes.
Using these resources, you’ll have the core building blocks to start with AWS. From technical support to consultative guidance, from exploring fundamental services to diving into advanced tools, we’re here to guide you through every step of your startup’s cloud journey.
Whether you’re refining a prototype or gearing up for your first full-scale deployment, AWS stands ready to support your growth.
Don’t forget: you may qualify for AWS Activate (opens in a new tab), which provides startups with credits, training, and more to jump-start your cloud development.
Join now (opens in a new tab) and start building your future on AWS today!
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