Startups achieve AWS cost savings from day one with CloudFix

We wanted to make sure we started our AWS journey with a strategy that ensured we didn’t waste money from the get go. CloudFix was the perfect answer for us.

How three innovative companies reduced spend and optimized resources from the very beginning of their AWS journeys

Brisbane, Australia, features a thriving, close-knit startup community dedicated to providing unique, high-quality products and services. As their businesses begin to scale, many of these startups look to AWS for its speed, performance, and cost efficiency. Unlike some lift-and-shifters, however, these cutting-edge organizations understand what they’re getting into: AWS is powerful, but costs can get out of control quickly.

That’s why three Brisbane-based startups – ECOCOCO, Sponsa, and The Laid Back Bride – turned to CloudFix. While still in the beginning stages of their AWS journeys, these forward-thinking entrepreneurs wanted to ensure that cost and performance were optimized from the start. 

Meet the startups: ECOCOCO, Sponsa, and The Laid Back Bride

ECOCOCO is an Australian wellness and beauty company that creates simple, clean, effective skin and hair care. ECOCOCO products are enriched with botanicals and certified organic coconut oils designed to hydrate and refresh skin with no nasties and only natural, cruelty-free ingredients. 

Sponsa helps sponsorship sellers sell faster. By aggregating sponsorship opportunities, minimizing admin, and tracking sponsor leads, Sponsa reduces the time and effort it takes for people and organizations to be supported. Sponsa’s mission: to empower people who deserve sponsorship to focus on what they do best.

The Laid Back Bride is a new kind of bridal boutique, born from the belief that bridal should be more diverse and personal. Its in-house collection transcends the typical big-name designers with a down-to-earth, effortless style, while custom design services, a relaxed studio, and one-on-one attention guarantee that every experience is fun, friendly, and stress-free.

The shift to cloud: AWS promises speed, scale, and lower costs

All three companies have several things in common: they’re based in Brisbane, they’re growing fast, they’re part of the same network, and they decided in late 2022 to switch from a traditional on-premises infrastructure to AWS. 

The reason: lower costs, greater scalability, and more power. Geneva Holley, Ecommerce and Marketing Lead at ECOCOCO, explained, “The speed and scale of building new applications was the most attractive thing about AWS for us. It was also important that cloud costs were lower than our on-prem expenses.” At Sponsa, the story was similar. Tim McMurray, CTO, expanded, “We think AWS will be the best way to scale our usage and allow us to keep tech expenses low.” 

Aleena Long, Managing Director at The Laid Back Bride, agreed. “The cost and complexity of an on-premise infrastructure was a large pain point for us. We ‘cost optimized’ our on-premise tech by spending large amounts of money on engineers who spent large amounts of time cleaning code.” AWS promised to solve this problem with its breadth of services, inherent flexibility and scalability, and the potential to control costs more easily and efficiently.

Getting ahead of the game: Startup leaders share the value of CloudFix

The leaders of all three companies understood that while AWS offered tremendous opportunities, there were potential pitfalls as well. None of the companies wanted to replicate their inefficient on-prem cost optimization techniques, but also weren’t sure how to best manage AWS costs from day one. 

Then, through their network, they found CloudFix.

“A mutual friend introduced us to CloudFix,” continued McMurray from Sponsa. “He strongly encouraged us to invest in an AWS optimization tool that would help us limit waste from the outset before starting to invest heavily in AWS itself.” The Sponsa team shared that recommendation with colleagues at ECOCOCO, who passed it onto The Laid Back Bride. “ECOCOCO endorsed CloudFix after purchasing it themselves. They spoke highly of the people that helped them get started and the value of the product,” Long added.

“CloudFix was the perfect answer” for AWS cost optimization from day one

Soon, all three businesses were using CloudFix to ensure that their AWS operations were up-to-date and cost optimized – even before they fully launched. 

Holley from ECOCOCO explained, “CloudFix’s promise to eliminate wastage from the outset was the most compelling thing for us. We wanted to make sure we started our AWS journey with a strategy that ensured we didn’t waste money from the get go. We purchased it for that very reason. . . CloudFix was the perfect answer for us. ”

CloudFix’s promise to eliminate wastage from the outset was the most compelling thing for us. We wanted to make sure we started our AWS journey with a strategy that ensured we didn’t waste money from the get go. We purchased it for that very reason. . . CloudFix was the perfect answer for us.

And for Sponsa, CloudFix represented precious time back for the engineering team to focus on what matters: the product. “I was most excited about the ability to build without reservations,” CTO McMurray continued. “I hold the tech budget, so cost is important to me and my team. Not having to monitor and constantly find ways to reduce our usage to save money will give us back more than five hours per week.”

What’s next: Continued investment in AWS with nonstop savings from CloudFix

For all three companies, CloudFix has played a crucial role in their successful rollout of AWS from very early in the journey – and will only add more value over time. 

What would they say to startups in the same position? “Automate AWS optimization from the very beginning of your shift to AWS. We haven’t deployed all our tech capital into AWS yet and are already getting value from the tool and the CloudFix team,” said Sponsa’s McMurray.

As their AWS footprints grow, each leader believes strongly that CloudFix will allow them to embrace the innovation of the cloud and grow their businesses with less cost and complexity. 

From ECOCOCO’s perspective, “CloudFix will allow our leadership to invest more in the cloud without worrying about mounting costs. I believe CloudFix will continue to give time back to our technical staff, saving us human resource dollars and allowing engineers to do what they do best: building product.”

It’s a similar story at Sponsa. McMurray commented, “Deploying cost savings into new projects and other AWS services is an extraordinary benefit to using this tool. CloudFix will help us achieve greater speed and confidence of new builds and fast re-deployment of capital.”

Long from The Laid Back Bride concluded, “We’re confident CloudFix will act as our nucleus as we manage our cloud spend. It enables us to invest exponentially in technology without hesitating about any potential wastage.” 

Three fast-growing startups. One unique day-one use case. Millions of dollars to be saved. That’s the power of CloudFix.