3 things startups need to know when developing their cloud strategies

Nowadays, every company is a cloud company in some way or another. Cloud computing has revolutionized the way businesses of all sizes can go about building their tech stack, changing the way they approach everything from data management to product development.

However, just being on the cloud doesn’t necessarily make a firm a cloud company, says Yash Thakker, director of sales at cloud consultancy firm Searce.

“Someone can just spin up servers and storage and be considered ‘cloud-native,’ but it’s more than that,” he explains. “A cloud-native startup, beyond just speaking about products and technologies, is a company that leverages the power and the offerings that are available on different cloud platforms to actually establish an edge on its go-to-market and technology strategy.”

Yash Thakker, associate director at Searce / Photo credit: Searce

Cloud has opened up many opportunities for startups to develop better products, facilitating real-time insights into user behavior and creating ways for firms to scale their solutions more effectively. It’s also lowered the barriers to using new technologies such as AI, thanks to the offerings available on managed cloud platforms like Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

However, the world of cloud technology is a complicated one. There are numerous cloud solutions on the market, and startups have to consider several factors as they decide how to best lay out its tech infrastructure while ensuring that these will be able to grow with the business as it scales.

How can startups lay the right foundations for their cloud strategies? Thakker shares some guidance.

1. Lay out your strategy right from the get-go

According to Thakker, startups often have a very narrow view of what they need from their cloud solutions. In his experience, firms often begin with the mindset of just needing something that works, often picking the easiest or cheapest solution to serve their first few thousand customers.

However, when their user bases grow and they start having to serve several hundred thousands, if not millions, of customers, their tech solutions cannot keep up.

“For a lot of fast-growing organizations, this growth doesn’t take a year or two, it takes maybe four months,” explains Thakker. “Imagine having to redo your entire tech stack just four months in – that’s a mammoth task, and it impacts your product rollout and your growth.”

As such, much like building a house, companies need to ensure that they lay the right foundations for their tech stack from the get-go.

“What do you want to extract out of the cloud? Do you want to have a multi-cloud strategy? Do you want to be open-source friendly? These questions shouldn’t be an afterthought,” he says.

Firms need to consider how easily the infrastructure they have in place can scale with their growth, as well as develop an underlying strategy that will guide all further tech decisions down the road. This includes defining what tech solutions have to be built and what can be bought. On the cloud front, it also means defining what needs to be cloud-agnostic and what can be done with the use of a managed cloud provider.

“Your overall data stack should be cloud-agnostic,” advises Thakker. “Migrating data is super costly, and for certain managed offerings, getting out of it and moving to another platform down the line may not be so easy.”

As such, it’s vital for startups to think about their long-term plans and ensure that their tech stack can scale with them on their journeys.

“It’s okay if you have to refresh your tech stack and make changes to it three, four years down the line,” he adds. “But it shouldn’t be something you have to constantly keep doing every few months.”

2. Mind the details

Laying down the fundamentals of a company’s tech stack and having a robust, scalable infrastructure is great. But companies need to think about all the other details involved such as how security can be implemented, how easy it is for teams to utilize these solutions, and how much the entire process will cost.

“Overall security and scalability shouldn’t be an afterthought,” says Thakker. “It should be built in the overall architecture.”

Not factoring these into the larger picture of how a startup’s tech stack will work can lead to a firm directing more resources to these areas down the line, diverting focus away from more essential functions such as product development and growth.

Photo credit: rh2020 / 123RF

“This would end up in them needing more resources than would be ideal,” he adds. “You would end up needing maybe three DevOps engineers to coordinate everything and ensure the right security measures are in place, when ideally the company could just automate the pipeline and streamline the process.”

Something else Thakker warns startups to be mindful of is the costs involved with cloud.

“The good thing about cloud is that you pay for what you use,” he shares. “The bad thing about cloud is the same thing.”

Firms need to have a clear view of their cloud resources and understand just how much money is going into them. This ties back to the larger tech strategy of a company, as the guiding principles behind it will help firms understand how to best spend their budgets.

“You don’t want some developer to spin up a server somewhere without factoring it into your plans, because it will screw your budget for the whole year,” says Thakker. “It’s something that firms need to keep an eye on and think about in their strategies.”

3. Consider all your options

When it comes to cloud solutions, most startups would default to the popular managed cloud providers such as Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure. However, there are several more offerings available in the market beyond the big names.

“Independent service providers have come up and they can help companies address key business needs and gain quick advantages in certain areas,” shares Thakker. These include firms such as Confluent, which enables companies to access data in real-time streams, and Snowflake, which focuses on data warehousing.

This makes the landscape even more complex for startups trying to figure out how to best lay out their tech infrastructure, given the sheer number of options on offer.

“It can be challenging – how do you know which one is right? How do you know which one is wrong? What works better with certain solutions, works better on certain platforms?” says Thakker. “Each company, each vertical, is totally different.”

The truth is that there is no silver bullet – there isn’t a strategy that can work for every firm. But there are ways that companies can go about the process a little easier.

Businesses can look at common use cases for each different solution and look at what case studies each firm has to offer. They can also consider tapping into a cloud consulting service, such as Searce, to help them with this process.

“Having an external party that has wider visibility of the overall industry, which doesn’t have any biases toward a particular solution or service, is a good strategy for firms to consider as they are starting out,” explains Thakker.

Cloud consulting firms are able to help companies evaluate their tech stacks, providing guidance and resources to help them understand the best approach towards developing their platforms and implementing these new solutions.

“[Cloud] is a complex ecosystem and it can be scary,” he says. “Find the right partners that can help you.”

What it takes to be truly cloud-native

Cloud is an inevitability these days, and as technology marches on, firms will become more entrenched in cloud solutions, using them to power everything from servers to developing new features like recommendation engines.

What is crucial, according to Thakker, is that firms keep the future in mind and avoid technical debt by choosing the most effective solutions over the ones that are easier to implement.

“About 40-50% of a company’s budget is going toward technology,” he says. “You need to build the right processes and develop the right strategies, and you’ll be able to reinvest the gains from your technology back into the business.”

Searce is a modern technology consulting firm that empowers clients to future-proof their businesses by leveraging cloud, AI, and analytics. It is also a key sponsor of Tech in Asia’s 2022 Product Development Conference.

Learn more about Searce on its website here.

This content was produced by Tech in Asia Studios, which connects brands with Asia’s tech community. Learn more about partnering with Tech in Asia Studios.