For all of you worried that this is for VC-backed startups only, Google offers $500 coupon codes (which should be plenty to bootstrap a concept). Feel free to ping me.
In addition, both AppEngine and BigQuery have free usage tiers.
Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups
121–130 of 179 posts
Re: Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google probably doesn't want every Kickstarter/Indiegogo project applying for the program. It's likely a risk thing; if the startup is backed by a "real" VC firm, that firm is taking most of the risk. Google is just providing a few extra rungs on the ladder others built.
It's effectively a subsidy to accelerators: $100K of risk capital being matched by $100K of hosting, doubling the initial runway for a startup which needs that level of capacity.
Though that $100k balance expires in a single year.
If your server bills are $100k for a first year start-up company, you are doing something VERY VERY wrong.
Re: Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups
#123For all of you worried that this is for VC-backed startups only, Google offers $500 coupon codes (which should be plenty to bootstrap a concept). Feel free to ping me. In addition, both AppEngine and BigQuery have free usage tiers.
I'm not being snarky I honestly think you may misunderstand the term bootstrapping. We, for example, are not making a profit yet and would go through that ($500) in less than 3 weeks.
The only difference between bootstrapping and incubators is where the funding comes from.
Re: Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups
#124Offering a very large freebie to a relatively very small no. of "qualifying" start-ups all of whom already have a degree of mentoring and investment sends an interesting message about Google's world-view and objectives. If they'd offered a small freebie to a large number of much more liberally defined start-ups, I would have been much more impressed.
This has no relevance at all to my own modest start-up, but feels like a gratuitous poke in the eye, and makes me think less of Google for having a tin ear. I'm sure that they've teased and disappointed many more people with that headline than this programme will help.
Re: Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups
#125> This offer is available to startups that meet the following criteria: > - In an approved Accelerator, Incubator or VC fund Why is this a thing? Not everyone wants to build their startup through venture capital, or an accelerator. This just reinforces the existing "permission-based" startup ecosystem.
> Why is this a thing? Because this isn't free for Google, so they are expending resources building relationships with the customers they think are most likely to provide more business in the future; so they aren't giving to any small business, they are giving it to businesses that have been vetted by groups they trust and are receiving capital with some kind of plan for expansion that would grow the startup's busine…
It's up to $100K credit, not all startups may use all of their credits. And this is not the cost to Google.
But nitpicking aside, why not have two tiers, one $100k for approved startups, and another with, say, $10k credit and with some support.
Google championed the idea that the road to classification success is a (relatively) simple algorithm paired with a lot of data. This way they could get hundreds, if not thousands of startups to hone their company success estimation algorithms.
Re: Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups
#126Between the lines: Google has calculated that ExpectedLockinValue(given(ventureFunded)) + SillyPRBoost.value > ExpectedUsage($100k/yr) Or, in other words, Google believes for the venture-funded cohort, giving you a $100k option now will set them up to take significantly more later. They also don't want to spend any effort administrating (vetting) this program. I don't think this is confusing or insulting. Google's ca…
Google gets a customer and free advertising, the company gets 100k worth of free computing resources. It's called a "win-win." It's not quite a "free lunch," but it's "one of the main ways in which healthy business gets done."
Not to nitpick, but the site states $100K for 1 year, which seems like a "use or lose" type deal. So if your start up doesn't burn through that much in hosting/storage/computing, you aren't really getting $100k in free computing resources.
Re: Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups
#127I think Google want to buy successful projects running already in their infrastructure, because integration steps are lengthy and hard in big companies.
Re: Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel obligated to point out that Microsoft Bizspark will give you free software/services for 3 years and it is "one guy working from his kitchen table"-friendly. If you're building things, they will give you stuff. Bonus: You can help support underdog upstarts like Microsoft against uncaring tech titans like Google.
Wow, did they change the name of their thing again? I am really leery of these various clouds. They are like architectural catnip-using them requires you to use an order of magnitude greater resources than you would on a single server, but it's really fun to assemble the moving parts. I feel like some people don't fully recognize how much you can do on a single tiny machine in 2014 if you don't have 29 abstraction la…
I think the value of the platform lies in the fact that the time you spend in implementing a lot of the features needed for a large traffic/heavy load application (caching, load balancing, replication, storage, queries) is mostly saved by the framework and by Google infrastructure.
This time then can be spent in the actual product, which for a startup I believe it´s a good thing, since providing a good service is something expected by a potential user, but it´s not really going to sell your product.
Re: Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel obligated to point out that Microsoft Bizspark will give you free software/services for 3 years and it is "one guy working from his kitchen table"-friendly. If you're building things, they will give you stuff. Bonus: You can help support underdog upstarts like Microsoft against uncaring tech titans like Google.
Bonus 2: you can support MS monopoly on desktop by using their blessed Windows-only tooling (VS.NET)
I'm currently deploying a Go application with a mongodb datastore to a Ubuntu server on Azure. I program using vim on my Mac laptop.
Re: Google Launches Cloud Platform for Startups
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
AWS customers with high month-over-month revenue & traffic growth and less than 10 employees? Seems a little late to lure them into the Google Platform.
If a startup has baked in dependencies on AWS services, yes. But if some startups have planned for portability and would rather stretch their OpEx runway instead of paying Amazon, switching could make sense.
I'm in the early stages of planning a startup that we'll likely bootstrap. I would use Google's cloud if this was a thing, and probably not switch later because our proposed design doesn't leverage much in the way of AWS stuff (about the only thing is SQS, but that's hidden behind an AMQP facade).