The last two years have been tough for all businesses. The pandemic has devastated many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and brought down their revenue to a point that they were left with no choice but shut down their business. Many businesses redesigned, reconsidered and revamped their entire business models to withstand the pandemic challenges of remote working, zero motivation, lack of funds, less business demand and related supply, etc.

Among all the businesses, the worst affected were startup companies. Startups embody nearly 90% of the world’s reported businesses and employ 50% of the world's workers. They are regarded as pillars of the country’s economy, these pillars were shaken and forced to close their operations due to less revenue and work. However, many startups survived and managed to operate smoothly with good revenue; and this became possible due to cloud computing services. The technologies have proved to be a saving grace in this financial slowdown period. Businesses that invested in cloud were able to surpass the current pandemic; on the other hand, those who didn’t were affected badly. Today, the cloud has become an integral part of all businesses and the most sought-after solution for organizations virtually in every industry. As a result, all companies are leveraging cloud technology in the pandemic period. According to a research by Cisco, cloud will handle almost 94% of the business work within next 3 years.

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Why are startups adopting the cloud?

Today’s startups are born in cloud; they are adopting the cloud, and building apps with innovative digital technologies more than ever.  Startups are using cloud computing for many reasons than budget, such as flexibility, security and scalability. With cloud computing, a third-party vendor owns and manages the IT resources and leases them to businesses for use on a subscription basis. Any required changes or maintenance is the vendor’s responsibility. For example, if your startup needs extra bandwidth or computational power, it can be done through a simple request to vendors who will do it for you at amended subscription fees.

1. Budget-friendly

2. Wide range of cloud services

3. Customized cloud programs for startups

4. Reliable

5. Sustainable

6. 24/7 managed support

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Common cloud mistakes by startups

A study by Bobby Chernev reveals that 90% of startups fail, and only 40% manage to make a profit; the reasons for failure were cited as lack of cash, lack of investor or financing interest, pricing and cost issues. As startups are low on the financial side, they have to keep their budgets in-check to succeed. Startup adopts the cloud as it is cost-effective, offers independence, flexibility, reliability and scalability. When adopting the cloud many startups make common mistakes that can affect their scalability and weaken their financial growth.

In 2018 because of the development team’s mistake, Adobe unknowingly wasted $80K in cloud cost; another tech giant had to pay heavily after exceeding the spending in AWS beyond their anticipated budget. The reason behind these mistakes was - unexpected traffic spikes. Even though the cloud can help startups survive the financial slowdown period, these examples show how a minor topple in the cloud strategy can hamper your business’s scalability and finances. Chances of startups making such mistakes and losing big are very high; that’s why before moving to the cloud, it is vital to know the common cloud mistakes made by the startups and how to avoid them. Let’s take a closer look at some of such mistakes.

1. Unclear Cloud strategy

2. Wrong Cloud Service Provider

3. Moving head-first into the cloud

4. Not being prepared for the failure

5. Missing Security-first approach

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The bottom line

Cloud technology has helped many startups survive the financial slowdown period. Cloud is offering multiple business benefits to start-ups and helping them to scale more. However, to achieve measurable business results and increase the success rate, startup companies shall consider following some of the practices, such as establishing a proper cloud strategy, deciding the cloud spend as per the available budget, using the freebies and discounted cloud deals, auditing cloud needs and use as per actual business demands and choosing the right cloud partner.

Pandemics are unpredictable, but you can always use digital technologies to secure the future of your business. Ignoring the lessons learnt in this pandemic and not thinking about embracing the cloud even after witnessing how it saved so many businesses from breaking down in tough times may only delay the plethora of benefits that the cloud can add to your business.

In the past few years, many startups are benefitted from Minfy’s cloud services and solutions. Are you a startup, looking for answers to your cloud questions? Contact us today and learn more about how we can help your company.

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