AWS Startups Blog

Founded in 2020, Women@Startups aims to provide visibility and voice to the challenges that women founders and women in technology face. The group intends to create a sense of belonging and support for women in tech, working to address the inequities and challenges faced by women in the industry. Through employee and customer support functions, the organization provides coaching, technical support, and connections to organizations that support funding.

Welcome to our thought leadership spotlight, “The Evolving Role of the Startup CFO.” This series features perspectives from prominent players in the startup ecosystem. These blog posts tackle critical questions, including: What does the role of today’s startup CFO entail and how will it evolve over the lifecycle of a startup? How can we most effectively support CFOs as the cloud increases its dominance within the organization and balance sheet? And can the CFO better navigate—and ultimately enable—the relationship between technical leaders, CTOs, and engineering teams?

Leading our first spotlight is Jerry Chen, a veteran partner at Greylock Partners, a globally recognized venture capital firm.

Today, we’re talking to six women founders and leaders about how they’re making impacts in their communities, industries, and beyond. Ritu Chakrawarty, founder of Graaphene; Caitlin Colgrove, co-founder and CEO of Hex; Veronica Falzone, co-founder and CEO of Thumbo; Leanne Linsky, founder and CEO of Plauzzable; Anna London, co-founder and CEO of Chrysallis AI; and Barr Moses, co-founder and CEO of Monte Carlo.

After a week-long kickoff in Seattle, founders bonded through their virtual community, participating in weekly workshops and one-on-one technical and business trainings in partnership with a personally curated mentor. In December, the founders came together again at the AWS Startup Loft in San Francisco to prepare their final pitches to a diverse group of 41 investors from 31 firms.

Check out the video to get a look at the fun, and learn about all the AWS Impact Accelerator opportunities currently available to startups through AWS.

syniotec’s pivot wasn’t only a transformation on the business side—it also meant a complete overhaul of the technical infrastructure that powered their product. The company’s original rental facilitator idea could have been served by monolith architecture. But as they transformed their business and began offering a far wider variety of services to their customers, syniotec recognized the need to switch to a microservices architecture that could offer greater agility and scalability.

Today, AWS launched applications for the next cohort—Latino Founders. Applications are open to founders located in the US and Latin American countries, as long as their startup is incorporated in the US. Interested in applying? Applications are open March 6 – March 17, 2023, with limited space available. Read on to find out how to submit your application.

When you think of startup culture, stories of meteoric successes leap to mind. But for every high-flying unicorn, you may be reminded of the risks and failures also associated with startup culture. Founders know that with success comes detractors, but how can you manage your own self-confidence and sort criticism from feedback? Identifying, and more importantly, managing your approach to criticism is key in maintaining positive mindsets and positive culture within a startup.

To celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we’re featuring posts throughout the month that highlight women in technology who are building and creating. Meet Jill Stelfox. Jill is a serial founder and entrepreneur, holds multiple patents, and is the chief executive officer (CEO) and executive chair of Panzura. Panzura’s award-winning CloudFS global file system gives the ability to access files from anywhere with visibility, security, and control.

“Evolutionary Architectures” is a four-part blog series that shows how solution designs and decisions evolve as companies go through the different stages of the startups lifecycle. In this series, we follow the aptly named Example Startup whose idea is to create a “fantasy stock market” application, similar to fantasy sports leagues. They envision holding four “tournaments” over the course of a year.

In part 2, we learn how Example Startup continues evolving their solutions to meet an increase in requirements and growth.

To celebrate the voices of Black employees at AWS and amplify their work’s impact, we are honored to share the stories of eight AWS employees working to advance Black entrepreneurs in ways that strengthen Black businesses and support economic growth in historically underserved Black communities.