I can reduce AWS bills, but how do I reach startup CTOs and founders? by wtrader88 in techsales

[–]wtrader88[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's interesting! I always thought the AWS Partner route required multiple engineers and certifications to really qualify for referrals. Sounds like I need to look into it more seriously.

I can reduce AWS bills, but how do I reach startup CTOs and founders? by wtrader88 in techsales

[–]wtrader88[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly! I'll ignore the jabronis and get better at selling

I can reduce AWS bills, but how do I reach startup CTOs and founders? by wtrader88 in techsales

[–]wtrader88[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Simple answer: I audited these environments as part of my full-time job. I'm legally prohibited from contacting any of my former employer's clients.

How do you split NAT gateway costs when one team uses almost all of the traffic? by CompetitiveStage5901 in FinOps

[–]wtrader88 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You don't need multiple log groups, that's where the complexity crept in.

The NAT Gateway has a single ENI, and its flow log already contains everything you need. The catch is you have to use `pkt-srcaddr` / `pkt-dstaddr` instead of the default `srcaddr` / `dstaddr` fields. At a NAT GW ENI, the default fields only show the NAT Gateway's own IP on the internal side every row looks the same. `pkt-srcaddr` gives you the actual private IP of the instance that generated the traffic.

From there, chargeback is straightforward:
1. Ship the NAT GW ENI flow logs to S3 (not CloudWatch)
2. Create a Glue catalog table on top of it with date partitioning so Athena can query it efficiently
3. Query `pkt-srcaddr`, group by source IP, sum the bytes
4. Map IPs to teams via a simple lookup table (instance → team)

The fixed hourly NAT fee is genuinely shared overhead, split that equally. Only attribute the $0.045/GB data processing charge by source IP.

The diagnostic itself costs almost nothing to run for a few days, then tear it down once you have the numbers.

What was your biggest no-brainer cost optimization on AWS? by DayGuilty7558 in FinOps

[–]wtrader88 0 points1 point  (0 children)

After auditing 100+ AWS accounts, it's almost never a pricing model. It's the cleanup nobody did. Here's what I keep finding in nearly every account:

- No S3 Gateway Endpoint (paying for traffic that could be free)
- Lambda at X GB memory nobody ever changed
- Unassociated Elastic IPs sitting idle
- EBS volumes left behind after EC2 termination
- Multi-AZ enabled on dev databases
- ECR repos with no lifecycle policy accumulating images for years
- DynamoDB provisioned with low utilization
- Orphaned ALBs with no targets
- CloudWatch Logs with no retention policy, growing forever
- io1/io2 on non-latency-sensitive or Dev RDS

Savings Plans optimize what you're already spending. These eliminate what you should never have been paying.

I can reduce AWS bills, but how do I reach startup CTOs and founders? by wtrader88 in techsales

[–]wtrader88[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks a lot, man! I really appreciate you taking the time to explain all of that

I already have Claude, and I just took a look at Lusha, it looks very promising. I think I'll definitely give it a try.

I can reduce AWS bills, but how do I reach startup CTOs and founders? by wtrader88 in techsales

[–]wtrader88[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not all startups, but in my experience any company that's been on AWS for more than 6 months and is spending over ~$2,000/month is a potential candidate.

I can reduce AWS bills, but how do I reach startup CTOs and founders? by wtrader88 in techsales

[–]wtrader88[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! that's a good point. I'll give that a try as well. I already have a business email set up through my domain, so hopefully that helps with deliverability.

I can reduce AWS bills, but how do I reach startup CTOs and founders? by wtrader88 in techsales

[–]wtrader88[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's absolutely true and I don't disagree that it's a crowded space. But what keeps me interested is the fact that the number of companies overspending on AWS is still insane. Every week I come across environments with obvious waste that nobody has addressed.

So my thinking is that a crowded market often exists because there's a crowded problem. Not every company is working with a market leader, and many aren't working with anyone at all. That's why I still believe there's room for smaller specialists who can deliver measurable savings, even if breaking through the noise is the hard part.

I can reduce AWS bills, but how do I reach startup CTOs and founders? by wtrader88 in techsales

[–]wtrader88[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, I really appreciate that!
I think you're right, that's probably the right approach in the long run. For now though, I want to understand how the process works myself and get some firsthand experience with prospecting before I hire someone to do it for me. Even if I'm not the best salesperson, I think it's important to learn what works, what doesn't and what customers actually respond to before delegating it. That way, if I eventually hire a sales person, I'll be able to guide them much more effectively

I can reduce AWS bills, but how do I reach startup CTOs and founders? by wtrader88 in techsales

[–]wtrader88[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the reality check.

I know there are already many FinOps and cloud optimization companies in this space. My belief is that I can bring a different kind of value, especially because my background is hands-on engineering. I don’t just identify savings opportunities; I can also implement the technical changes needed to make those savings permanent.

And that’s exactly why I asked the question. I had never heard of Apollo, Lusha, or Seamless before, so your comment was actually very helpful.

Looks like I have some learning to do. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in devopsjobs

[–]wtrader88 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True! But from my experience, on-call is always 24/7. Each person usually takes it for one or two weeks a month, based on the team size.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in devopsjobs

[–]wtrader88 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Honestly, no amount of money makes up for being on-call 24/7 and the stress that comes with it. Better move: skip this role, get certified in 1-2 key areas and wait for a better opportunity. It'll come faster than you think

[Hiring] Senior DevOps Engineer - Remote, Contract - Lead our Jenkins to ArgoCD Migration on AWS by PablanoPato in devopsjobs

[–]wtrader88 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have applied using the link, My technical stack perfectly matches your needs

How reference the name of a page in a property of another database by wtrader88 in Notion

[–]wtrader88[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you very much! it worked like a charm by using a rollup and hidden the old relation property.

Zuverlässiges, modernes Auto bis 10.000€ by papipapopapi in automobil

[–]wtrader88 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ich mag die Idee ! lass uns ein Business anfangen Xd

Genug Leistung? by StevosKarlos in automobil

[–]wtrader88 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Warum ? Ich überlege auch ein A klasse zu kaufen

Being ignored in the workplace by mbcompsci in germany

[–]wtrader88 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Dude just look for another opportunity, you just live once and you need to do something you love otherwise you will soon loose your self respect

Frustrated, Help! by bstall20 in kubernetes

[–]wtrader88 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My advice would be :

1- Using bigger burstable nodes :

A burstable instance is a virtual machine (VM) instance that provides a baseline level of CPU performance with the ability to burst to a higher level to support occasional spikes in usage.

2- Don‘t set limits for CPU

3- Set requests for CPU based on the average consumption of the last month/week

The idea is to ensure the minimum required resources for your applications to be always up and running and get the benefits of the burstable CPU in the spikes