Ask HN: How to sell a script that will save companies $100k a month?

So while working in Big Tech, I have found misconfigurations in our cloud tools that if improved would save our company approx $100k each month in cloud costs.

Now, I could do it in my company and maybe I will get a promotion for it and that's it. But to be fair, I am tired of this corpo BS I have to tolerate every week and would love to have some capital to quit it and focus on solving actually interesting problems.

I am certain that other companies also have this problem. But as it is solvable with a script, I feel like it would be really difficult to sell this solution to other companies...

So I come to you, HN, for advice. How would you make this into a business/saas/get out of corporate hell hole plan?

I was thinking maybe there is a way to make this open-source but with a cc-by-nc-sa-4.0 license to make big companies pay for this solution. But I feel like if there is no way to detect this being used, there is actually no way to enforce it...

There are tons of products that do this. Are you familiar with the market you are trying to enter?

Look at what they are doing.

vunderba · a year ago

This. I've also worked at several places that had their own in-house systems that acted like the equivalent of a smart thermostat, spinning up/scaling down resources across massive deployments targeting AWS, Azure, etc. to hit target monthly goals.

Try to do some preliminary research in the area to see if your script is sufficiently niche from the established players in the area of cloud optimization.

wruza · a year ago

spinning up/scaling down resources across massive deployments targeting AWS, Azure, etc.

Isn’t this, like, a primary feature of AWS, etc? Why need an inhouse system for that? Or why need AWS then?

whoknew1122 · a year ago

I concur. I work in architecture for a large public cloud provider. I'd definitely double-check that something like this isn't already in the market (or open-source).

It would be interesting to see a novel script though.

gregjor · a year ago

As someone in charge of cloud infrastructure I would look at your claims with a lot of skepticism. Very unlikely a single script will apply to the infinite variations in cloud infrastructure, and the business requirements and organizational compromises implemented and implied. The "$100k a month" claim right off communicates a bespoke solution with savings based on a single specific company setup.

AWS and GCP (I don't use Azure) show me possible over-provisioning and unused resources, and have tools to do more digging and identify savings. I have seen ads/articles about tools that claim to reduce cloud hosting costs. Where does your tool fit? Why would I trust it with access to my hosting account?

jalapenos · a year ago

+1 on turning this into a consulting offer.

Companies won't care that you just run some scripts, in fact they won't care much how you do it at all. They just want testimonials that you've done it for other companies and then price it to match the value they get.

E.g. if it's really $100k/mo and you were viewed as a reputable consultant in this area, so long as you can prove that savings, charging $100k to do your routine is possible.

beefnugs · a year ago

Yes you dont tell them upfront thats how much it saves. You sell your services as "they dont pay unless you save them money" then you get a percentage

Could do it that way, or offer a guarantee like save X per year or it's free.

scarface_74 · a year ago

He can’t tell them anything before he actually sits down and has a long conversation with the customer and determines their current state. “Consulting” is as much about understanding the customer as understanding technology.

_tom_ · a year ago

ianpurton · a year ago

1. Fix it in your company.

2. Create a Youtube video of how you fixed it.

3. Spread that video far and wide.

4. If you get traction consider adding an offering

Be the go to person on Youtube for infrastructure cost savings.

The enterprise is a shitty place to find recognition. Seek it elsewhere.

guywithahat · a year ago

My immediate thought is consulting, or you build some wrapper tool which monitors cloud configurations and looks for issues.

That said, if all it takes to fix this is a script, I’m guessing other developers/IT will or have done it on their own. It sounds a little like it’s your job to fix this and you’re simply declining to do so lol

handfuloflight · a year ago

First thought is: how complex is the actual implementation?

Second thought is: how are you determining how applicable these "misconfigurations" are to other companies? How do you not know this $100K in savings is due to idiosyncrasies at your company that doesn't extrapolate to others?

avln67 · a year ago

My 2c: don’t do it as a ‘software company’, do it as a ‘service company’. You would be selling an outcome to your clients, your script would merely be an ‘internal only’ tool used by you to deliver an outcome to clients.

GTM would be a combination of cold outbound and content marketing. Start with your personal network, do warm outreach, and try to reach one/two degrees of separation to get potential starter clients. Give 2 to 5 starter clients a discount(or for free) in exchange for testimonials(social proof). Once you’ve completed delivery to your starter clients, leverage the testimonials for cold outbound and content marketing.

Schnitz · a year ago

Look at existing companies in that space, eg https://antimetal.com/, for inspiration and to see if what you are doing already exists.