For startups, finding the most cost-effective means of building and distributing your product can be the difference between life and death. That’s why using the Web has been such a benefit to small startups. As have Web services—like Amazon Web Services (AWS)—that allow those startups to get big time functionality for a fraction of the cost of maintaining their own infrastructure.

But no matter how efficient the startup, a little extra cash can always help. So if you’ve built something interesting on AWS, consider throwing your hat in the ring to win the Amazon Web Services Start-up Challenge.

The AWS Start-up Challenge is an annual competition designed for young, promising start-ups to get noticed and compete for a chance to win $100,000 in cash and credits. Start-ups that are using the AWS cloud computing platform can submit an application which describes their business plan and their use of AWS.

The contest is open to start-ups located in the eligible countries that are currently using or are in the process of using Amazon Web Services. Entrepreneurs or privately held businesses are invited to apply that have not generated more than $10 million USD in gross annual revenues or outside funding.

Wait. Cash and credits? How’s that work out? Well, one grand prize winner will receive $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in AWS credits, mentoring sessions from AWS technical experts, AWS Premium Support Gold for one year, and Inclusion in press release and media coverage. So it might actually figure to be more than $100,000 in value. And even finalists get a nice chunk of AWS credit.

And don’t just think you’re limited to some EC2 or S3 deployment. Amazon Web Services include all of the following:

And yes, even Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Well what are you waiting for? They’re waiting to give you money. And AWS credits. Contest entries close at the stroke of midnight on October 31, 2010.

For more information, visit the Amazon Web Services Start-up Challenge. To apply, complete the entry form before November 1, 2010. To keep up with what’s happening, follow @AWSstartups on Twitter.

Like this: Like Loading...