How can a company with barely any users have AWS bills bigger than their revenue?
That’s the question a CEO asked me one morning.
When I dug in, here’s what I found:
- Cloud costs spiraling out of control.
⚠️ excess backups. Do you really need to take a snapshot of the application server EVERY day ??
🚨 Deployments that relied on luck more than process (“deploy and pray”).
- No planning, no structure—just chaos.
Most leaders would’ve written this off as a lost cause.
I saw it as an opportunity.
In a matter of weeks, we:
- Cut AWS bills down by right-sizing their infrastructure. Saving over 50% in infra costs
- Built a real release process—fast, safe, repeatable.
- Automated monitoring and rollback—no more 2 a.m. firefights.
- Put sprint and version planning in place—suddenly, delivery was predictable.
Here’s the real lesson:
If your tech feels like a black box, it’s probably draining money and adding risk. With the right changes, it doesn’t just stop bleeding—it becomes a growth engine.
I personally believe that the CEO as well as other key executives in the organization should understand their tech a bit more beyond the “it works” and “it’s expensive” replies
The last months I came across a couple of CEOs that really care about their tech and actually wish to understand why it was chose and how it works. I think this is healthy we all understand each other’s work, plus learning new things is always fun :))
Reply BLACKBOX if you feel your tech is a black box and you have no idea what is going on under the hood