The underlying desire with any technology is to push beyond its limits. In the 80s, we had the PC turbo button. In the 00s, everyone got all saas-y with software as a service. In the 2010s, we have the cloud (or as some of us know it, just someone else's computer). Jokes aside, leveraging the cloud allows teams to deliver content more rapidly compared to a local/on-prem solution. This sounds great until you remember nothing in life is free—cloud security is no exception. While this talk is technical, we will begin by discussing the benefits motivating a small startup's decision to transition from on-prem to the cloud along with the inherent risk. A wide range of factors were considered: hiring, platform selection, technology stack, user management. We will talk about Amazon Web Services (AWS), the moving parts of our cloud, and what was required to get a minimum viable product off the ground. We will share our own ProTips for going cloud first; by the end, hopefully you’ll walk away with a few cheat codes of your own, whether it’s getting a peek at going cloud first or a verification of your own cloud security best practices.