BizSpark: Free software and cloud services for your startup
Jennifer Marsman wrote a great post on her MSDN blog about the benefits of BizSpark and how to get started with the program. This step-by-step tutorial can help get you enrolled as well.
Perks of the program:
- http://wootstudio.ca/startups/bizspark.aspx
- Windows 10 developer accounts (Xbox, Windows)
- Visual Studio Ultimate licenses
- Windows licenses (multiple versions)
- Office 365 developer account
- $150 / month Azure credits (for each dev on your team, up to 5 total, $750 value)
- Website hosting, virtual machines, databases, & mobile services
- Visual Studio Online (Formerly TFS)
- 90 Days of pluralsight + DigitalTutors training
- Free marketing support with Microsoft
Who qualifies?
- Actively engaged in development of a software-based app, product, or service that will form a core piece of your current or intended business. (NOTE: you must be building a product! Startups providing consulting services are not eligible.)
- Your company is privately held, and in business for less than 5 years.
- Makes less than US $1 million in annual revenue
Whether you are a student, startup, or an indie game developer, Microsoft views you as a welcome addition to our startup program.
A code to get you started
If you think you qualify, feel free to reach out to me and let me know what you are working on. The BizSpark team will take a look at your profile, and you’ll hear back in a few days. If you do sign up, feel free to shoot me an e-mail and see how else I can help you!
I suggest starting with this BizSpark Enrollment tutorial, followed by BuildYourBiz.org, which offers tons of tutorials. We also have Microsoft Virtual Academy too.
If you have other developers on your team, you can add up to 4 additional members to your BizSpark team. Each of the members you add gets their own MSDN Subscription and their own Azure Subscription with $150/month of credit. More details here.
You may have to log in with your Microsoft ID first, (the top right corner of the BizSpark page), then click on this link again for it to work. Let me know if you have any other questions, and keep me in the loop with what you are working on!
Marketing support from Microsoft
We’re always looking to share the stories of developers who are building on our platform. Whether you currently have a product built with our tools, are are considering it, reach out to me and I’d love to discuss an interview. Take a look at some of my other video work on Channel 9 and interviews on the Indie Dev Podcast.
