Inside AWS: Fastrack Students Dive into Prototyping with Marc Teichtahl
This week, the 2025 Fastrack Cohort from the Monash University Entrepreneurship Portfolio continued its long-standing collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS)
This week, the 2025 Fastrack Cohort from the Monash University Entrepreneurship Portfolio continued its long-standing collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) — now over five years strong — with an inspiring, hands-on session led by Marc Teichtahl, Senior Manager and Head of Prototyping for APJ at AWS.
Over nearly four hours, and his team (thank Jon Farrell "Legend") generously opened the doors to Amazon’s prototyping philosophy, sharing insights that cut across technology, innovation mindset, and customer obsession — a principle that underpins everything at AWS.
Prototyping the AWS Way
Marc’s session centred around a powerful idea: prototyping is the heartbeat of innovation. He challenged our student teams to think not in weeks or months but in hours. Build something quickly. Learn something. Fast.
He reinforced the idea that the fastest path to clarity is through action. Keep the scope narrow. Attack the riskiest assumptions first. Then, build progressively into a proof of concept that expands thoughtfully — always in service of learning and the customer.
And who is that customer? As Marc put it clearly: “It’s the person who pays.”
Generative AI Meets Real-Time Engagement
The session wasn’t just talk. Students engaged with AWS’s latest generative AI capabilities — even conversing with a live, responsive virtual persona, drawing from real-time datasets. It was the future of engagement in action. IT blew our minds. The future is hear.
Wisdom from a Builder’s Perspective
Marc didn’t just speak to prototyping — he lived it with the students. He encouraged deep discussion around their ideas and pushed them to write a press release about themselves — a technique borrowed from Amazon’s product development process. “Write the story of your launch before you build it,” he said. “Know what success will look like.”
Frameworks to Guide, Not Constraints
Marc introduced a trade-off triangle with a reality check: you can usually only have two out of three:
Quality – Dive Deep
Time – Maintain Standards
Cost – Be Frugal
At AWS, success isn’t about perfection. It’s about results — calibrated to what the customer actually values. He stressed the importance of avoiding unconscious bias in decision-making and aligning every activity with the customer’s appetite for speed and features.
15 Leadership Principles and One Mission
Marc brought to life Amazon’s guiding Mission — “To be the Earth’s most customer-centric company.” He walked the students through the 15 Leadership Principles that power Amazon’s decision-making, from Customer Obsession to Delivering Results. These aren’t just posters on the wall — they’re tools for leadership at scale.
Some of what we Experienced
Words to Leave With
Marc closed with some personal advice that resonated deeply:
Be precisely ambiguous – focus, but leave room for discovery.
There’s no one way to innovate – embrace diversity of thought.
Be humble – always be learning.
Choose your role models – they shape your path.
Calibrate every activity to your customers – they are your compass.
On behalf of Monash University and the Fastrack program, we are incredibly grateful to Marc, Jon and the AWS team for investing their time, wisdom, and energy into the next generation of entrepreneurs. Sessions like these are more than workshops—they’re mindset-shifting experiences.
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