AWS Activate $5,000 Credits: Real timeline & approval checklist for bootstrapped founders

We just had our $5,000 AWS Activate Portfolio package approved for our early-stage SaaS. Since AWS tightened their review criteria earlier this year, I wanted to document our exact timeline and requirements to help other founders save time. **Our Timeline:** • Monday 10:00 AM: Applied through our pre-seed accelerator incubator org ID. • Tuesday 03:00 PM: Request for company website & LinkedIn profile confirmation. • Thursday 09:30 AM: Official approval email with $5,000 credit code. **Top Checklist Items:** 1. **Domain Email**: Do not apply with a generic `@gmail.com` email. Even if your company is 2 days old, set up Google Workspace or Zoho with your custom domain. 2. **Functional Landing Page**: AWS human reviewers will visit your site. It must have a clear value proposition, contact email, and active SSL. A 'coming soon' page with zero information is the #1 rejection reason. 3. **Bedrock AI Coverage**: Good news: the $5,000 credit pool DOES cover Amazon Bedrock usage (including Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Llama 3 models hosted on AWS). This makes it infinitely more valuable than standard EC2 instances. What is everyone using to spend down their credits before the 1-year expiration mark?