SOC 2 Readiness for Startups

Why startups pursue SOC 2

Enterprise customers and investors expect evidence that you manage access, change, and incident response. SOC 2 answers security questionnaires faster and keeps deals moving.

• Enterprise procurement: reduce back-and-forth on security questionnaires.
• Due diligence: show you know your risks, owners, and evidence.
• Customer trust: signal you can scale with controlled processes.

What auditors expect under 50 employees

Auditors want clear ownership and consistent evidence, not heavyweight enterprise tooling.

• Named owners for access reviews, incident response, and change approvals.
• Documented onboarding/offboarding, MFA, logging, and vendor reviews.
• Evidence that controls run on a cadence (tickets, exports, logs), even if lightweight.

Common startup mistakes

• Over-tooling before defining owners and processes.
• Jumping to Type II too early without stable evidence.
• Copying enterprise policies that nobody follows.
• Ignoring vendor risk and access hygiene until the audit window opens.

What to focus on first

• Ownership: who runs access reviews, change control, and incidents.
• Access: MFA everywhere, least privilege, fast offboarding.
• Evidence basics: repeatable checklists/tickets for reviews, backups, and vendor checks.
• Scope control: start with core product systems before adding every tool.

Use the readiness index to map these fundamentals to your current state before engaging auditors.