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Ask HN: How to be SOC2 Type 2 compliant as a solo-entreprenuer?
Is it possible? Do you know success cases w/o spending 20+k $ on auditors? My customers bombards me with question about certification of my app Perfect Wiki, I need help with finding the best way to show them that my app could be trusted.
- jaspanglia 5mo agoMost early-stage founders don’t start with full SOC2 immediately. You can begin with strong security practices, transparent documentation, privacy policy, backups, access controls, and third-party audits before going for certification.
- sochix 5mo agoWhat kind of documents should I show customers to make them trust me that I follow best security practices? They trust Soc2 Type2, what else could work?
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- zrobotics 5mo agoIf they don't have a strict requirement on SOC2, then either PCI compliance or NSA CISA are more easily done without needing tons of money. Edit: PCI would only apply if you are processing customer funds Iirc, it's been a few years since I went through one but thereay be some caveats for that to apply.
- donatj 5mo agoI doubt it's possible. I'd avoid it as long as you can. It's been a continuous stream of audits for my the company I work for and resulted basically total loss of developer agency.
- sochix 5mo agoHave the same feeeling....
- Kainat01 5mo agoDefinitely possible. Start with SOC2-aligned practices and a solid public security page — many early customers care more about transparency and good security hygiene than the certificate itself.
- sochix 5mo agoThank you! Could you please share some great example of public security page so I can get some inspiration?
- yread 5mo agoI was also interested in that and chatgpt came up with these: https://iozen.ai/security/ https://iozen.ai/security/ https://logpulse.io/security/ https://logpulse.io/security/ SOC2 "in progress" haha https://get.brightidea.com/security/ https://get.brightidea.com/security/
- sochix 5mo agoThank you!
- zrobotics 5mo agoDo they? Every time I've been asked about SOC compliance, it turned out the underlying reason was either insurance or a requirement the customer had from their downstream customer. Neither of those cases would be negotiable, the customer's insurance company only cares about a checkbox that "All vendors are SOC2 compliant and relevant documentation is on file". That said, actually being SOC compliant isn't that hard aside from the paperwork aspect. Any competent firm should already be doing all the things required, it's the bare minimum for security. There really shouldn't be any code or process changes needed, if there are you are woefully inadequate from a security standpoint. SOC2 is below the bare minimum for actual security, but it's the standard firms have settled on. That said, actually getting a valid SOC2 audit completed is expensive and for a solo dev you can expect at least a month of lost time. I wouldn't pay out-of-pocket for an audit, but if you're in a space where customers are asking it can be a selling point. One strategy would be to negotiate reduced terms with a potential client to use their auditing firm and have them split costs on the audit. This would need to be a very hot sales lead, since it's a big ask, but it might be worth exploring. They likely already have an established relationship with an auditor, and having a referral will cut the price down. SOC is just a box ticking exercise and doesn't improve security at all. Or at least it shouldn't, if you don't already meet their requirements you need to either shut down your side hustle or completely revamp your processes. That said, the box-ticking is extremely tedious and involves reams of paperwork. It would be doable as a solo entrepreneur, I worked through the process in a company of 6 employees, but it's not fun or productive.
- FpUser 5mo agoMy monolith C++ backend passed SOC2 Type 2 without any real efforts from me as a programmer since I was very security cautious when writing code. Nevertheless this whole business is a racket and unless you commit to spending small fortune you will be just fighting windmills no matter whether you are actually compliant. In my case I've developed it for a client so it was their headache. I've just written couple of documents outlining compliance features. but before we got certified we would give clients same documents and that would give us free ride for a while.
- zrobotics 5mo agoIt's 100% a racket. Your code could have been 10x worse and still passed, I doubt the auditors even looked at the code. It's a legal box-checking exercise, there really isn't much of an actual review besides the documentation. But my god is there a lot of documentation and paperwork.
- pugdogdev 5mo agoAs others suggested, as a solo entrepreneur, I recommend not entering this process without a real justification. I passed this SOC 2 type for my startup after securing a deal with a big client. SOC 2 is an ongoing process that involves many documents and workflows you will need to implement in your company. If your clients really insist on proof of security compliance, I will try to find a local PT authority to complete a one-time process with them to obtain this kind of report.
- rozumbrada 5mo agoNot possible in case your clients are not stupid. Any company with SOC2 and <5 people is a red flag. You might find auditors that would go along but any reasonable client will check your SOC2 report and quality of your auditors. SOC2 requires tons of paperwork and management and separation of duties with also mandatory roles in your company - never feasible in a one man show.
- sochix 5mo agoSo that means that solo-entrepreneurs can't sell apps to big enterprises due to SOC2 limitation? I think that it is not fair
- badgersnake 5mo agoIt isn’t fair, but few rackets are.
- jaccola 5mo agoIt’s a disadvantage for sure but not usually a blocker. They often have security questionnaires you can complete instead. Or, as part of signing with them, you can promise to get SOC2 by x date (which will hopefully be easier with the funds from an enterprise contract). I’d recommend looking online at some example security questionnaires or the types of things soc2 covers and writing an internal security doc for yourself so you know your position on everything and don’t have to scramble when it comes to it.
- sochix 5mo agoThank you for your comment!
- Freak_NL 5mo agoYou can. It just means that the customer has to do the proper analyses and risk evaluation for their own SOC2 (or ISO 27001 or whatever) certification. Just focus on providing a good value application and be frank about what you do, why you can't get certification for something like that, but that you can answer any questions they might have for their own certification process. If the potential customer makes 'has SOC2' a requirement, than that is not a customer for you, in the same way that 'has more than 20 employees' rules you out.
- Keyframe 5mo agoI went through the process and while it seems it's daunting, it's just a bunch of work and some cash. Once established it's also transformative (or should be) on your ongoing processes and practices. You codify those into a bunch of documents (jesus, that's a lot of documents type of thing) and provide evidence for each; Auditors latch onto those randomly. It's then your job to upkeep documents and evidence which can be helped with tools that have frameworks for those. We use drata and it's really simple and helpful to use. I don't think you would be able to be compliant as a solo dude though, not easily. A bunch of protocols and practices revolve around governance, handovers, failovers, risk mitigation etc and if you're the only guy there's a hard path ahead. Are you reviewing and approving your own code that goes to production? If things go down and you're the first to call (let's say by automated alerting) and you're not available, who is the next one to call as in what's the documented succession plan or automated remediation.. etc. Compensatory controls do not strictly require a human, they require mitigation of risk associated with a single human. You'd have to automate a lot of these governances "gates" then. So it would be possible, since evidence you would have to provide is work not org-chart, but it'd be a ton of work. I went into it thinking I need to answer these 167 documents and provide evidence on an ongoing basis, but it actually also transformed the way we do things. I think for the better. At the end of the day, I also think this can be gamed as probably most certificates, but it's not worth it and transformation you go through makes sense.
- sochix 5mo agoThank you for your feedback!
- tptacek 5mo agoI can't say enough how not transformative SOC2 should be on your processes. Near-automatic exception-free attestations should be a byproduct of basic sane corpsec practices. SOC2 should never be leading or informing your security practices. For people who don't know much about SOC2, the headline is that all SOC2 does is confirm that you do the things you say you do. There's a short vibes-based catalog of objectives --- things like "change management" and "access control" and "backups" --- but no actual standard on how any of those things are done. The controls you use to meet those objectives could be $50,000/yr enterprise software packages, or they could be a system of post-it notes. Your auditor does not care, so long as the things you say you do, you do consistently. What happens all too often is that companies come into this process (usually ill-advisedly; probably as many as half the SOC2-attested firms don't really need to be) without clear objectives and security practices to begin with. They read the SOC2 DRL, reconcile it with what they are and aren't doing in IT already, and end up instituting whatever the "default" controls look like for each objective, which is how you end up with AWS SAAS startups running network intrusion detection in 2026. I wrote a post 6 years ago for my clients who were ideating getting SOC2; it's about the (very small and very simple) set of engineering things you need to do to be in a place where you'll get an automatic SOC2 Type I attestation. It has held up very well. You should understand everything in this post well enough to have opinionated takes on everything in a SOC2 DRL, and to be in a position to tell your auditors to GTFO if they ask you to do more. https://www.latacora.com/blog/2020/03/12/soc2-starting-seven/ https://www.latacora.com/blog/2020/03/12/soc2-starting-seven...
- stepcellwolf 5mo ago[dead]
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- VishnuTech 5mo agoA lot of early stage founders ran into this. Strong internal processes can already build a lot of trust before full SOC2 Type 2.
- Miagg 5mo ago[flagged]
- flowerbreeze 5mo agoI've been through SOC 2 Type 2 in a company with ~100 people. I think it'd be in some ways simpler as a solopreneur, but still a lot of effort. You won't require as complex controls and you don't need to communicate between different parts of company, but it'll just be yourself doing it all. On a positive side, you won't have to do 100% of SOC 2 Type 2. The only required part is security if I remember correctly. And a lot of it is best practices that need to be in place anyway. If you are using an established cloud provider a lot of it is in place through their certifications. Some of the controls can be "silly", but generally not hard to put in place. I'd try to figure out what are the minimum nr of controls required and see if that is doable. Pretty sure auditors will give a discount there if the scope is smaller. It can be somewhat useful for the company if taken seriously, as it can point out weaknesses in processes. Although I agree with other comments that most of it is a checkbox exercise than something that provides any real guarantees to the client demanding it. I also don't know if getting through it with <20k $ is something that is feasible. Before doing SOC 2 we relied on the clients' security questionnaires instead, so maybe something to always ask about. Usually they were able to make an exception and allow it, although the % started shrinking over time. Edit: Also, the auditor makes a difference. Pick one that understands small companies. A corporation auditor will get confused with "segregation of duties" if you are the only person in the company.
- SirFatty 5mo agoMr. Maguire: "I just want to say one word to you. Just one word." Benjamin: "Yes, sir." Mr. Maguire: "Are you listening?" Benjamin: "Yes, I am." Mr. Maguire: "AI."
- _tk_ 5mo agoI was part of several third party risk management audits from a corporate perspective. We regularly audited and questioned SMBs (and big corps) with regards to their security posture. We knew that small shops wouldn’t be able to be fully compliant to SOC2 Type 2 or have an ISO27001 certified environment. If it was clear that our business wanted the product, we either tried to help the company with the questionnaire or created a risk report that was then signed by the business. In other words: even if your customer asks you to be compliant, you don’t have to be if they care enough about your product. If you seem intent on getting things right, that’s a big plus. Most of your competitors don’t even know what SOC 2 is.
- sochix 5mo agoThank you for your comment!
- whitefang 5mo agoCan this also be done for HIPAA and FERPA, or for those compliance requirements is the process the way to go and just filling out the questionnaire would not be sufficient?
- blochist 5mo agoSOC2 is, at the end of the day, a voluntary compliance standard. HIPAA and FERPA requirements are federal law. Waiving those requirements would not just mean accepting additional liability, but would normally make your customer ineligible to receive federal funds, which are typically a substantial chunk of revenue.
- tptacek 5mo agoCompliance with HIPAA for small firms is generally straightforward and there isn't a standard audit. It's not the same animal as SOC2, which is a CPA standard and is administered by certified auditors.
- Grimburger 5mo agoYou have it completely the wrong way around. HIPAA is self-certifying, SOC2 isn't. No way on earth you are getting SOC2 without an auditor.
- i2km 5mo agoReally appreciate this discussion as I'll be shortly going through this with a 1-2 person company. Does anyone have any experience on how it compares to ISO27001 from the 1-2 person company feasibility standpoint?
- yread 5mo agoI'm in a similar position. The business continuity requirements are difficult to satisfy. And the amount of paperwork you need to do (depending on your policies of course) can be a major slow down for developing new stuff. So it's best to get your dev heavy stuff done before. I'm just filling in the questionnaires instead for now (and losing some customers who would be too big anyway)
- mlitwiniuk 4mo agoI have to disagree - did it solo while dogfooding the tool for this exact purpose.
- crote 5mo agoI'm currently at a small startup trying to do ISO 27001. A big issue we run into is that there simply aren't enough people. For example, the processes are built around having one person who writes code, and another person who reviews the written code. That's obviously impossible as a solo dev. You also need an internal auditor, who obviously needs to be separate from the operations team. If I recall correctly the minimum in a standard setup is 9 roles which cannot overlap. You're going to have a very hard time doing that as a solo entrepreneur, so you'll probably need to find someone who is experienced in making unusual setups like these compliant - which isn't going to be cheap. Even after that there's a pretty decent chance you'll end up needing to hire 3rd-party services in order to be compliant: our "internal" auditor is just some big firm doing it for us.
- ownagefool 5mo agoI offered self-hosting to bypass this. It did the trick and I was able to convert the enterprise customers where compliance was a red line.
- DeonPhilip 5mo ago[flagged]
- frenkel 5mo agoWe are a team of 1 developer and 1 sales/marketing and are fully certified. You can hire an external auditor for the internal audit. We have AI code reviews, so we don’t need an extra developer.
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- apimade 5mo agoI’ll spend some more time replying to this next week, so circle back to this comment; I’m someone who regularly helps people get past these audits, meet the criteria customers are trying to assess with these certifications, and vet startups who don’t have these certifications or budget. Start by pre-filling your own CAIQ v4 with an earnest “we don’t do this” or “we haven’t even thought about this” attempt: https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/artifacts/cloud-controls-matrix-v4 https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/artifacts/cloud-controls-m... Then read through it and see what you can address immediately (EDR on your laptop, MFA on your cloud environments, etc), followed by role playing your client; “based on answers to this questionnaire, what would I not accept?” There will be some items you can’t fix. You’ll soon find out the majority of customers, including banks, governments, defence contractors, crypto startups — simply do not care. If they want to use your product, they’ll work with you. It may be single-tenancy, it may require architectural changes, it may mean making it selfhosted with a time-bomb, but you’ll be able to address the requirements of the CISO, compliance monkey or executive. I’ve yet to meet an industry or individual I can’t convince. Even if the product is a hot mess, half baked and radioactive — we’ll deploy it on a VM running inside of a VDI within the customer’s environment, because slopping together a migration path is _so easy_, and those early, highly regulated clients are worth it.
- sochix 5mo agoThank you! That make a lot of sense!
- apimade 5mo agoNo worries, it’s more about finding what the security and compliance teams care about — and making them comfortable. Compliance doesn’t equal security, I’ve onboarded startups with better security than the SOC2 certified, ISO27K Swiss cheese $B unicorn. Hackers don’t target based on certification. It’s generally convenience and motive. Unknown startups who are laying solid foundations won’t show up on anyone’s radar for the first 2 years without some insanely unlucky event (i.e supply chain breach, an early employee doing something really dumb).
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- tptacek 5mo agoDon't. You are exactly the wrong kind of firm to be pursuing SOC2. SOC2 is like the corporate GPL of security. It's an infectious secret handshake company security teams swap in lieu of filling out security questionnaires. Nobody savvy takes it seriously. There will come a time where your business will grow to the point where it makes sense to pay for the secret handshake. The overwhelming most likely scenario in which that happens is a purchase order made contingent on your SOC2 Type I attestation, where the revenue from that purchase order more than pays for the attestation. Do not ever do a SOC2 speculatively, in the hopes that it will improve your sales prospects. Plenty of successful firms don't have SOC2s. If you're losing sales where SOC2 is a factor, you didn't have those sales to begin with.
- yeutterg 5mo agoPlus, even when you have SOC2 (+pen test, +ISO 27001), you'll still have to fill out questionnaires!
- varispeed 5mo ago> in lieu of filling out security questionnaires. Isn't that no longer an issue in AI era?
- TrueDuality 5mo agoDo you want to trust your company's legal commitment on the output of modern LLMs?
- Onplana 5mo ago[flagged]
- nickjj 5mo agoYou could look at the process itself and apply the things that sound good to you. It won't help with official certificates but you can start replying back saying you adhere to certain things that are suggested by SOC 2 Type 2. I can also say that being SOC 2 Type 2 compliant doesn't come even remotely close to demonstrating that you can be trusted. That's not a knock on you or your work ethic, but there's tons of ways for things to go wrong or get leaked while still being SOC 2 Type 2 certificated.
- tptacek 5mo agoA "SOC2 Type II" is just a repeated Type I audit where they make sure you haven't regressed anything. It doesn't make sense to use the definite article "the" with SOC2: everybody's SOC2 is different.
- icedchai 5mo agoAvoid it for as long as you can. I worked at a startup that sold to enterprises. We had 6 employees. The CEO / sales was able to work around the SOC2 requirement every time.
- lukaszkorecki 5mo agoMy company had 6 employees, I was the CTO and I can't imagine getting SOC2 certified without using Vanta - that was back in their early access/beta days. I had no choice - we had so many security assessments spreadsheets sent by potential customers, that getting SOC2 saved us time in the long run.
- tptacek 5mo agoI like the people at Vanta just fine but it really squicks me out to see people doing Vanta because it's the simplest way for them to clear this dumb hurdle --- that implies that they don't understand SOC2 and are just taking Vanta's word for it. The problem is, Vanta will ask (suggest? come perilously close to demand?) you do a lot of engineering work that is absolutely not necessary for a SOC2 attestation. Worse still: whatever controls you attest in your SOC2, you're practically locked into. If Vanta has you set up some cloud detection capability, and it turns out as you mature your security organization that it wasn't necessary or even useful, you have a fight on your hands with your Type II auditor about why you stopped doing it.
- browningstreet 5mo agoIt's all negotiable. I did audits and attestations at a bank, .. everything's negotiable. > that implies that they don't understand SOC2 Good engineering and SOC2 compliance can be on similar but not identical paths. If you want SOC2, you're bending your engineering towards that particular standard. Getting SOC2 compliant because it's time, and you have the customers, is just a step, and not a reflection of whatever good engineering you've done. If you can defend it, you can probably keep some of your variances. If you're a solopreneur and you've never been in/near an audit, and you're committed to a vendor like Vanta, I'd recommend hiring a consultant for even a few hours to give you independent coverage of industry norms and a little coaching on sticking points.
- artur_makly 5mo agoHas no one yet found a way to vibe-code this into a viable self-service solution? and yes I do understand there is a IRL-auditing authority piece to all of this too. Perhaps there this is a play here in the market to create a new auditing firm that 99% automates all this for startups? sans fraud certs of course.
- tempaccount5050 5mo agoYou can't automate it as it will require you to make big changes to your infra. It can take a year or more to actually do when you have a full team dedicated to it. Absolute outside the realm of a self service process.
- arjavmehta 5mo ago[flagged]
- mlitwiniuk 4mo agoI've created a product around this exact problem and niche. No, you can not automate 99% of it, but one (tool I've created) can help with guidance and translating strange requirements into something, that matches your context. I plan to launch it on HN as soon as I'll get my soc2 type II report. It's called humadroid.io (https://humadroid.io https://humadroid.io) - feel free to schedule a demo and mention HN; I'll be happy to give a generous discount code. Been working for over a year on it, agree it's not easy, but it's accessible and perfectly doable by solo founders.
- artur_makly 5mo agoAlso offering MFA and ideally SSO really helps them feel more secure.
- likesHumidity 5mo agoUgh, it's hard. You can outsource as much as possible and minimize your surface area, those are the two approaches I have used, but the auditor expense is the biggest blocker. A few years back you could find auditors for $5-6k, but I think the security/audit service providers have eaten a lot of that market.
- throwatdem12311 5mo agoYou don’t it’s a waste of time and money.
- dividendflow 5mo ago[flagged]
- 3vo-ai 5mo ago[flagged]
- bitbasher 5mo agoI'm a solo entrepreneur running a b2b saas product I built. I do not have a soc2 certificate (or any certificate). I have never lost any sales (that I know of) because of it. I've sold to customers that pay $2XX,XXX annually and it was never an issue. I wouldn't worry about it, but be prepared to answer security questionnaires.
- jwr 5mo agoI am a solo entrepreneur. Don't. I learned that my business is unable to pass pretty much ANY certification or corporate IT security audit. Many of the questions simply do not apply to my business ("do you have documented procedures for revoking employee access") and the default answer is NO. Get even a single NO and you're done. I gave up and these days actively discourage enterprises from even trying to sign up — these kinds of discussions can take a lot of your time and the expected value is negative, because sooner or later those kinds of questionnaires will be required (quite often the engineer talking to you doesn't even know this). SOC2 falls into that category: you are unlikely to pass, and even if you do, enterprise customers will pull out their own questionnaires out of, well, let's just call it their store backrooms, and you will fail those. Waste of time.
- tortilla 5mo agoSame. For my business, the enterprises that want to use my software wouldn't actually be worth the hassle as their usage is not more than my normal business customers (SMB). Just more work and costs on my end. Early on, I had a potential enterprise account (well known online store) that wanted everything that enterprises wanted in addition to multiple meetings (with all the stakeholders) for a $50/month account (my mistake for not getting that information upfront). Another time, a large Canadian media company wanted me to agree to an uncapped liability provision. Respectfully turned them down. All in all, I lost some prestige business but if I took them on, it wouldn't move my profit levels much.
- ErrantX 5mo agoYour getting that interest because it looks like a steal. Ultimately those businesses couldn't care less about $50/m (except to chance it) but they want - or even need - the enterprise terms. They will pay $50 for your product... And probably $950 for the terms. (Not saying that would have been the right thing for you but my advice to folks who find themselves in this position is always 20x or 40x the price - if that is enough to make it worth your bother, then go for it. Good chance theyll pay)
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- colek42 5mo agoThere are ways to do it. Send me a message, and I can make an intro to the person we use.
- al3d1n 5mo agoAgree with tptacek for the speculative case — chasing SOC 2 without a deal on the table is expensive theater. That said, there's a real inflection point where it flips. We've run SOC 2 for companies where the trust-establishment effort alone was costing 2-3 sales cycles per quarter. At that point the audit pays for itself fast. also, we can get that audit down substantially below 20k... The signal to watch: if you're losing deals to a competitor who has it, or spending more time on security reviews than closing, that's your major signal. Also, if your sales cycle becomes "days" or weeks instead of months, thats another major signal. A third-party certification is a stamp of approval that cuts through red tape and BS. I'm a vCISO and founder at MARFI Systems, currently finishing a doctorate in cybersecurity at GWU and have helped numerous companies from 1-man startups to 500+ unicorns. Happy to jump on a call and help provide some clarify around security and compliance.
- dzonga 5mo agofire the client. either they will use the app without soc2 or they will find an alternative.
- y-curious 5mo agoDon’t. I work on a highly regulated project and it’s the full time job of several people. Only do it if you can hire a team of, like, 4 people AND make a profit
- hughw 5mo agoIt's easier than you might think. Not easy! But I've done it. Have Fortune <100 customers. As others point out if you don't show your audit you have to affirm that you basically do everything an audit would check. So, do it. I found Thoropass to be offer a deal that was affordable. You're not too small for them. Check them out. You can form your processes any way you want! Use AI to construct your policies. Just document what you do. I spent a probably 5 hours a month the first year. Learning curve and I felt I needed the hand holding from Thoropass... they were generous with time and explanations. Subsequent years, it's all set up, very little until audit time.
- taoh 5mo ago[flagged]
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- arjavmehta 5mo agoYes, its very possible. What's most important for you would just being able to prove to your customers that you do what you say you do. The core issue isn't SOC 2, it's verifiability. Your customers want to know that what you claim about your security posture is actually true, not just documented. I've actually been deeply exploring the compliance space lately and a few days ago I built an open-core pre-audit readiness layer. Every finding traces back to the raw AWS API call that produced it, SHA-256 hashed. An auditor or skeptical customer can verify it themselves without taking your word for it. Its more SOC 2-esque, & its pre-audit readiness not a certification, but it does the job of proving you are trustworthy. repo if relevant: https://github.com/adog0822/AWS-Evidence-Layer https://github.com/adog0822/AWS-Evidence-Layer (I built this, disclosing upfront)
- lukewarm707 5mo agodelve. s
- eddy-sekorti 5mo agoYes, this is a long journey, but can be done definately, for my first startup reetro. I have done ISO27001 myself and now doing SOC-2 for my second startup Sekorti, which is actually a security and compliance tool and helps with alot of SOC-2 requirements. You need to understand the full scope of SOC-2 requirements, implement those controls and document/collect evidences. It is definately doable, if you approach it in a structured manner.
- eddy-sekorti 5mo agoI had the same issues, you do not need full SOC-2 but need to present your security posture in a professional manner. try sekorti dot com,
- Notional_ID 5mo agoWow. Thank you for this thread. As a solo entrepreneur this worries me, since I am putting out agent governance products out there.
- iainctduncan 5mo agoYou don't. Customers who need it don't buy from solopreneurs. And if they did, they wouldn't expect it.
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- unchainedsky90 5mo ago[dead]
- flippy_flops 5mo agoI’m normally a “to each his own” guy but have to say I strongly disagree with a lot of these comments. First of all, you absolutely can do it as a solo entrepreneur - I just completed SOC 2 for the second time - this one being solo. Yes you have to be creative with how you setup checks and balances but it’s not impossible. Also, SOC 2 Type 2 is an auditor verifying that you’re actually carrying out the processes that you claimed to do in Type 1. So how do you start? You start with Type 1. I doubt you could get it under $20k but that’s the ballpark. Personally I’d recommend Vanta which will hold your hand through at least half the process. And Vanta support will recommend auditors who typically cut their rate in half because Vanta does so much of the work. Is it worth it? No way I could answer that for you. Personally I’d say half of SOC 2 is kinda bull crap and half of it is really good healthy processes. It’s definitely a commitment to get through the first audit, but after that it’s more like a 1-2 weeks of work every year. Any decent auditor will understand you’re new to the process and will coach you through it. Their goal is for you to have a good audit, so they will literally tell you what needs to be done ahead of time. I feel weird evangelizing it like this cause I’m not like a big fan, but we absolutely have clients that wouldn’t be customers if we didn’t have SOC 2. Yeah, it can be a warm and fuzzy for it groups, but that’s sales, right? My experience is once you have SOC 2 type 2, the IT approval process is far more streamlined. Not saying you should or shouldn’t, but don’t dismiss it.
- lazyant 5mo agoInstead of trying to get the actual SOC 2 attestation, do a version of the homework that would get you there; basically writing documentation. The output would be documents describing different procedures or existing infra (disaster recovery, network diagrams etc) and a master spreadsheet with the "soc 2" questions (that you pick) and answers, a "security questionnaire" and this is what you send to companies when they insist. Note in security-speak the keyword is "mitigation" (you don't have x but you mitigate that by y)
- paperwork360 5mo agoThere are plenty of companies and apps that can help you achieve SOC2 or ISO certification by showing your compliance score and telling what needs to be done. They provide templates and assist with setting up processes and policies that will get you to SOC2. This typically takes 4–6 months. I would suggest to go for ISO 42k1 instead of SOC2.
- aminekhd 5mo ago[flagged]
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- saluki 5mo agoSoc-2 Type 2 is a lot of work for solo-ent. and you might have issues meeting some of the compliance with only one employee there won't be checks and balances. We worked with a local firm and their fee was around $15k but there is ongoing verification. Also there is a process you have to follow moving forward that's probably the largest cost. I'm not sure SOC-2 is even valuable for most smaller apps. As it's compliance is more aligned for financial apps. It might be more valuable for you to have a security audit instead of SOC-2.
- DColna 5mo ago[flagged]
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