Ask HN: How to be SOC2 Type 2 compliant as a solo-entreprenuer?

Post by _se » Fri, May 15, 2026, 6:49 PM UTC

frenkel wrote: post #55

crote wrote: post #36

I'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 mi…

We 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.

Post by apetresc » Fri, May 15, 2026, 6:51 PM UTC

gtech1 wrote: post #91

apimade wrote: post #43

I’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://cl…

Do you genuinely use em-dashes in your regular writing ? I'm just curious because whenever I type I simply press -

Post by secos » Fri, May 15, 2026, 7:04 PM UTC

parliament32 wrote: post #92

codegeek wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will add a few more things to this: - Document your data and security and share that with customers instead. You can say "We don't have SOC2 at the moment but here is all our security and data policy". It works 99% of the time for me. - Very few companies truly have policy to reject a vendor if they don't have SOC2. Those are usually large enterprise or companies in sensitive areas such as Finance/Healthcare etc. E…

> It works 99% of the time I would add the caveat "...as long as you have no competition." If you're in a market where alternatives exist, and they have the certification, you're definitely transparently losing sales. From the enterprise side, I can tell you vendor certification takes an order of magnitude more time/money/effort when the vendor says "we don't have cert X but here's a mountain of drivel you can paw th…

Post by ErrantX » Fri, May 15, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

tortilla wrote: post #102

jwr wrote: post #95

I 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 — t…

Same. 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 m…

Post by apimade » Fri, May 15, 2026, 8:02 PM UTC

gtech1 wrote: post #91

apimade wrote: post #43

I’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://cl…

Do you genuinely use em-dashes in your regular writing ? I'm just curious because whenever I type I simply press -