
SOC 2 Made Easy for Startups
ConstellationGRC specializes in providing audits for high growth tech companies. We understand what’s important to early stage companies: speed, simplicity, and cost.

The Painless SOC 2 for Startups
Compliance can be a complex hurdle, particularly for startups operating with tight resources. That’s where we come in! We provide tailored solutions to help you build a robust compliance framework that adapts as your business grows. By guiding you through every stage of the process, we make assessments straightforward and hassle-free. We combine deep expertise with unmatched flexibility to streamline your compliance journey and position your organization for long-term success.
Why Startups Should Start With a SOC 2
Identify and Mitigate Risk
SOC 2 controls serve as a security roadmap. The SOC 2 process helps organizations mitigate risks such as data breaches, unauthorized access, insider threats, and service disruptions, through highlighting and prescribing ways to address control deficiencies.
Stakeholder Confidence
SOC 2 reports assure your stakeholders that your organization has implemented meaningful controls to secure your systems, processes, and confidential information. This demonstrates that your organization can be trusted with sensitive information.
Tailored Security Policies
SOC 2 attestations are highly customizable and allow you to design a security framework that fits your unique business model and industry needs. Whether you’re using a cloud-only infrastructure or handling data in innovative ways, SOC 2 adjusts to your setup.
Competitive Advantage
A good SOC 2 report showcases your organization's commitment to data security and integrity, providing a competitive advantage and building trust with clients, partners, and regulators. Increasingly SOC 2 is becoming "table stakes," particularly for SaaS companies.
Ready to Learn More?
Our experts can answer any questions you may have about how your organization can achieve a great SOC 2 report that will help your organization earn trust and business.
Your Questions,
Our Expertise
Type II examinations are much more respected than Type I, because they provide assurance that an organization's controls have actually operated effectively over a period of time. Thus, it's rare for organizations to only get a Type I report. Instead, Type I's serve as a stop-gap since they can be issued within weeks, rather than months. They also serve as an opportunity to ensure all controls are in place and well designed before initiating a several months long Type II observation period.
While SOC 2 Type II reports carry a bit more weight with longer observation periods, most organizations initially pursue a 3-month observation window so that they can have a SOC 2 report ready as soon as possible. After the first report, organizations can opt to continue pursuing 3-month observation windows each year, or to strengthen their reports by pursuing longer observation periods.
The key is to focus on what assurance your clients are looking for in your SOC 2 report (see below for descriptions of each TSC and the sorts of organizations they typically apply to). If clients simply ask for a SOC 2 and you don't expect that they're concerned with any criteria apart from the default, Security, a common strategy is to simply pursue the Security TSC for the first year. Then if any client requests to see additional TSC's, you can offer your previous SOC 2 report as a stop-gap and assure them that you'll add the additional TSC's to the next report.
The Availability criterion ensures that systems are operational and accessible as outlined in service-level agreements (SLAs). This is particularly critical for cloud service providers, SaaS companies, and other organizations offering uptime-dependent services. Relevant controls include system performance monitoring, capacity planning, disaster recovery and business continuity plans, backup procedures, and incident management to minimize downtime.
The Confidentiality criterion is aimed at protecting sensitive information, such as trade secrets or personal data, from unauthorized disclosure. It is particularly relevant for industries such as legal, healthcare, and other sectors that manage proprietary or confidential client information. Key controls include data classification, encryption, secure file transfer mechanisms, restricted access to sensitive information, and employee training on data handling.
The Privacy criterion ensures that personal information is collected, used, retained, and disposed of in compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR or CCPA. This criterion is vital for organizations handling personal data, including e-commerce platforms, healthcare providers, and social media companies. Controls include mechanisms for obtaining consent, managing data subject rights (e.g., access, correction, and deletion requests), secure storage and disposal of personal information, and conducting privacy impact assessments.
Because SOC 2's are flexible in which controls you select and how you satisfy them, there's little "going out of your way just to check the box." Generally your organization should implement these controls even if you weren't getting a SOC 2 report, for the sake of securing your information and systems.
Your audit team is not your adversary but, rather, a partner that actually wants you to end up with an accurate, but impressive, SOC 2 report that will help you win business with your clients. With Type I reports, we can simply guide you on how to implement effective controls and with Type II reports we work to identify potential issues before auditors begin the observation period. We can also recommend alternative controls or forms of evidence.
