You Google “SOC 2” and you’re immediately hit with: - 100+ controls - Type I vs Type II - Trust Services Criteria - Tooling vs auditors vs consultants - The result is that many startups treat SOC 2 as a tooling problem.
They wait until a deal is blocked, then: - Sign up for Vanta or Drata - Hire a consultant - Try to “speedrun” compliance
What actually hurts them isn’t missing controls — it’s missing readiness. No clear asset inventory, no ownership, no risk model, no vendor tracking, no idea what evidence even exists yet.
By the time tools or auditors enter the picture, everything is reactive and expensive.
For those of you who’ve been through SOC 2: - What helped you most before the audit? - What do you wish you had done 3–6 months earlier? - Did you start with tools, docs, or internal processes first?
Genuinely curious how others approached this.
This process is hard because there is tension between ticking boxes and being effective. The most well meaning people will get caught in a box ticking exercise if a critical contract depends on it.
It doesn’t have to be this way, but if you want it to be easy, start before clients start asking. Focus on being effective and automated so that you don’t feel pressured to tick boxes.
On the knowledge gap: the gap assessment route works, but it's expensive upfront and still leaves you building the foundation afterward.
What I've been exploring is the step before the audit: getting teams organized enough that when they do engage a consultant or tool, they're not starting from zero, which would result in faster compliance.
I'm building a platform (Lumoar) focused exactly on this pre-audit organization phase, helping early-stage teams get structured before the compliance pressure hits.
Curious: in your experience, what's the biggest mistake teams make when they're under contract pressure to get SOC 2 done quickly?
Compliance can be a business enabler if done correctly or a burden if treated like a side project.