Context: I’m working on a compliance preparation tool for early-stage startups, and I’ve spoken with many teams going through SOC 2 / ISO 27001. I’m posting here to sanity-check my understanding and learn what others found most painful before the audit. Most teams don’t delay SOC 2 because they don’t care about security or because customers aren’t asking. They delay because it’s extremely unclear how to start.

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.