How We Helped Our Client Achieve SOC 2 and ISO 27001

A practical story of building trust, passing audits, and accelerating enterprise sales without slowing product delivery

Most startups don’t pursue SOC 2 or ISO 27001 because it sounds fun. They do it because the market forces the issue.

Enterprise buyers want to believe your product works. But before they sign, they ask tougher questions:

• Who has access to production?

• How do you handle incidents?

• Where is customer data stored and how is it protected?

• What happens when someone leaves the company?

• Can you prove your controls consistently, over time?

SOC 2 and ISO 27001 aren’t just compliance checkboxes. They’re trust infrastructure. And if you’re selling to serious customers, they become a growth lever.

This is the story of how we helped a fast-growing AI software company pass SOC 2 and achieve ISO 27001 - while continuing to ship product and support new enterprise deals.

The problem: “We need to be enterprise-ready, and we need it fast”

When you’re early-stage, security maturity often lags behind growth. Not because founders don’t care—because shipping and survival take priority.

But once enterprise conversations begin, the pressure changes overnight:

• Procurement requires security evidence, not promises

• InfoSec reviews block deals until controls are documented and operational

• Investors ask about risk posture and readiness

• One security incident can permanently damage momentum

The company we supported was scaling quickly, adding integrations and distribution channels, and onboarding larger customers. They needed to move from “startup security” to “enterprise-grade assurance” without freezing roadmap progress.

Our approach: build an audit-ready operating system, not just documents

Many teams treat SOC 2 and ISO 27001 as a paperwork project. That usually ends in stress, scope creep, and controls that exist only on paper.

We took a different approach: build a security program that is real, repeatable, and lightweight enough to live with.

We worked across four layers:

1. Governance: policies, ownership, and security management practices

2. Process: how work is done (access, changes, incidents, vendors, onboarding)

3. Technical controls: identity, logging, encryption, backups, monitoring, SDLC rigor

4. Evidence & audit execution: proving controls consistently and cleanly

The goal wasn’t just to “pass.” It was to become the kind of company that passes again next year—with less effort and more confidence.

Milestone timeline (what it actually looked like)

Phase 1 — Readiness assessment and scoping

We started by defining what mattered most:

• What systems are in scope? (cloud accounts, databases, CI/CD, monitoring, vendors)

• What products and environments require controls?

• What evidence can we already produce, and what’s missing?

• What’s the fastest path to compliance without risky shortcuts?

Outcome: a clear, realistic plan with ownership, timelines, and priorities—so compliance didn’t become an endless side quest.

Phase 2 — Building the baseline security foundation

This is where most of the real work lives. We helped implement the minimum set of controls that create maximum trust:

• Strong identity and access management (least privilege, MFA, role separation)

• Secure onboarding/offboarding and access reviews

• Change management tied to CI/CD and approvals

• Centralized logging and monitoring with alerting paths

• Backup strategy, retention, and restore testing

• Asset inventory and vendor risk management

• Incident response plan, runbooks, and rehearsal

• Documentation that matches reality (not “template compliance”)

Outcome: controls that actually worked day-to-day—so audits became verification, not improvisation.

Phase 3 — Secure SDLC: making engineering audit-proof without slowing it down

Auditors and enterprise customers care deeply about how software changes reach production.

We strengthened the development lifecycle with practical guardrails:

• Branch protections, review rules, and required checks

• Clear environments (dev/stage/prod) with controlled promotion

• Automated tests and dependency scanning where appropriate

• Secrets management and key rotation practices

• Traceable releases, rollback procedures, and incident linkage

Outcome: a delivery process that stayed fast, but became more predictable and defensible.

Phase 4 — Evidence generation and audit support

Even strong controls fail audits if evidence is messy.

We helped the team operationalize evidence collection:

• Defined evidence “sources of truth” (systems, logs, tickets, reports)

• Standardized artifacts and cadence (monthly/quarterly checks)

• Built simple checklists so evidence collection became routine

• Supported Q&A with auditors and clarified control intent where needed

Outcome: reduced audit friction, fewer surprises, and a smoother path through the assessment.

Phase 5 — Certification outcomes and business impact

The result wasn’t just a badge.

SOC 2 and ISO 27001 helped the company:

• shorten enterprise sales cycles

• reduce InfoSec back-and-forth

• improve buyer confidence in procurement

• strengthen risk posture for scaling operations

• present a more credible posture in fundraising and diligence conversations

Outcome: compliance became a commercial accelerator—because trust is a conversion rate multiplier in enterprise.

What we handled end-to-end (so the team could keep building)

We typically support certification work across:

• security program structure and ownership model

• policy creation and right-sizing (no “binder shelfware”)

• technical control implementation across cloud and application layers

• SDLC and change management alignment

• incident response readiness

• vendor and asset governance

• audit preparation, evidence mapping, and audit support

All while keeping product teams focused on shipping.

What founders should take away

If you’re selling to enterprise, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 are not purely compliance. They are part of your go-to-market strategy.

The key is to avoid two common mistakes:

1. Delaying too long until enterprise deals are blocked and you’re forced into panic mode

2. Overbuilding controls that slow engineering and create resentment internally

A good approach is pragmatic:

• implement what materially reduces risk

• operationalize evidence so audits become routine

• build security into delivery, not around it

That’s how you stay fast and become enterprise-ready at the same time.

Want to achieve SOC 2 and ISO 27001 without freezing your roadmap?

If you’re a founder preparing for enterprise growth, we can help you implement SOC 2 and ISO 27001 in a way that is:

• practical (not bureaucracy)

• auditable (evidence-ready)

• scalable (works as your team grows)

• aligned with delivery velocity (doesn’t stop shipping)

Contact us at info@svlcode.com to discuss your current posture and the fastest path to certification with no disruption