Series A B2B SaaS company, 80 employees, $5M ARR

The client is a B2B SaaS company providing workflow automation software to mid-market enterprises in financial services and healthcare. After a $6 million Series A, the company had grown to 80 employees and $5 million in annual recurring revenue, with a product roadmap accelerating toward features that would process and store sensitive customer data, including PII and financial records.

As leadership began preparing for a Series B raise, two pressures converged. Prospective investors conducting due diligence were increasingly sophisticated in their security evaluation, with several term sheets contingent on demonstrable security maturity. At the same time, enterprise customers in their target verticals were requiring SOC2 Type II certification as a prerequisite for contracts worth six and seven figures annually. Without a credible security program, growth was at risk from both the fundraising and revenue sides.

The company's security posture was typical of an early-stage startup: no dedicated security staff, no formal policies, no centralized endpoint management, shared admin credentials for production infrastructure, no vulnerability management program, and no incident response capability. The cloud infrastructure was reasonably well-configured thanks to a competent DevOps team, but there was no systematic approach to security across the organization.

I designed a comprehensive 90-day security program buildout to take the client from near-zero security maturity to a credible, auditable posture capable of satisfying investor due diligence and enterprise customer requirements.

Weeks 1-2, Assessment and Planning: I ran a rapid assessment of the existing environment, mapping all assets, systems, data flows, and current practices, and benchmarked the organization against NIST CSF and SOC2 Trust Service Criteria to establish a clear gap analysis. From there I built a prioritized implementation plan that balanced security impact against operational disruption for a fast-moving startup team.

Weeks 3-8, Foundation Implementation: I executed the core technical and organizational controls in parallel workstreams: endpoint protection across all corporate and development devices, identity and access management with enforced MFA, vulnerability scanning and patch management processes, and the start of a policy and documentation framework.

Weeks 9-12, Maturation and Validation: In the final phase I ran security awareness training for the entire organization, established incident response procedures, performed a validation penetration test to verify the effectiveness of implemented controls, and conducted an internal readiness assessment to confirm SOC2 audit preparedness.

Endpoint Protection and Device Management

The company had no visibility into the security posture of employee laptops. I deployed an endpoint detection and response platform across all 80 company-managed devices, implemented full-disk encryption enforcement, established automatic screen lock policies, and created a device inventory tracking hardware, software, and security compliance status for every managed endpoint. For a startup where employees frequently work from coffee shops and co-working spaces, endpoint protection was the highest-priority technical control.

Identity and Access Management

Access to production infrastructure, customer data, and internal tools was managed through a patchwork of individual credentials with no centralized control. I consolidated authentication into a single identity provider with enforced MFA for all users, implemented role-based access controls aligned to job function, eliminated shared credentials through a privileged access management solution, and established automated provisioning and deprovisioning tied to the HR onboarding and offboarding process.

Vulnerability Management

The engineering team had no systematic approach to identifying and remediating security vulnerabilities in their codebase or infrastructure. I implemented automated vulnerability scanning across the cloud infrastructure, container images, and open-source dependencies, established a triage process with defined severity classifications and remediation SLAs, integrated security findings into the existing Jira workflow so vulnerabilities were tracked alongside feature work, and ran an initial penetration test to catch what automated scanning would miss.

Incident Response Planning

With no incident response capability, a security incident would have thrown the organization into chaos. I developed a practical incident response plan tailored to the company's size and risk profile, defined clear roles and responsibilities, established communication templates and escalation procedures, and ran a tabletop exercise with the leadership team to validate the plan and build confidence in the organization's ability to respond effectively.

Security Awareness Training

Human error remains the leading cause of security incidents for organizations of all sizes. I implemented a security awareness training program with quarterly modules covering phishing recognition, password hygiene, data handling, social engineering, and incident reporting, plus simulated phishing campaigns to baseline susceptibility and measure improvement. Within two training cycles, click rates on simulated phishing emails dropped from 31% to under 5%.

Policy and Documentation

I created a streamlined policy framework appropriate for a startup, covering acceptable use, access control, change management, incident response, data classification, vendor management, and business continuity. Rather than producing shelf-ware no one would read, the policies were concise and actionable, designed to fit the company's existing documentation culture, and each was mapped to SOC2 Trust Service Criteria to ensure audit readiness.

Within 90 days, the client had transformed from an organization with virtually no security program to one with a mature, auditable security posture. The company achieved SOC2 readiness, passing its readiness assessment with no material findings, and successfully raised a $15 million Series B with security explicitly cited by the lead investor as a differentiating factor in the investment decision.

Kishin understood our reality as a startup. There was no attempt to sell us an enterprise security program we couldn't afford or maintain. We got exactly what we needed to win our Series B and close enterprise deals, without slowing down our product development. Security went from being our biggest weakness to one of our strongest selling points in enterprise sales conversations.

The security program has continued to mature post-engagement. The company has since hired its first dedicated security engineer, using the framework I established as a foundation. They completed their formal SOC2 Type II audit six months later with zero exceptions, and their enterprise pipeline has grown to over $4 million in qualified opportunities requiring security certification as a procurement prerequisite.