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When you’re building a startup, it’s easy to push something like compliance all the way to the back of the queue. You’re focused on much more important things like market-fit, developing or implementing features, closing your first deals with customers, or even going for your very first investment round. So unless a customer or investor explicitly demands it, compliance often becomes a “we’ll deal with it later” problem.
The issue with this approach? “Later” has a habit of arriving very suddenly, and with a large bill attached.
The Cost of Waiting
Compliance might seem like an unnecessary distraction when you’re still small, but leaving it too late can slow you down when it matters most. It happens time and time again; a promising startup hits their stride, either successfully engaging with investors, or perhaps securing their first client, until they’re suddenly asked for evidence of their compliance, or proof that they’re secure enough to handle sensitive data - and they can’t provide any.
And due to the nature of startups, and the resource drain of compliance, this often leads to:
- Deals being delayed, or lost entirely, because the right controls aren’t in place.
- Development time being diverted to plug gaps, write policies under pressure, or even start their compliance from scratch.
- Security risks piling up unnoticed, just waiting to become full-blown incidents.
Just one of these impacts can cripple a small team, jeopardising all of your hard work, so even if your customers aren’t asking for compliance now, it’s almost guaranteed that they likely will in future, especially if you’re selling to, or working within, sectors such as finance, health, legal, or with the Government.
Compliance aiding growth
Compliance shows your customers, partners, and investors that you take security seriously and are ready to grow responsibly. Compliance can:
- Help you pass procurement reviews faster
- Differentiate you from competitors who aren't as prepared
- Make due diligence during funding rounds smoother
- Increase your chances of landing partnerships with larger companies
Many startups often think of compliance as a barrier. In reality, it’s often the exact opposite, as long as it’s approached in the right way.
It’s Easier Than It Used to Be
Only a few years ago, achieving a simple standard like Cyber Essentials, or aligning with the NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework requirements, may have taken months of work, with more complex standards such as ISO 27001 and SOC 2 nearly out of the question due the sheer amount of work required. The dedication and resources required make these standards often unachievable in the eyes of many startups, but there is a better way.
Modern compliance platforms will actually handle a lot of the legwork for you:
- Mapping your systems and controls to required frameworks
- Generating policies and documentation
- Monitoring your overall compliance continuously in the background
That means that early-stage, resource-limited startups can now build a strong, evidencable security approach, without additional hires or pausing product development/commercialisation.
Culture Starts Early
It’s important to understand that compliance isn’t just about ticking off controls in the moment, it’s about how your team operates day-to-day. And the earlier you bake compliant practices into your culture, the easier it is to scale.
Founders who make things like multi-factor authentication, secure coding practices, or regular risk assessments the norm from day one don’t just pass audits faster, they significantly reduce their chances of a major breach down the line. It also makes it much easier to train new hires and manage risk as the team grows.
This step is especially critical for startups, as secure practices from day one align with what investors look for when deciding on their next investment, helping smooth due diligence conversations significantly.
Where to Start
By its very nature, compliance is incredibly technical, complex, and inaccessible to most unless you have prior experience with cybersecurity. While many software solutions and platforms make it easier to manage, they won’t actually do the technical work for you, often leaving you waist deep in vague security controls that you will need to somehow interpret, and then implement into your business.
This is where OneClickComply can help. OneClickComply is a platform that automates all the technical work required for cybersecurity compliance, automatically scanning your environments (such as Microsoft 365, AWS, Azure, and Google Workspace), detects any gaps or pre-configurations, then allows you to instantly complete the required work in a single click. Our platform is incredibly valuable for small businesses and startups looking for a simple, accessible solution to their compliance needs.
The platform also continuously monitors your compliance, alerting you of any changes, and allowing you to resolve the issue in a single click. Alongside these features, OneClickComply can also automatically generate over 30 policies related to compliance, matching them to your implemented security controls, reducing the tedious manual work often associated with compliance and policy writing.
Using a tool such as OneClickComply, businesses can easily achieve their compliance goals without sacrificing on development time or commercial traction, enabling continued growth, evidencable security, and peace of mind for both the team and any investors or partners.
Final Thoughts
While compliance might not be the most exciting part of running a startup, it's undoubtably one of the smartest moves you can make early on. By setting a foundation of security, and using the right tools that does the heavy lifting, compliance can be a lot less painful than you’d think.
So even if no one's asking for it yet, getting ahead of the curve is never a bad thing. Your future self will thank you for it.
If you would like to learn more about OneClickComply, and how you can automate your compliance journey, you can use the link below to access our website and book a short demonstration with a member of our team!
Navigating cyber security compliance can be difficult, long and costly. With OneClickComply we automate all of the technical work needed to get compliant and stay compliant.
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