A stage-based roadmap helps software-as-a-service (SaaS) leaders protect runway while preparing for larger customers. Excalidraw+’s foundational controls, Sekoia’s customer-driven compliance work and Radar Healthcare’s certification experience illustrate how priorities shift from technical safeguards to repeatable processes and independent assurance.

Seed Stage: Build Security Into the Product Foundation

Companies should prioritize setting up encryption, activating multi-factor authentication (MFA) and preparing for System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 reporting. These can help protect sensitive information while laying the foundation for future customer assessments.

The team behind Excalidraw+ pursued SOC 2 reporting to simplify recurring customer security questionnaires. It connected its cloud and development services to a compliance platform that gave the company a consolidated view of MFA status and access permissions.

Its workstation policies required disk encryption, screen locks and password managers. The team limited production access to the technical co-founders and routed routine changes through an automated pipeline that suited smaller businesses. Developers also used a secrets manager to retrieve only development credentials and keep environment keys out of the codebase.

Excalidraw+ tracked manually collected compliance evidence in an internal dashboard and tailored policies to its remote operations before completing SOC 2 examinations. For founders, the practical lesson is to build security checks into development workflows and record how they operate, so future assessments can draw on established practices.

Growth Stage: Formalize Controls as Customers and Regulations Expand

Growth-stage companies should replace informal routines with repeatable, auditable practices covering incident response plans, access reviews, vendor assessments and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) controls.

PCI DSS sets technical and operational requirements for protecting payment card data and the systems that store, process or transmit it. IT teams should establish which services and supplier dependencies fall within scope before budgeting for an assessment.

For Sekoia, a SaaS security operations center platform provider, a customer’s compliance obligations prompted a larger investment. A card-processing client needed a monitoring partner meeting PCI DSS before expanding the relationship. Sekoia opened a new cloud region with stronger security and compliance provisions and consolidated evidence for reuse across frameworks.

Its roughly two-year effort showed that formalizing existing practices required fully recording procedures and assigning owners, even where technical measures were already sound. Teams at this stage budgeted staff hours to record workflows and clarify responsibilities alongside infrastructure upgrades.

Incident response plans can identify escalation contacts, decision-makers and recovery steps. Regular access reviews confirm that permissions still match job responsibilities and flag privileges for removal. Before approving new vendors, teams should assess the data each service will handle, any available security evidence and any risks requiring additional controls.

Enterprise Stage: Use Independent Certification to Win and Retain Large Deals

Enterprise-stage companies should strengthen internal audits, staff accountability and oversight across management systems to support independent certification and enterprise procurement. NQA, an accredited certification body, worked with a healthcare quality and compliance platform that transferred its existing ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certifications in 2023. That company, Radar Healthcare, brought the two standards together to reduce duplicated work across internal processes and external assessments.

ISO 9001 sets requirements for a quality management system focused on consistent service delivery and customer satisfaction. ISO 27001 addresses information security through a risk-based framework for protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data.

After transferring its existing certifications to NQA, Radar Healthcare prepared for its ISO 27001:2022 transition assessment. Employees reviewed relevant procedures and supporting documented information, and some also completed auditor training to improve their ability to conduct internal evaluations.

NQA conducted the transition audit, and Radar Healthcare completed the update later that year. The reported outcome was more efficient operations and audit procedures, as well as access to previously unavailable commercial opportunities. For SaaS leaders, the takeaway is to invest in in-house expertise and coordinate related standards before seeking external verification, so the review can build on established routines and informed employees.

Choosing an ISO 27001 Certification Body for SaaS Providers

For SaaS providers, the best-fit certification body combines appropriate accreditation with an assessment approach suited to their operations.

NQA’s work provides a practical basis for evaluating prospective auditors:

• Accreditation: SaaS and cloud providers should verify a certification body’s current status directly with its accreditor before considering other factors. ISO 27001 certification often supports enterprise procurement, security questionnaire and vendor risk management requirements, so the auditor’s accreditation should be clear and current.
• SaaS scope and shared responsibilities: The selected auditor should have experience assessing cloud-based platforms, software development environments and shared responsibility models. The certification scope should reflect how the provider designs, develops, maintains and manages its platform, as well as how hosting arrangements and supplier dependencies affect the information security management system.
• Integrated audit support: SaaS companies pursuing multiple standards should identify which activities can cover more than one framework and which require separate assessments. For example, Radar Healthcare integrated ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 management systems to reduce duplicated work across internal processes and external audits. A similar approach can help SaaS teams limit repeated preparation as they add certifications to meet customer, regulatory or market requirements.

Readiness should also guide scheduling. NQA requires a management system to be operational for at least three months, a completed management review and a full internal audit cycle. Leaders should build these prerequisites into the project plan before committing to an assessment date.

Turning Security Into a Competitive Advantage

The next commercial milestone should guide security spending. Seed-stage safeguards prepare the product for customer scrutiny, growth-stage processes make commitments repeatable and auditable and enterprise certification such as ISO 27001 provides independent evidence for procurement.

Before approving another tool or assessment, SaaS leaders should identify which buyer requirement it addresses and whether the team can sustain the work. The priority is to remove the next barrier to a sale or renewal while preserving resources for product development and future expansion.