How This Stealth Startup Achieved SOC 2 on Half a Headcount

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Second-time founder Nikolas Huebecker had moved his stealth startup to Rippling Automated Compliance to get SOC 2 ready.

Rippling includes the first-party products and data needed for SOC 2, so the majority of evidence was collected on day one. Because his startup already used Rippling to manage people, access, and devices, the foundational data was already surfaced.. And when Rippling flagged something was out of compliance, he was already in the right system to fix it. 

Where a traditional GRC tool would have required integrating dozens of third-party systems, Rippling only needed three. Where a traditional GRC tool would require him to go back and forth between that tool and other systems to actually fix issues, in Rippling the detection and the remediation live in the same place.

The first try: A SOC 2 report gone wrong

"Even to just get in the door and spend time with enterprise companies, having some level of compliance or security review was required," Nikolas said. "So one of the first projects we worked on once we started onboarding employees was getting a SOC 2 report."

Like most early-stage founders, Nikolas's first instinct was to move fast. His team signed up with an AI-first compliance platform that promised speed. 

"Super early on, we wanted to check the box, and it was really easy to just pay for the box to be checked. You connect some integrations, take a few surveys, and basically get a SOC 2 report."

But as the company started selling to enterprise customers, it became clear that not all SOC 2 reports are created equal. The platform they used abstracted away the details of its policies, controls, and evidence. They were left knowing little about the actual compliance process. They didn’t know who their auditors were, or whether the auditors came from a third-party independent firm.

"We started sitting down and looking at the policies we were agreeing to and the controls we'd have to maintain over the entire life of the company.

Why Rippling: Compliance data already lives here

For Nikolas, most of the data required for their SOC 2 audit was already in Rippling's payroll, HR, and IT systems.

"We already had all our employees in there. They'd already signed documents and done security trainings. They already had devices that were encrypted."

This is the critical difference between Rippling and a traditional GRC tool. A GRC tool is a reporting layer—it shows you what's missing and points you back to the 20 other tools where you need to fix it. Rippling is the system of record. The employees are there. The devices are there. The documents and access controls are there. So when you go to prepare for your SOC 2 audit, you're not starting from scratch. You're confirming what already exists.

Why it’s different: detection and remediation in one place

When Nikolas was preparing for their SOC 2 audit, Rippling flagged that his co-founder's laptop didn’t have firewall enabled.

"His laptop had never been set up for MDM and the firewall had never been turned on. What normally would have been a slack message where I ask him to go manually fix it. And then this might have happened with a dozen other employees down the line. Instead, I clicked on the alert in Rippling, applied a firewall policy to all devices—and his laptop restarted with the firewall enabled. Now his device is compliant, and every future device will have the same default settings."

He paused. "If you had asked me three months ago what I'd be most excited about, I don't think my answer would've been that someone's laptop restarted because of a firewall issue. But that's probably one of my highlights."

On a traditional GRC platform, the same issue would have required tracking down the third-party MDM tool, assigning a ticket to someone, fixing the problem in that tool, then coming back 48 hours later to see if it’s fixed. On Rippling: one click to the fix.

The results: SOC 2-ready in weeks

On a four-person team, Nikolas dedicated one engineer to the compliance buildout at roughly half-time. In a few focused weeks, they had a clean foundation for a SOC 2 Type 2 audit.

• 3 third-party integrations required vs. an estimated 20–30 on a traditional GRC tool

• ~20–30 hours saved on integration setup alone—roughly a full week of engineering time

• 0.5 FTE over a few weeks to achieve SOC 2 readiness, not a dedicated hire or a specialized team

Unlike Nikloas’ prior experience with their prior SOC 2 platform, Rippling’s audit process was transparent and focused on auditor independence. Rippling introduced Nikolas to a CPA firm who was able to sample data, ask for follow-up evidence, and complete the audit independently within a few weeks.

"With Rippling, we've had a very hands-on experience with our auditor. We know what's going on and exactly what they’re requesting from us—versus platforms where you don’t even know who your auditor is, which is a little crazy."

Sales momentum: Security questionnaires are a breeze

Selling software to mature companies with thousands of employees means having a SOC 2 report is not simply a formality; it’s often a requirement to get through the procurement process.

"As a team of four, being able to punch above our weight is super important. We get to act and feel confident like we are a much bigger company than we actually are."

Nikloas can now share their SOC 2 report with prospects as a trust building exercise instead of going through onerous security questionnaires or lengthy contract reviews..

"Our prospects no longer have to ask us a ton of questions. They're reviewing our SOC 2 report from an audit that's already happened. So it turns a list of 20 questions into a list of like two."

Built to Scale: The same compliance overhead at 4 people or 300

When a new hire joins, Rippling automatically queues required tasks: sign compliance policies, take the security training, set up your encrypted device, and more. All monitored, all tracked, with evidence that’s auto-collected.

When someone moves between departments, access required for their old role is automatically revoked—and necessary access to new apps and groups is provisioned. No checklist. No email thread. No manual screenshots.

"Instead of having a ton of checklists laying around, now we can say: 'It’s set up in Rippling, we know it's going to happen.'”

Today, that's four devices. In a year, it might be 50. In two years, 300. Nikolas isn't worried about the scale, because each Rippling product is now compliant by default.

"The goal is that our team never spends more resources on compliance than we currently do. I can imagine a world where we're 300 people and maybe one or two people are still thinking about this—instead of a whole dedicated compliance team."

As for the engineer who got them compliant in his free time?

"He's going back to spending time with customers and writing more code, which is great. And I feel confident that we could not open the Automated Compliance product in Rippling for the next 12 months, and still be ready for our audit next year. Everything is set up. As long as we continue doing what we're doing, it just works."

The Bigger Picture: trust is a product mindset

Nikolas thinks about compliance the way he thinks about hospitality—a word he uses deliberately.

"We touch some of the most important data our customers have. You wouldn't go to a restaurant where someone is unsure about cooking. You wouldn't give all your company data to a company who's unsure if they're going to be secure about it. So we have to be sure of ourselves first—and then make it easy to prove."

The audit, he's quick to note, isn't the point.

"The fact that we have an audit that's complete isn't actually the exciting part to me. It's more the fact that we have systems in place that are going to scale and be consistent over the next one, three, five years. The audit is great. But the fact that we know—and trust ourselves—is what's super exciting."