In partnership with

Compliance as a Growth Strategy

Turn trust into shorter sales cycles, better terms, and bigger deals

The fastest way to speed up enterprise sales isn’t another feature. It’s proof of trust. Founders don’t lose deals because they move too slowly on features. They lose them because buyers can’t verify trust. Enterprise prospects want to know how you protect data, manage risk, and keep services reliable. When compliance is built into the product story, those questions become easy to answer, security reviews move faster, and doors that were “later” become “this quarter.”

Early Compliance

Think of compliance as scaffolding that lets you build higher, not a brake that makes you slower. Start light, make it real, and build on it as you scale.

• SOC 2 to clear vendor screens and RFP gate checks.

• HIPAA readiness if you touch health data as a covered entity or business associate.

• ISO 27001 certification so policies and ownership grow with the business.

Measurable ROI

Early compliance doesn’t slow you down; it removes friction you’re already feeling.

• Faster security reviews with a tidy evidence folder instead of a Slack scramble.

• Bigger doors open when prospects require SOC 2 or HIPAA proof.

• Better partner terms with fewer exceptions and less legal drag.

• Board and investor confidence because discipline signals durability.

Build Once, Reuse Everywhere

Good controls are portable. The same inventory, logging, vendor reviews, and training that support a SOC 2 report also strengthen HIPAA posture and align to ISO 27001. When AI enters the stack, you extend those habits to model access, data minimization, and output monitoring. Compliance stops being a series of one-off projects and becomes an operating habit that compounds.

A 30-day Starter Plan

Make tangible progress without derailing your roadmap.

• Stand up an asset and vendor inventory with owners and data classifications.

• Enforce SSO and MFA on production and admin tools.

• Turn on system and access logging; test backups and restores.

• Publish a one-page customer-facing security overview and prep an evidence folder.

• Run role-based micro-training for engineers, operators, and support.

VRC: Your Compliance Partner

VanRein Compliance plugs in as your fractional compliance team, tailored to your stage. We align your roadmap, draft lean policies that match how you work to prepare your compliance program, and centralize artifacts and proofs in VRC1 so your next RFP feels routine, not heroic.

Compliance isn’t a tax on growth. It is how you convert intent into trust, and trust into revenue. Build it early, keep it lightweight, and let the proof do the talking.

👉 Schedule your Compliance Call today and start identifying your risks, align your controls, and show your customers that your compliance aligns with your growth.

New Braunfels Business Expo
📍 New Braunfels Civic/Convention Center, TX
📅 Tuesday, September 9
Day Show: 10:30 AM–4:00 PM • Evening Show: 5:30–8:00 PM

ASTAA Conference
📍 Hilton Baltimore, MD
📅 Tuesday-Thursday, September 16–18

ChiroFEST
📍 Hilton Vancouver, WA
📅 Friday-Saturday, September 19–20

👋 Come Visit the VRC Booth!

How 433 Investors Unlocked 400X Return Potential

Institutional investors back startups to unlock outsized returns. Regular investors have to wait. But not anymore. Thanks to regulatory updates, some companies are doing things differently.

Take Revolut. In 2016, 433 regular people invested an average of $2,730. Today? They got a 400X buyout offer from the company, as Revolut’s valuation increased 89,900% in the same timeframe.

No wonder 10K+ everyday people are taking the chance on Pacaso.

Founded by a former Zillow exec, Pacaso’s co-ownership tech reshapes the $1.3T vacation home market. They’ve earned $110M+ in gross profit to date, including 41% YoY growth in 2024 alone. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.

The same institutional investors behind Uber, Venmo, and eBay backed Pacaso. And you can join them. But not for long. Pacaso’s investment opportunity ends September 18.

Invest While You Still Can

_{Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.}

The Cost of Waiting

Compliance debt compounds like tech debt—until it blocks the deal

Putting off compliance feels harmless until the first enterprise prospect asks for a SOC 2 report, the partner demands a HIPAA stance, or a security questionnaire lands in the inbox. What could have been a steady, low-friction setup becomes a scramble that siphons engineering time, introduces risk, and slows revenue. The cost isn’t just the audit invoice—it’s the opportunity you miss while you retrofit controls under pressure.

Cost of Delays

A short list of the pain founders and operators feel when “later” arrives:

• Lost and delayed deals: procurement stalls or disqualifies you when there’s no SOC 2 Type 1, no HIPAA evidence, or no documented security program.

• Emergency retrofits: rushed MFA rollouts, log enablement, and policy backfills that create noise and burnout.

• Engineering context switching: weeks of screenshots, ticket archaeology, and ad-hoc fixes instead of product work.

• Price concessions and harsher terms: buyers trade risk for discounts, DPAs get heavier, and exceptions pile up.

• Leadership drag: board and investor cycles shift from strategy to damage control.

Penalties for Non-Compliance

• In a 2023 SEC recordkeeping probe, multiple banks paid a combined $289M in fines over messaging retention failures.

• Meta (Facebook) was hit with a $1.3B GDPR fine for unlawful EU-US data transfers—still one of the largest privacy penalties on record.

• Morgan Stanley paid $35M after decommissioned devices with unencrypted PII were improperly disposed of by a vendor.

• Following a breach affecting 79M people, Anthem paid $16M in penalties and incurred roughly $260M in related costs (notifications, credit monitoring, security upgrades).

No Quick Fix

Teams often hope to “knock this out in a few weeks.” In reality, a retroactive push typically looks like:

• Month 1: scramble to inventory assets and vendors, write policies, turn on logs, and clean up access.

• Month 2: evidence gathering, gaps discovered (backups, change tracking, vendor docs), redo work for consistency.

• Month 3+: pen test scheduling, remediation, and customer-safe summaries; RFPs resurface asking for fresh evidence.

A planned runway—started earlier—spreads the same work over routine sprints, prevents rework, and keeps product momentum intact.

Early Signals to Look for

Watch for these cues and act before the crunch:

• Security questionnaires take >2 days and require cross-company fire drills.

• No single owner for asset inventory, vendor list, and evidence folder.

• MFA/SSO not enforced on admin and production tools.

• Policies exist, but don’t match how you ship (or no one can find them).

• Prospects ask for SOC 2/HIPAA proof, and the team answers with promises, not artifacts.

Catch Up Without Stalling Growth

If you’re already feeling the squeeze, keep the recovery focused and visible:

• Establish a single owner and a simple 90-day plan with weekly check-ins.

• Stand up a customer-safe security overview and begin an evidence folder today.

• Enforce SSO/MFA, enable system and access logging, and test backups—highest return, lowest friction.

• Normalize vendor diligence: document data flows, retention, and “no training on customer data” commitments.

• Run role-based micro-training for dev, ops, and customer teams to eliminate repeat mistakes.

VRC Prevents the Scramble

VanRein Compliance helps startups avoid “later tax” with fractional leadership and right-sized programs:

• Fast SOC 2 Type 1 runway, then a clear path to Type 2

• HIPAA readiness with a clean, confident story (no PHI in dev, BAA stance, breach process)

• ISO 27001 starter ISMS that scales without bureaucracy

• Templates and evidence kits mapped to what buyers and auditors actually request

• VRC1 workspace to centralize artifacts, tasks, and reviews so the next RFP feels routine

Waiting replaces a manageable lift with a costly sprint. Start now, keep it lightweight, and let proof—not promises—move deals forward.

📣 Ready to turn compliance from blocker to growth lever? Schedule your Startup Compliance Call today.

Business news as it should be.

Join 4M+ professionals who start their day with Morning Brew—the free newsletter that makes business news quick, clear, and actually enjoyable.

Each morning, it breaks down the biggest stories in business, tech, and finance with a touch of wit to keep things smart and interesting.

Try it yourself (for free)