You have been selling to small businesses and mid-market companies. Now you have an enterprise prospect with 5,000 employees and a $200K ACV deal on the table. There is just one catch: their security team sent you a 300-question security assessment, and you have answers for maybe 40 of them.
This is the moment every SaaS startup faces. Here is the checklist you need to complete before you can confidently sell to enterprise customers.
Authentication and access control
- SSO support (SAML 2.0 and/or OIDC). Enterprise customers require SSO. They will not create individual username/password accounts. Implement SAML 2.0 integration with Okta, Azure AD, and Google Workspace at minimum.
- Role-based access control (RBAC). Your application needs granular permissions, not just "admin" and "user." Enterprise customers need to control who can view, edit, delete, and export data.
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA). Support TOTP-based MFA at minimum. Bonus points for WebAuthn/FIDO2 support.
- Session management. Configurable session timeouts, forced logout on password change, and the ability to view and terminate active sessions.
Data security
- Encryption at rest. All customer data must be encrypted at rest using AES-256 or equivalent. Use your cloud provider's native encryption (AWS KMS, Google Cloud KMS) for the easiest implementation.
- Encryption in transit. TLS 1.2 minimum, TLS 1.3 preferred. No mixed content. HSTS enabled.
- Data residency. Can you guarantee where customer data is stored? Enterprise customers, especially in regulated industries, need data to stay within specific geographic boundaries.
- Data retention and deletion. You need a documented process for how long you retain data and how you delete it when a customer churns. Include a data processing agreement (DPA) in your contract.
Infrastructure security
- Network segmentation. Your production environment should be in a separate VPC/network from development and staging. No developer should be able to access production data from their laptop.
- Vulnerability management. Regular scanning of your application (DAST), your code (SAST), and your dependencies (SCA). Have a process for patching critical vulnerabilities within 24 hours.
- Incident response plan. Documented, tested, and with defined SLAs for notification. Enterprise customers typically require notification within 24 to 72 hours of a confirmed breach.
- Backup and recovery. Automated backups, tested restore procedures, and a documented RTO/RPO. Your customers will ask about this.
Compliance
- SOC 2 Type II report. This is the baseline. Start with Type I if you do not have it yet, but plan for Type II within 12 months.
- Penetration testing. Annual third-party pen tests with remediation evidence. Enterprise security teams will ask for the executive summary.
- Vendor management. Document your third-party vendors, their security posture, and how you evaluate them. Enterprise customers want to know who has access to their data downstream.
Operational readiness
- SLA with uptime guarantees. 99.9% is table stakes. Define what happens when you miss it (service credits, escalation procedures).
- Audit logging. Every user action should be logged with who, what, when, and from where. Enterprise customers need this for their own compliance requirements.
- A dedicated security page. Create a /security page on your website that outlines your security practices, certifications, and how to report vulnerabilities. This saves you time answering the same questions repeatedly.
How to prioritize
You do not need all of this on day one. Prioritize based on what your specific enterprise prospect requires. SSO and SOC 2 are almost always non-negotiable. Encryption and access controls come next. Audit logging and advanced compliance can come later if needed.
The key is to start early. Every item on this list takes time to implement properly. If you wait until an enterprise deal is in the pipeline, you will be scrambling to build in weeks what should have been built over months.
Need help getting enterprise-ready? Check out our security and compliance services or book a call.