If you’re building software in legal, finance, or nonprofit sectors, you know compliance isn’t optional. SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA—these aren’t just checkboxes. They’re foundational to trust, credibility, and long-term success.
But here’s the mistake we see over and over again:
Teams overbuild for compliance before they even have a working product.
Instead of launching something lean and iterating based on usage, they get bogged down in DevOps complexity, infrastructure sprawl, and audit prep—before a single user has logged in.
At Telos, we take a more pragmatic approach. We help you build with compliance in mind, but not at the cost of momentum. That means starting with smart defaults that keep you safe and fast, while setting you up to meet regulatory standards when it actually matters.
You don’t need SOC2 before you have product-market fit
Let’s be clear: we’ve built software that passed SOC2 and GDPR audits. We know what’s required, and we bake best practices into our code from day one.
But unless your product is already in use at scale—or your customers require a compliance report just to sign a pilot—you don’t need to drop everything and start a 6-month audit process.
Compliance is not binary.
You don’t go from “non-compliant” to “compliant” in one leap. You build the foundation—then layer in controls, documentation, and monitoring tools as needed, without stopping the rest of the build.
We help you strike that balance. And we’ve seen it save clients hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in rework and unnecessary tooling.
We recommend Heroku over raw AWS—and we’re happy to explain why
One of the most common debates we encounter:
“Should we host this on AWS or Heroku?”
Many dev teams will default to AWS—because it sounds “enterprise” or because it offers endless customization. But we almost always recommend Heroku, especially in early stages. Why?
Because Heroku:
- Has built-in security practices and permissions that support compliance
- Handles patching, OS-level updates, and scaling for you
- Makes it easy to deploy and maintain code, without dedicated DevOps staff
- Integrates cleanly with popular monitoring and logging tools
Yes, there may come a day when AWS makes sense. But for most of our clients, that day is far after launch—if it comes at all. We don’t choose tools for prestige. We choose them to reduce complexity, accelerate shipping, and make your product easier to support.
Secure infrastructure is about choices—not certifications
You don’t need a framed certificate on day one. You need a platform that’s reliable, protected, and observable. That’s what real security means in practice:
- Auditable logs so you can trace issues when something goes wrong
- Granular access control so team members only touch what they need
- Monitoring and alerting so bugs and breaches don’t go unnoticed
- Dependency management that minimizes known vulnerabilities
These aren’t SOC2 requirements. They’re good engineering discipline. And we build them into everything we ship—because it’s the right thing to do, whether an auditor is watching or not.
We build for the audit you’ll need, not the one you don’t
We’ve helped clients prepare for formal audits and privacy reviews. We understand the documentation, processes, and architectural decisions that support a clean, passable report. But we also know that getting ahead of your compliance requirements too early can kill your timeline—and your momentum.
So we work backward from the reality of your business.
What do your clients expect?
What risks actually matter right now?
Where can we simplify and still stay safe?
That’s the core of our approach: compliance-aware development that respects your roadmap, your budget, and your users.
Want to stay secure without losing momentum?
You shouldn’t have to choose between a launch-ready product and a stable, secure one. We help teams build software that’s trustworthy and ship-ready—without detouring into a months-long compliance rabbit hole.
If you’re trying to move fast in a regulated environment, we’d love to show you how we’ve helped others do the same.
Build smart. Stay secure. Keep moving.
