Security for startups
Security work rarely arrives on a startup's schedule. A customer sends a questionnaire during a deal. An investor asks for evidence during diligence. A new feature raises questions a week before launch.
Digital Consulting, Inc. helps software and AI companies handle those moments without turning a first engagement into an open-ended consulting project.
- Built for
- B2B software and AI companies with no full-time security lead.
- Engagement model
- Fixed-fee starting projects, and monthly fractional leadership.
Already have a deadline? Contact us to discuss.
Fixed-scope starting points
Every engagement is scoped in writing before work begins. The scope names the work included, what you receive at the end, and what will still be outstanding when the project closes. Each one draws on our services, cut to the size of a first engagement.
A customer has sent a security questionnaire and expects a defensible response.
Customer security questionnaire sprint
We work through the questionnaire with your team, find the evidence behind each answer, and flag anything that should not be represented as complete. Most of our experience is from the answering side of enterprise security reviews, at companies whose customers ran exactly this process on them.
Customers often come back with follow-up questions: how tenants are isolated, how authentication and session handling work, whether the API authorizes each object and not just each endpoint, and who can reach production. If those are holding up the deal, we can include them in the scope.
- You receive
- The completed questionnaire, a reusable answer library, an evidence index, and a short list of gaps likely to matter in the next customer review.
You want to know where the company stands before a customer, an auditor, or an investor asks.
Security baseline and roadmap
We focus on the practices that matter for your product, your data, and what you plan to ship next. You get a short list ordered by urgency instead of a maturity score, so it is clear what needs attention now and what can wait. If a customer or an auditor is the reason the review is happening, SOC 2 or ISO/IEC 27001 can structure it. Findings are still prioritized against your own systems and commitments.
- You receive
- A current-state summary, prioritized findings, and a roadmap organized around the next 30, 60, and 90 days.
An application, API, platform, or significant feature has never been examined systematically for security risk.
First threat model
Your engineers do the thinking and we run the session. We document the system and its trust boundaries, the credible threats against it, and the mitigations worth making. The format stays plain on purpose, so the team can repeat it as the product changes.
- You receive
- A system and data-flow diagram, documented threats and assumptions, prioritized mitigations, and a format your team can reuse without us.
You are preparing for fundraising, investor diligence, or an acquisition review.
Investor or acquisition readiness review
We read your security the way the party running diligence will read it. Then we list the questions likely to come back and separate the gaps worth closing from the ones you can explain accurately. This is preparation on your side of the table. It is never the diligence itself.
- You receive
- A readiness assessment, a prioritized remediation list, a security data-room checklist, and preparation for the follow-up questions most likely to arrive.
An AI-enabled feature is approaching design approval, customer review, or release.
AI feature security review
We follow the feature end to end. That covers the architecture, data flows and permissions, the model and vendor dependencies behind it, and the retrieval sources, tools and agents it reaches. It also covers foreseeable misuse, output handling, retention, monitoring and testing. Where they help, we draw on the NIST AI Risk Management Framework and the OWASP guidance for generative AI. This is an advisory review. It certifies nothing and guarantees nothing about how the model behaves.
- You receive
- An architecture-focused security review, prioritized findings, recommended changes, and a record of the assumptions and decisions behind them.
Ongoing support
The company needs continuing product security ownership and is not ready to hire a full-time security leader.
Fractional product security leadership
You work with the same security lead on a regular schedule, alongside your management and engineering. The work can include maintaining the security roadmap, reviewing product decisions, and supporting customer and investor conversations. It can also cover coordinating assessments and helping the company decide what to take on next.
- You receive
- Continuing security leadership, a maintained backlog and roadmap, documented decisions, and regular updates to management.
Other work we can scope
We also help software companies stand up product security incident response and coordinated vulnerability disclosure, meet software supply chain requirements including SBOM and vulnerability communication, and review secure development practices. If your need does not fit one of the starting points above, contact us with what you need and any deadline you are working against.
What a deliverable contains
A threat model, for example, records the system and its trust boundaries and the assets worth protecting. It sets out the assumptions being made, the credible attack paths, the mitigations worth the effort, and who owns each piece of follow-up work.
Engineers work from the detail when they change the design. Whoever answers to the board tracks the decisions and the risk still outstanding. Parts of it also hold up under a customer's own security review.
Learn more about how our deliverables are structured.
Experience behind the work
All engagements are led by seasoned security professionals with decades of experience across software engineering, product and application security, penetration testing, security architecture, incident response, customer assurance, and security program leadership.
Our work connects technical detail with business decisions. Findings and recommendations are written for everyone responsible for acting on them, including engineers, company leaders, customers, auditors, and investors.
What we do not do
We don't run your IT, monitor your systems, or answer your helpdesk. We sell no security products and take no commission from any vendor, so recommendations are based on your requirements, your existing environment, and what is practical now. If penetration testing is needed, we can help define the scope and select a provider, then work through what comes back. The testing itself is done by that provider.
You keep everything produced during an engagement. We write it so your team, or a future security hire, can keep using it without depending on us.
How engagements are priced
Each fixed-scope service is quoted as a fixed fee. Fractional leadership is billed monthly. Scope, fees, assumptions, and deliverables are agreed in writing before work begins, which is step two of the engagement process. If we find additional work along the way, we discuss it with you before the scope or the cost changes.
Starting a conversation
Tell us what set this off, what you have been asked to provide, and when a response is due. You can send the questionnaire or the email that started it. We will tell you whether it fits one of the engagements above or whether a smaller custom scope makes more sense. You don't need to prepare a scope beforehand.