What Startups Get Wrong About Security

You had a great idea that is somehow also making money, and you’ve decided to bootstrap it into a full-fledged company. Congrats, you have a startup. In today’s market, it seems like we are all being pushed to build, grow, and sell — over and over and over. It seems like there’s no time to think about anything else. If you’re not developing something that will directly contribute to the product’s success, it seems like a waste of time.

This is the mindset of today’s startup founder. It’s the mindset of many CTOs and engineers pushing development forward without best practices being met, because “we can reiterate later”. The hard truth is that “later” rarely ever comes. This is how bad operational security practices and, in the case of software companies, vulnerable code gets baked into an otherwise great product.

Here’s another hard truth: not paying attention to security, even from the outset, drastically increases the odds of failure for your company. It’s been estimated that nearly 60% of small companies get hacked each year. What do you think it means to your client base when your product is hacked, and their private data is stolen because of you? You could be facing massive losses of revenue and, even worse, lawsuits. That’s a surefire way to crumble the foundation of a fledgling company.