50-person SaaS startup
A 50-person SaaS startup with a small, generalist IT/security team (no dedicated SOC), a remote-friendly engineering culture, dozens of third-party SaaS tools in daily use, and a budget that favors managed and freemium options over heavyweight enterprise suites.
A lean, cost-conscious starter stack covering the identity and endpoint fundamentals most startups need first: centralized SSO, phishing-resistant MFA, just-in-time infrastructure access for engineers, managed endpoint detection, and basic device management.
The stack, layer by layer
All 10 defense layers, in order — what this team chose, why, and what they left for later.
- 01
Identity & Access
Okta Workforce Identity CloudOkta$$A 50-person startup running on dozens of different SaaS tools needs one identity front door with pre-built connectors rather than custom integrations for each app; Okta's app catalog and lifecycle provisioning fit that sprawl well before the team is large enough to build IAM tooling in-house.
Cisco DuoCisco$Duo's low per-user pricing and fast rollout suit a lean IT team that needs phishing-resistant MFA live across the whole company quickly, without a dedicated identity engineer to configure a heavier platform.
TeleportTeleportFreemiumEngineers need just-in-time access to production servers and databases without standing SSH keys floating around; Teleport's freemium tier and developer-friendly workflow fit a startup's engineering culture and budget better than enterprise PAM suites built for large IT operations.
- 02
Endpoint Protection
Huntress Managed EDRHuntress$With no dedicated security analyst on staff, a 50-person company benefits more from Huntress's fully human-reviewed managed detection than from a deep, self-service EDR console nobody has time to monitor, and its SMB-focused per-endpoint pricing matches the company's size.
Microsoft IntuneMicrosoft$$A mixed fleet of company laptops and phones still needs enrollment, patch enforcement, and remote wipe for offboarding; Intune's SaaS delivery and mid-tier pricing cover that need without requiring on-prem infrastructure a small IT team doesn't want to run.
- 03
Network Security
Not covered
No network security selected — visibility and control over network traffic will be limited.
- 04
Email Security
Not covered
No email security selected — phishing and malicious email remain common initial-access paths.
- 05
Cloud Security
Not covered
No cloud security selected — exposed services, weak permissions, and configuration mistakes can go unnoticed.
- 06
Application Security
Not covered
No application security selected — vulnerable code and dependencies can reach production without a security check.
- 07
Data Protection
Not covered
No data protection selected — you can't protect sensitive data you haven't found and classified.
- 08
Detection & Response
Not covered
No detection & response selected — incidents may persist without investigation or containment.
- 09
Resilience & Recovery
Druva Data Security CloudDruva$$$A startup's crown jewels live in Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and a cloud account; Druva backs those SaaS apps up into its own isolated, air-gapped cloud where ransomware can't reach them, and being fully managed and agentless it adds no backup infrastructure for a small IT team to run.
- 10
Compliance & Awareness
Not covered
No compliance/awareness selected — control gaps and risky behavior are harder to identify and correct.