The Enterprise Blocker: When Security Says No to Your AI Agent
You've been selling to small teams. Self-serve. Credit card. Ship fast.
Then comes the first enterprise prospect. $50K ACV. Maybe more. Excited about your product.
Then their security team gets involved.
The Questions That Kill Deals
"Can we see your SOC2 report?"
You don't have one. You're a 4-person startup. SOC2 takes 6+ months and $50K+.
"How do you secure agent credentials?"
Your honest answer: .env file on the server. Plaintext.
"What's your audit trail?"
You have logs. Somewhere. Maybe CloudWatch? You've never actually exported them for a security review.
"How do you prevent data exfiltration?"
Silence.
"Can you complete this security questionnaire?"
47 pages. Questions about incident response, access controls, encryption at rest, network segmentation.
You can fill it out. But every answer reveals that you built a product, not a secure platform.
The $50K Question
The deal doesn't close. "Let us know when you have better security documentation."
What does that actually cost?
- The deal itself: $50K+ ACV
- The reference customer you didn't get
- The enterprise credibility you can't point to
- The 3-6 months of sales cycle wasted
One blocked deal. Multiply by every enterprise prospect who asks similar questions.
What Enterprise Security Actually Wants
They're not trying to block you. They're trying to de-risk.
They want:
- Evidence that credentials aren't sitting in plaintext
- Audit trails they can export and review
- Network controls that limit blast radius
- Human oversight for risky actions
- A vendor who takes security seriously
They don't need:
- Perfect compliance posture
- Every certification
- Zero risk (that doesn't exist)
They need enough confidence to say "we did due diligence."
The Answers That Unblock
"Can we see your SOC2?"
"We're building on Clawctl, which provides enterprise-grade security controls. Here's our security documentation and audit log export."
"How do you secure credentials?"
"Encrypted at rest in a vault, injected at container runtime. Never stored in plaintext on disk."
"What's your audit trail?"
"50+ event types logged with full-text search. Exportable as CSV or JSON. Retention up to 365 days."
"How do you prevent exfiltration?"
"Network egress control via proxy. Only approved domains are reachable. All attempts logged."
"Security questionnaire?"
"Happy to complete it. Here's our pre-filled security documentation that covers most common questions."
The Math
Without enterprise-ready security:
- $50K deals: blocked
- Sales cycle: 6+ months, then "no"
- Engineering time: building security yourself
With enterprise-ready security:
- $50K deals: possible
- Sales cycle: 3-4 months with security approved
- Engineering time: building product
The Fastest Path
You can build all of this yourself. Takes 100+ hours and ongoing maintenance.
Or you can deploy on infrastructure that already has it. Focus your engineering on the product that makes you money.
Your first enterprise deal pays for years of Clawctl.