Part of the Education Series by Advisory
For venture firms and incubators, protecting value starts long before the next funding round.
Startups move fast — which means the foundations they’re building on are often held together by duct tape and good intentions. At that speed, hidden vulnerabilities form: gaps that expose founders, investors, and entire portfolios to risk.
Fraud. IP loss. Lost productivity.
These aren’t theoretical threats — they’re recurring friction points across early-stage companies that can quietly erode a firm’s returns before the first liquidity event.
1. Fraud: When Speed Meets Sophistication
In the rush of fundraising and rapid scaling, security basics often slip — shared passwords, reused logins, and inconsistent authentication policies. We’ve seen the aftermath: breached inboxes, exposed deal data, and concerned customers.
Fixing this isn’t about adding layers of expensive tools right away — it’s about starting with the fundamentals and building complexity as the business grows. Too often, early teams skip basics like enforcing multifactor authentication, yet jump straight into implementing advanced identity platforms such as Okta.
The goal isn’t to have every security feature possible — it’s to have the right level of security for where the company is today. We help early founders secure their infrastructure using tools they already have in place, keeping costs low while building a solid security foundation.
For portfolio companies, that approach isn’t overkill. It’s protection against the kind of event that can undo months of progress with a single click.
2. Intellectual Property Loss: The Hidden Leak in the Codebase
In fast-moving environments, knowledge sharing is everything. But when credentials, repos, and prototypes are left unguarded, that openness becomes a liability.
IP loss rarely makes headlines — it usually happens quietly. A personal laptop with sensitive files. A shared Google Drive link that never expires. A departing engineer who still has access to production systems.
Protecting intellectual property through centralized identity management, endpoint protection, and structured offboarding ensures your portfolio’s most valuable asset — its innovation — stays protected.
3. Team Productivity: When “Just Fix It” Costs Real Progress
When a company doesn’t have an IT team, someone still has to fill that gap — usually an engineer, a founder, or the HR lead. None of them were hired for that.
What starts as a few hours here and there quickly turns into lost time, delayed launches, and preventable frustration. Every minute spent troubleshooting laptops or setting up a new hire is a minute not spent building, selling, or growing.
Smart IT management doesn’t just secure systems — it returns focus to where it belongs: building the business.
Scaling IT With the Business: A Stage-Based Approach
Some early-stage companies may be too small for a full IT department — and that’s okay. But the groundwork you lay now determines how smoothly you’ll scale later.
Working with an MSP partner like Advisory Solutions means having that foundation from day one: scalable security, structured onboarding, and the processes that prevent disruption when growth accelerates.
0–5 employees: Build the foundation — MDM, email security, and endpoint protection.
5–15 employees: Introduce user provisioning, onboarding/offboarding workflows, and baseline cybersecurity training.
15+ employees: Layer in asset logistics, device management at scale, and policy-driven security frameworks to handle turnover and growth.
The goal isn’t to overbuild — it’s to keep IT maturity aligned with company maturity.
Closing Thoughts: Protecting What You’ve Built
Early-stage founders are busy creating value. Our job is to protect it.
We close the gaps that cause fraud, prevent the leaks that lose IP, and give teams back the time they need to focus on growth.
For investors, that’s not just IT support — it’s portfolio protection.
Partnering With Venture Firms and Incubators
Advisory Solutions partners with VCs and accelerators to design scalable, right-sized IT environments that evolve as startups grow.
Whether you’re supporting five founders or fifty, we help ensure each company in your portfolio has the infrastructure to protect its IP, data, and momentum.
Let’s talk about securing your portfolio from day one. Contact us
Read our ongoing series on IT Strategy for New and Growing Businesses on our blog.
