Are you actually local to Cardiff-by-the-Sea?

Yes. PJ lives and works in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, the 92007. On-site available in Encinitas, Solana Beach, Del Mar, Carlsbad, La Jolla and across North County. Most of the actual work is async so on-site is mainly for kickoff scoping and auditor-week handholding.

Compliance Consulting in Cardiff-by-the-Sea — HIPAA, SOC 2, CCPA & PCI Help Without the Big-4 Price Tag

✅ Verified 2026-06-12

TL;DR (operator-honest): If you're a Cardiff SaaS, telehealth, wellness, or DTC founder who just got asked for a SOC 2, HIPAA, CCPA, or PCI artifact, you have three real options: (1) buy Vanta or Drata ($15K–$35K/yr) and self-implement, (2) hire a Big-4 / boutique firm ($15K–$75K flat), or (3) work hourly with a local operator who wires the platforms in and writes the policies for you at $100/hr. SideGuy is option 3 — and PJ lives right here in the 92007. Most engagements land $3K–$12K because the evidence-collection, policy drafting, and vendor reviews are AI-automated. Text PJ for a 15-min scoping call.

Practical, hourly compliance consulting for Cardiff-by-the-Sea businesses. Built by a local North County operator who automates the boring parts so your audit doesn't stall your year.

What Cardiff businesses actually need to know

Which frameworks apply to you: Most Cardiff SMBs deal with one or more of — SOC 2 (the remote SaaS founders and B2B consultancies all along the 101), HIPAA (the wellness studios, telehealth, and med-spa teams Cardiff is full of), CCPA/CPRA (any business with 50K+ CA consumers or $25M+ revenue), PCI-DSS (Restaurant Row, Seaside Market, the 101 retail and ecommerce shops), and OSHA/Cal-OSHA (trades, hospitality). We map your actual data flows to the right frameworks — not a generic checklist.
Realistic timelines: A SOC 2 Type I readiness typically takes 6–10 weeks; Type II observation window is 3–12 months. HIPAA gap assessment + remediation runs 4–8 weeks. CCPA compliance can be buttoned up in 2–4 weeks if your privacy policy, DSAR workflow, and vendor list are reasonably clean.
What it should cost in Cardiff: Local boutique firms quote $15K–$60K flat-fee SOC 2 readiness; Big-4 and national firms run $75K+. SideGuy works hourly at $100/hr with no retainer — most SMB engagements land between $3K–$12K because we automate evidence collection, policy drafting, and vendor review with AI instead of billing army hours.
What you'll walk away with: A prioritized gap report, written policies (security, privacy, incident response, BCDR, acceptable use), a vendor risk register, employee training workflow, evidence-collection automation, and an audit-ready data room — plus a direct line to PJ when your auditor asks a weird question at 4pm on a Friday.

What we actually do

Framework scoping (HIPAA, SOC 2, CCPA, PCI, ISO 27001 lite)
Gap assessment against your current stack
Policy & procedure drafting (AI-assisted, human-reviewed)
Vendor risk management + BAA/DPA tracking
Automated evidence collection from AWS, Google Workspace, Okta, GitHub
Audit prep, auditor liaison, and response drafting

Who this is for

Cardiff SaaS founders chasing enterprise deals that need SOC 2
Wellness, med-spa & telehealth teams with HIPAA/PHI exposure
101-corridor shops & DTC brands needing CCPA + PCI coverage
Solo consultancies and MSPs who need to prove they're safe to onboard
Founders who got "send your security questionnaire" and panicked

$100/hrFlat rate · no retainer · no minimums

6–10 wksTypical SOC 2 Type I readiness timeline

70%Of compliance busywork we automate with AI

Why hourly beats a flat-fee compliance retainer

Flat-fee firms pad their quotes because they can't predict how messy your environment is. Retainer firms keep the meter running whether you need them or not. Hourly means you pay for what you actually use — and because I automate policy generation, evidence collection, and vendor questionnaires with custom AI workflows, the hours compound in your favor. Most Cardiff clients finish HIPAA or SOC 2 readiness for 60–80% less than a traditional quote.

Your neighbor in the 92007

PJ lives and works in Cardiff-by-the-Sea — this is home turf, not a landing page. On-site available in Encinitas, Solana Beach, Del Mar, Carlsbad, La Jolla, UTC, Sorrento Valley, and across North County. Remote-first for everything else — most of the work is async anyway, so we can scope a kickoff over coffee on the 101 and run the rest in the background.

PJ · Cardiff-by-the-Sea, CA · 858-461-8054

I'm not a Big-4 consultant and I don't want to be. I build AI automations that make compliance boring and cheap — and I'm your actual neighbor here in the 92007. If you've got a security questionnaire on your desk or an auditor asking for evidence, text me and we'll scope it in 15 minutes — or grab a coffee on the 101.

Text PJ LinkedIn

Got a compliance fire drill?

Text a photo of the questionnaire or auditor email. I'll tell you what it'll cost and how long it'll take — no sales call.

Text 858-461-8054 Call PJ

Questions Cardiff founders actually ask

→ Should I hire a compliance consultant or just buy Vanta / Drata directly?

Buy the platform if you have an internal IT/security person who can spend 80–120 hours configuring it. If you don't, the platform alone won't get you to a clean SOC 2 — you'll spend $25K on Vanta and still get an auditor finding because controls weren't actually wired right. Hire someone (us or another North County operator) to do the implementation work either way.

→ How much does SOC 2 readiness actually cost near Cardiff in 2026?

Boutique North County firms quote $15K–$60K flat-fee. Big-4 + national firms run $75K+. Vanta or Drata software adds $15K–$35K/yr on top. SideGuy hourly typically lands $3K–$12K for the consulting layer because we automate evidence collection and policy drafting with custom AI workflows. Audit firm fees ($8K–$20K for the actual SOC 2 attestation) are separate either way.

→ Which compliance frameworks apply to my Cardiff business?

Wellness, med-spa, telehealth: HIPAA. SaaS chasing enterprise deals: SOC 2 Type II. Any business with 50K+ CA consumers or $25M+ revenue: CCPA/CPRA. 101-corridor retail, restaurants, ecommerce: PCI-DSS. Trades and hospitality: Cal-OSHA. Many Cardiff companies need 2–3 of these. We map your data flows to the actual frameworks instead of giving you a generic checklist.

→ How long does a SOC 2 take from kickoff to audit report?

SOC 2 Type I: 6–10 weeks readiness, then 4–6 weeks for the auditor's report — call it ~3 months total. SOC 2 Type II: same readiness window plus a 3–12 month observation window plus the auditor's 4–6 week report. If your customer is asking right now, start with Type I to unblock the deal, then roll into Type II.

→ Are you actually local to Cardiff, or is this a remote firm with a landing page?

Actually local — PJ lives in the 92007. On-site available across Encinitas, Solana Beach, Del Mar, Carlsbad, and North County. Most of the work is async (evidence collection runs in the background) so on-site is mainly for kickoff scoping and auditor-week handholding — or just a coffee on the 101.