You get SOC 2 audit ready without a security team by documenting the security practices you're already running, then closing the remaining gaps in priority order. Most companies in this position have more in place than they think. What's missing is usually the program around the practices, not the practices themselves.
Practices are not a program
This distinction decides how much work you're facing. Plenty of small software companies have sensible security already. Developers follow good habits, infrastructure is configured reasonably, access is restricted more or less correctly. None of it is written down in a form an auditor can verify.
There's no policy library, no evidence collection process, no formal vendor oversight, no documented incident response plan. The practices exist. The program doesn't. An auditor evaluates the program, so that gap is the actual work, and it's smaller than "build security from scratch" implies. Building an Information Security Program from Scratch When You Have Nothing is a long-form account of closing it.
The related trap is treating security as a purely technical problem. Firewalls, passwords, vulnerability scans. Those matter, but a security program is an organizational discipline: knowing your risks, documenting how you manage them, and being able to prove it.
What readiness involves
Four things, roughly in order. A gap assessment against the criteria you'll be audited on, so you find what's missing before the auditor does. Control implementation to close it. An evidence collection process, because Type 2 tests whether controls operated over a period rather than existed on one day, and that habit is the one companies start too late. And audit coordination by someone who can work with the auditor in their language.
Who does it when there's no security team
This is what fractional security leadership is for. Build-out and audit prep are intensive, then governance between audits is much lighter. You're buying the experience of having done it before. That experience, four consecutive SOC 2 audits with zero findings and three of them Type 2, mostly shows up as knowing what auditors look for and not over-building controls you don't need.
Fractional Cybersecurity Program Lead is where that work gets scoped, and the same program carries you through customer security questionnaires and cyber insurance underwriting.