How an $8B Unicorn Fostered a Culture of Data Protection While Experiencing 338% Growth

Project Overview

Founded by Ara Mahdessian and Vahe Kuzoyan, ServiceTitan has become the dominant software platform for the trades, serving businesses in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) industries, along with other home and commercial service sectors. What began as a solution for a traditionally underserved market has scaled into a mission-critical platform used by thousands of service businesses. ServiceTitan now trades publicly as ServiceTitan (TTAN) and continues to lead its industry.

As the company rapidly scaled, leadership recognized that growth had to be matched by a strong brand promise of security and privacy. Without enterprise-grade security, ServiceTitan risked undermining the trust of the small business owners who rely on the platform daily to manage their operations.

Leadership understood that even a world-class security team wouldn’t be enough. To achieve their goals, they set out to foster a culture of cybersecurity that engaged every department across the organization—not just technology.

The VioletX Solution: Driving a Company-Wide Security Mindset

Over the course of several years, ServiceTitan partnered with VioletX to integrate security into the company’s operations and leadership culture. VioletX facilitated multiple multi-hour, company-wide tabletop exercises, designed to simulate realistic, high-impact security incidents.

• Engagement Across Leadership and Departments:
  VioletX worked directly with members of the executive leadership team and senior leaders from product, engineering, legal, HR, operations, and customer success to ensure incident response readiness was comprehensive and cross-functional.
• Real-World Simulation:
  During these sessions, teams worked through highly realistic incident scenarios, making time-sensitive decisions under pressure and navigating complex communication challenges. These exercises surfaced critical gaps in incident response processes, escalation paths, and cross-departmental coordination.
• Audit-Ready Reporting and Recommendations:
  Following each exercise, VioletX delivered detailed reports documenting key findings, gaps, and department-specific action plans. These outputs supported both ServiceTitan’s security objectives and its compliance efforts, preparing the company for internal and external audits.
• Building a Security-First Culture:
  These exercises reinforced the importance of every team member’s role in protecting customer data. The security team emerged as a true business partner, enabling faster and more confident decision-making across the organization.

“An incident response plan is critical for any business to continue operations in the event of an emergency, especially in the case of a cybersecurity attack. Using realistic scenarios, VioletX’s insights helped ServiceTitan staff to understand the nuances that result in a successful incident response—one that reduces downtime, maintains public trust, and follows regulatory compliance.”
— Cassio Goldschmidt, ServiceTitan

Project Results

With strong executive sponsorship, ServiceTitan built a highly engaged, enterprise-grade security culture that became a key driver of its ongoing success—supporting the company’s 338% growth.

Key outcomes included:

• A cybersecurity culture embedded across more than 900 employees, driving security accountability at all levels of the business.
• A mature incident response program with tested, actionable playbooks, improving resilience and audit readiness.
• Security leadership positioned as a strategic partner to business units, helping manage risk without slowing innovation.
• Strengthened compliance posture through actionable reporting and continuous improvement, reinforcing ServiceTitan’s brand promise of trust and reliability.

Security tabletop exercises remain a foundational element of ServiceTitan’s risk management and operational readiness strategy, providing ongoing insights and enabling confident, informed responses to future security events.