H-1B applicants have no easy way to verify whether a sponsoring employer is legitimate or a shell company, risking their visa status and career on fraudulent entities.
A searchable database that scores H-1B sponsoring employers on legitimacy signals — company age, address verification, filing history, officer cross-references, and petition volume anomalies — giving applicants a trust score before they commit.
Freemium — free basic lookups, paid premium reports with detailed risk analysis and historical filing data
Extremely high stakes — applicants risk their legal status, career trajectory, and years of investment in U.S. education on a single employer choice. Getting scammed by a shell company can mean deportation. The pain is acute but affects a narrow population during a specific decision window (accepting an offer).
~400-500K unique H-1B registrants per year, plus ~200K international students evaluating offers annually. Immigration attorneys number ~15-20K. Total addressable market is likely $20-50M at best with premium pricing. This is a meaningful niche but not a massive market. TAM ceiling is real.
High-stakes decision (visa status, career) makes even $20-50 per report very justifiable. International students and H-1B applicants often already pay $2-5K+ for immigration attorneys. A $10-30/month subscription or $50 one-time deep report is easy to justify against those costs. Immigration attorneys would pay more for bulk access. However, many in this demographic are price-sensitive (students, early-career workers).
Core data is publicly available: USCIS H-1B data, state business registrations (Secretary of State APIs), LCA disclosures (DOL), SEC filings. A solo dev can build an MVP with a scraped/aggregated database, basic scoring algorithm, and simple search UI in 4-6 weeks. Address verification (Google Maps API) and officer cross-referencing add complexity but are tractable. No ML required for v1 — rule-based scoring works.
This is the strongest dimension. Nobody is doing legitimacy scoring for H-1B sponsors. Existing tools show statistics (approval rates, salaries) but none cross-reference business registrations, flag address anomalies, detect officer name recycling, or compute a trust score. The Reddit post that inspired this idea proves the analysis is currently manual and painful. This is a genuine whitespace.
Weak recurring potential for individual applicants — they need this tool during a specific decision window (weeks/months), not year-round. Subscription makes more sense for immigration attorneys (ongoing client vetting) and possibly recruiters. Most individual users would prefer one-time report purchases. A monitoring/alert feature ('watch this employer for changes') could add some recurring value but feels forced.
- +Genuine whitespace — no one is doing H-1B employer legitimacy scoring despite clear demand
- +High-stakes decision creates strong willingness to pay despite niche market
- +Core data is public and technically accessible — no proprietary data dependencies
- +Timely: H-1B fraud awareness is at an all-time high with regulatory and media attention
- +Natural B2B expansion path to immigration law firms who would pay significantly more
- !Small TAM ceiling — this is a niche tool for a specific population during a narrow decision window, not a platform play
- !USCIS regulatory changes (beneficiary-centric selection, enhanced vetting) could reduce the shell company problem and shrink the need
- !Legal risk: scoring employers as 'low trust' could invite defamation claims from flagged companies
- !Data accuracy liability — if you give a clean score to a fraudulent company, or wrongly flag a legitimate one, trust erodes fast
- !Seasonal demand heavily concentrated around H-1B registration period (March-April), creating lumpy revenue
Free tool that shows H-1B approval rates by employer, job title, and salary data based on USCIS LCA/PERM filings.
Aggregates H-1B, PERM, and green card sponsor data. Shows petition counts, salaries, denial rates, and trends by employer.
Official government tool showing petition volumes, approval/denial rates, and trends per employer.
General-purpose business information and review platforms that some applicants cobble together to vet employers.
Enterprise-grade Know Your Business platforms that verify company registrations, officers, addresses, and beneficial ownership.
Searchable web app with employer lookup. Ingest USCIS H-1B employer data + state business registration records for top-filing states. Score each employer on 5 signals: company age vs. filing volume, registered address validation, officer name uniqueness, petition approval rate, and filing pattern anomalies. Free tier: basic score + company age. Paid tier ($15-30 one-time): full report with detailed breakdown, historical trends, and flagged anomalies. Ship with 10K+ employers pre-scored. No accounts needed for free tier.
Free basic lookups (drive SEO + word of mouth) -> One-time premium reports $15-30 (individual applicants) -> Monthly subscription $49-99/month for immigration attorneys with bulk lookups and API access -> Enterprise/API tier for recruiting firms and immigration law firms at $200-500/month -> Potential data licensing to USCIS or anti-fraud organizations
6-10 weeks. 4-6 weeks to build MVP with pre-scored database, 2-4 weeks to get initial traction via Reddit (r/h1b, r/immigration, r/greencard), Blind, and immigration forums. Revenue timing is seasonal — launching before the March H-1B registration window would be ideal for maximum initial impact.
- “Shell companies gaming the lottery reduce legitimate applicants' chances”
- “Companies registered at nonexistent addresses”
- “Generic officer names reused across entities to obscure ownership”
- “No easy way for applicants to verify employer legitimacy”