Startup idea: Work History Verification for Closed Employers
A candidate was denied credit for 4 years of experience because the former employer closed in 2024 and the manager's email is now on Gmail, not a company domain.
Get the PRD prompt, $9.99 Market: $54K in 3 years
r/jobs · Sep 14, 2026 – Oct 14, 2026 · 515 upvotes
Apparently my 4 years of work experience don't
Read the thread · 83 comments
Work History Verification for Closed Employers is a startup idea for job seekers and recruiters. A candidate was denied credit for 4 years of experience because the former employer closed in 2024 and the manager's email is now on Gmail, not a company domain. A thread in r/jobs drew 515 upvotes and 83 comments between Sep 14, 2026 – Oct 14, 2026. People get by with The Work Number and Manual reference calls, and that still leaves this job open. Hotness is 4.00, Scorching. Strong pain. Clear willingness to pay. The thread drew 515 upvotes and 83 comments. Only clumsy or enterprise-only options. A few weeks of work. A first version is a moderate amount of work, about 3–4 weeks, priced between $10 and $49 a month and charged as a one-time purchase. The pain, the source, the alternatives, the scope notes, and the questions on this page are free to read and free to build from. The agent starter prompt is the paid part. The first slice is on the page. One credit unlocks the rest, to paste into a coding agent, download as Markdown, or send as a private link.
Who has it
Job seekers and recruiters.
What people use now
2 options, and the gap between them.
The Work Number
Manual reference calls
Only clumsy or enterprise-only options.
Work History Verification for Closed Employers is built for the part these leave undone.
A way through
An employment verification service that accepts alternative evidence (W-2s, LinkedIn history, indirect records) for defunct companies and issues a verifiable certificate for HR systems.
MVP scope
The first version, in 4 weeks.
- 00 Goal
The one job
Verify past jobs at companies that no longer exist using W-2s and indirect records, with a certificate HR systems accept.
- 01 Week 1
The core
Accept alternative evidence (W-2s, LinkedIn history, indirect records) for defunct companies.
- 02 Week 2
The follow-through
Issue a verifiable certificate for HR systems.
- 03 Weeks 3–4
How it ships
As a web app that opens in any browser, with nothing to install. AI helps, but the core job works without it.
- — Not in v1
Left out on purpose
Replacing The Work Number. Version one does the one job above and stops there.
How it could charge
The business model, at a glance.
- Model
- One-time purchase
- Price
- $10–49 a month
- Buyer
- CompaniesA business with a budget pays
- Region
- United States
Hotness
Why it scores 4.00.
Strong pain. Clear willingness to pay. The thread drew 515 upvotes and 83 comments. Only clumsy or enterprise-only options. A few weeks of work.
515 upvotes 83 comments r/jobs Sep 14, 2026 – Oct 14, 2026 verified Oct 14, 2026 Thread ↗
Weights: pain 25%, willingness to pay 20%, demand 20%, gap 15%, ease 10%, recency 10%. Recency is recomputed every build. The source report’s 1–10 score is not shown.
Market size · estimate
How big this could get
A bottom-up estimate for Work History Verification for Closed Employers: real customer counts × a realistic price. Not a forecast.
$17.6M
360,000 job seekers · 5% of unemployed people in the US
$5.4M
110,000 job seekers · US, online
$54K
1,100 job seekers · 1% of the reachable segment in three years
What that means
1,100 job seekers at $49 = $54K in sales
Low confidenceHow we estimated this
- Base: 7,100,000 unemployed people in the US.
- Has the problem: 5% (assume 5% hit a closed former employer in a check).
- Revenue per job seeker: $49 one-time ($49 one-time).
- Reachable: 30% (US, online).
- Three-year capture: 1% of the reachable segment.
TAM = customers with the problem × revenue per customer. SAM = the part an early product can reach. SOM = a conservative three-year share of SAM. Bars use a log scale. Shares marked “assume” are our judgment, not measured.
Take it to a build
Build Work History Verification for Closed Employers with an agent, or with us.
Agent starter prompt
$9.99 / 1 credit
A full PRD written for a coding agent: scope, data model, screens, edge cases, and the first week of tasks for this idea.
- Copy it straight into Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex.
- Download it as a .md file you keep.
- Send your bot a private link that refreshes every seven days.
# Agent starter prompt: Work History Verification for Closed Employers You are a senior product engineer. Build only the product described in this document. If a detail is missing, choose the smallest option and write it down in the README. Do not invent a second product, a marketplace of marketplaces, or a growth hack. ## Product Name: Work History Verification for Closed Employers One line: Verify past jobs at companies that no longer exist using W-2s and indirect records, with a certificate HR systems accept. Shape: Web app AI stance: AI-assisted Region for v1: United States Hotness (context only, not a requirement): 4.00 (scorching). Strong pain; clear willingness to pay; thread engagement 515▲/83💬 (demand 4/5); only clumsy or enterprise-only options; a few weeks of work. ## Problem A candidate was denied credit for 4 years of experience because the former employer closed in 2024 and the manager's email is now on Gmail, not a company domain. Who feels it: Job seekers and recruiters.
The first slice is above. The rest unlocks for 1 credit and is never in this page’s HTML.
Credits work on both sites. On Business Ideas to Build the same credit unlocks the business plan and growth playbook for Work History Verification for Closed Employers.
Or we build it
Your first version, shipped by our team.
A working product in your repo, built from this PRD. You own the code.
$1,000 scoping fee, credited toward the build.
Equity instead of cash is an application, not a checkout →Questions
Is this idea already taken?
People already use The Work Number, Manual reference calls. Those options do not do the job in the solution above. The idea is free to build. Nothing here is an exclusive claim.
How hard is a first version?
Moderate. A tight MVP is about 4 weeks (3–4 weeks), assuming the regulated or partner-gated parts are stubbed. The paid prompt turns that into tasks.
Who would pay, and how?
The audience is job seekers and recruiters. Charge a one-time purchase, and test a price between $10 and $49 a month. Willingness to pay is one input to Hotness, not a promise that someone will buy.
Can I use the evidence?
Yes. Build the product. The thread title is a short excerpt with a link, not a quote we are putting in someone's mouth. Exact post dates and verbatim lines are added only after a manual check. Ideas are suggestions, not medical, legal, or financial advice.
If you want the operating plan rather than the build document, it lives on the sister site. The business-plan version