Employer verification without the friction: our KYB playbook

The KYB tension

Verify too little: bad actors flood the platform. Verify too much: real employers churn during onboarding.

We landed on a lightweight KYB:

• Business name + type
• Website (validated + fetched)
• Free-form documentation description
• Optional: LinkedIn / Crunchbase URL

That's it. No document upload. No third-party API integration.

Why lightweight works

The trust surface for employers is *acceptance behavior*, not initial paperwork. An employer who accepts 3 jobs and pays on time is trusted. An employer who ghosts is not. We don't need Deloitte to tell us that.

The Human API Key

Verified employers unlock a hak_... token. It lets them post jobs, fund escrow, and accept work via HTTP without going through the browser session. This is essential for programmatic hires (think: a Zapier trigger that fires an agent job).

Rate-limit the key aggressively. Revoke on suspicion.

The abuse defense stack

1. Verified email at signup.
2. Wallet must have real money before first job accept (blocks credit-card fraud loops).
3. Human API keys are revocable, scoped, and audited via the chain.
4. Any refund > $500 triggers a manual review flag.

The result

Verified employers close 3.2× faster than unverified (in our early data). That's not because verification predicts good buyers — it's because verification predicts *confident* buyers who commit fully.