Hardhire: A-to-F Contractor Safety Grades
Hardhire turns OSHA citation history into A-to-F contractor safety grades so homeowners and GCs can vet crews before the bid is signed.
Hiring a contractor is still a trust exercise disguised as a search flow. Homeowners compare star ratings, skim a few before-and-after photos, and hope the lowest reasonable quote also comes from a crew that runs a disciplined, safe operation. Small and mid-size general contractors do something similar when they need a roofing sub, concrete crew, demolition team, or HVAC installer on short notice. The modern buying stack is great at surfacing reviews and availability, but terrible at surfacing whether a company racks up serious citations, repeats the same violations, or quietly changes names after safety problems pile up.
Built for Solo Founders, Weekend Builders.
Its Establishment Search alone covers more than 3 million inspections and refreshes daily.
Suggested stack: Next.js 16 + Vercel, Postgres with pg_trgm, Scheduled ingestion worker, Deterministic scoring engine, LLM summarization layer, Stripe + lightweight auth. Weekend scope: about 12 hours.
The Problem
Hiring a contractor is still a trust exercise disguised as a search flow. Homeowners compare star ratings, skim a few before-and-after photos, and hope the lowest reasonable quote…
The Solution
Hardhire is a contractor safety lookup tool that converts OSHA inspection and citation history into an A-to-F grade a homeowner or GC can understand in seconds. You type in a…
Market Research
The timing works because three trends are colliding: public safety data is searchable, home-services hiring remains huge, and safety software budgets are moving up instead of…
Competitive Landscape
OSHA Establishment Search - Free and authoritative for federal inspection history. The upside is obvious: direct access to public enforcement data with over 3 million inspections…
Business Model
Free - Search by contractor name and location, see the letter grade, a short rationale, and whether the result has high or medium confidence.
Recommended Tech Stack
Next.js 16 + Vercel - Search UI, report pages, checkout flow, and a simple marketing site in one codebase.
AI Prompts to Build This
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1. MVP Scaffold
Build a Next.js 16 App Router project called Hardhire. Product goal: - Search contractors by company name plus city or ZIP - Return an A-to-F safety grade - Sell a $1 detailed report and a $50/month Pro subscription Use TypeScript, Tailwind, Postgres, and Stripe Checkout. Core tables: - establishments - establishment_aliases - inspections - citations - grade_snapshots - report_purchases - saved_contractors Requirements: - Server-rendered search - Magic-link auth - Clear empty state for low-confidence matches - Audit log for manual overrides
2. Entity Resolution + Grading
Implement the Hardhire matching and scoring engine. Input: - contractor_name - city - state - optional street address Tasks: 1. Fuzzy match names with trigram similarity 2. Boost scores when city, state, ZIP, or street overlap 3. Group likely aliases into one canonical contractor profile 4. Compute an A-to-F grade using severity, repeat patterns, recency, inspection frequency, and penalty history 5. Return the grade, confidence score, top reasons, and matched aliases Rules: - The score must be deterministic and explainable - AI may summarize the result but may not decide the grade - Add a manual-review queue for ambiguous matches
3. Detailed Report Experience
Design the paid report page for Hardhire. The page should show: - Current letter grade - Confidence badge - Plain-English explanation - Timeline of inspections and citations - Severity summary - Related business names or aliases - Questions the buyer should ask before signing Conversion goals: - Show a strong preview with a $1 unlock CTA for non-paying users - Unlock the full report automatically for Pro users - Add PDF export