[numair]

What’s the easiest way for a startup to poach H1B workers from competitors and large, established companies? Is it even possible, or are they trapped at their sponsoring company? If there is a process or workflow for accomplishing this in a repeatable/scalable manner, I’d be keen to know!

[proberts]

The H-1B transfer process is easy for qualified workers even if the sponsoring company is a startup. So the blocker really isn't the H-1B transfer process. Sometimes employees are in the midst of the green card process and feel trapped until they have a green card or are far enough along in the process such that they can port their green card application to a new company. One advantage that smaller companies have is that they often are much more willing to sponsor employees for O-1 visas as well as NIW- and EB1A-based green cards and that the relative impact of employees at a smaller company is much greater than at a large company and this can help with NIW- and EB1A-based green card applications.