"I guess the bottomline is that you can start and invest in a company, but not work for it." Close, but not quite (according to the immigration lawyer I used).

"I guess the bottomline is that you can start and invest in a company, but not work for it." Close, but not quite (according to the immigration lawyer I used). You can start a company. You can invest in it. You can even work for the company. But you cannot pay yourself any money for that work. Any work you do for the company must be gratis. So you need an alternative source of income, as well as a reason to legally stay in the US. Usually these both come from a job, which will of course get in the way of your startup efforts! If a co-founder or a board-member of your company is a US citizen, they can theoretically sponsor an H1 transfer providing you already have an H1. In practice this is difficult and time consuming. I opted to wait for the GC...