11 ms·

Have 4 minutes to help startup visa?

102 points by OJKoukaz 15y ago

brackin 15y ago
As a foreign (British) entrepreneur looking to make the move next year I appreciate both this movement and those in the US pushing this. I don't see why this hasn't passed yet. Especially because this is beneficial for the US economy.
- HistoryInAction 15y ago
  Left and right politics in DC. Left wants low-skilled immigration reform. Right wants high-skilled immigration reform. Result is gridlock. We're trying to thread a thin needle.
  - dotBen 15y ago
    I'd have to respectfully disagree, or at least suggest the situation is a lot more nuanced than that. Dems (well, Obama) 'clarified' (read: changed the law slightly in a way that didn't need new legislation) the USCIS guidelines for self-sponsored H1Bs for startup founders and also the requirements for EB2 visas for entrepreneurs. They've also been very attentive to the Startup Visa movement. The GOP continue to pursue a blocking stance across the board on all legislation in Congress (essentially as a punitive measure for electing Barack Obama) and they don't seem willing to support any real immigration reform - high or low skilled - that I can see.
    - HistoryInAction 15y ago
      Hell, I'll respectfully disagree with me that there's nuance :) But from a first-order analysis perspective, that's it. I didn't think this was the audience to go much farther beyond that. However, if you want more... The Obama administration was the same administration that advanced the Neufeld memo in 2010 strictly restricting H1-B to founders by making the 'employer work certification' a hard requirement. With the H1-B/EB-2 and EB-5 liberalization this past August, the Neufeld memo is all but overturned, but it could come back at any time, which is why we need Startup Visa legislation. All the same, the big positive in that the Obama administration is willing to consider it a jobs bill and not an immigration bill, which we've got from Valerie Jarrett after sending a briefing off to the White House. The administration been pretty attentive to Startup Visa (Facebook and Twitter town hall mentions and vague reference in the El Paso immigration reform speech in May), but the lack of mention in the LinkedIn speech last month pissed off Conway and has made it much harder to pull in VC attention since. Conway's now focusing his time and effort on the Ed Lee campaign for SF Mayor, such as with the 2Legit 2Quit video. However, Senate Dems, specifically Sen. Menendez of NJ, are much more hard line on the "nothing but comprehensive immigration reform" than the President. While we have the support of 6 Senate Dems—lead sponsors being John Kerry and moderate Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana—we haven't yet come up with any strategy to overcome the comprehensive roadblock. The Chamber of Commerce and Bloomberg administration has 'nudged' the Republican position sufficiently that rumbles are coming out that horribly anti-immigration Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith is said to be putting together an extremely watered down STEM green cards bill: http://www.vdare.com/articles/national-data-by-edwin-s-rubenstein-why-more-immigrant-science-technology-engineering-math- http://www.vdare.com/articles/national-data-by-edwin-s-ruben... Interestingly, Utah is also a big driver of high-skilled immigration reform, according to friends in the Bloomberg administration. Rep. Chaffetz's bill rebalancing H1-B visas to change the flat per-country % changing the status quo of China and Luxembourg having the same number of H1-Bs available is advancing with Smith's support. It has just passed Smith's Judiciary Committee and awaits action on the House floor: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR03012:@@@C http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR03012:@@@C Finally, also note the Obama administration's recent effort to set up a 'Tiger Team' or Skunkworks to cut through red tape in USCIS to make more administrative changes to make the immigration process easier: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=bd537158910e2310VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=68439c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCRD http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f...
- jacoblyles 15y ago
  I'm not sure how it is in Britain, but there is not much logic/reason in politics in the US.
- mattmanser 15y ago
  Why do you need to go to the US to start a company? Starting a company in the UK costs £18. Programmers are cheaper in the UK and if you want really cheap ones you can get them from the new additions to the EU block. There's also London or Cambridge if you want startup hubs. There's potential funding from the prince's trust for someone your age as well as incubators, http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/need_help/enterprise_programme.aspx http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/need_help/enterprise_program.... Start a company here!
  - brackin 15y ago
    All of the incubators in the UK are mediocre from what I've seen, some in fact ask the applicants to repay the investment yet still take a big chunk of equity. The only real exception I've seen is Seedcamp, which is great. Some others take half of the company in equity. There's a lot more investment in the valley. I have no restrictions, so I can work from anywhere I want at this point in my life. A lot of it is personal, I know a lot of like minded people in the bay area. If I had to stay in the UK then I'd definitely look at raising some angel money from the UK or some other programmes. Mostly It's just personal choice and looking at which is the best fit for me. Note: Expecting to get downvoted as I'm insulting England a bit but really the startup scene isn't fully developed yet although in parts is thriving. I'd rather be honest how I feel than not. If you have a full team, talent, etc then this doesn't matter but if you're just starting out it puts more carriers in your way.
    - mattmanser 15y ago
      That's a broad brush you're painting with there. I've not really looked and have no idea who you're talking about, all the ones that have been on HN are nothing like you're describing. The only one I remember is http://springboard.com http://springboard.com, but there was also a northern based one I can't remember the name of now that had similar terms. Out of interest which ones are you talking about that have these onerous terms?
      - brackin 15y ago
        Yes you're right but the reason I am is because there are so few even if there's only a couple using these methods they make up a large percentage of incubators in the UK. I'm referring to http://oxygenaccelerator.com/ http://oxygenaccelerator.com/
Acen 15y ago
As someone moving from New Zealand all the way to the states for my business, I'm just starting my research on visas. What's the problem you guys are actually trying to tackle?
- HistoryInAction 15y ago
  No visa exists for scrappy founders without their own money. You need an employer to qualify for H1-B or EB-2. You need $500k to qualify for EB-5. You need $50k and be from a 'treaty nation' to qualify for E-2. American-educated immigrants get kicked out and start companies in their home countries or H1-B and work here until they get a green card, when they'd rather take the plunge and start a company? How many founders are camping in Vancouver, the closest urban non-US setting, jotting down the coast for investor meetings in Silicon Valley? New Zealand, you can get entry status for a 3-month a year, no questions asked. What happens when you raise funding and the angel or VC wants you to locate your company close by to take advantage of their portfolio network? Do you return to NZ to work remotely like Amit Aharoni did? Do you spend your time and money that could be spent on building your company on lawyers to deal with your visas? What happens when an adjudicator rejects your visa, since 'CEO doesn't require a degree,' making it a much harder designation to apply under? Oh, the same adjudicator will be responsible for your appeal, btw.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- untog 15y ago
  I'm a British national in NYC right now on an H1B visa. It locks me down to one employer, and the process for transferring the visa between employers is an absolute nightmare (that I am currently in the middle of). I'm very happy at my startup employer, but you can't be surrounded by startup culture without wanting to do it for yourself. I've got tech skills, ideas and business-minded friends and a couple of potential investors- but I can't act on any of this because I can't start and work for my own company. So, I'm here for now. But I don't see a career path ahead of me, just a ton of dead ends. So as it stands right now, if I ever want to get serious about an idea I'll have to take it to London. Arguably, that's not in my interests (I'll have to rebuild a network from scratch) and it's not in the interests of the US for me to leave. The Startup Visa would allow me to form my own company, work for it and hire local employees. Maybe I'm biased, but it seems like a win-win to me.
coryl 15y ago
Canadian here, your help is appreciated!
- thomasgerbe 15y ago
  As a Canadian, I have to say it's not very hard for Canadians to get VISAs in the U.S.
  - coryl 15y ago
    If you're technical, yeah. Always tons of demand for engineers. But if you're not a software engineer, much harder I believe.
    - URSpider94 15y ago
      You don't have to be a software engineer, or even technical, you just have to be a "professional".
  - abbasmehdi 15y ago
    Touche. Also there are many ways around it.
  - dotBen 15y ago
    As a Canadian I have to say it's easy to get short-term non-immigration visas (TN's, which technically are a status not a visa). But green-card/immigration visas are no easier for Canadians than anyone else.
jisaacstone 15y ago
I have a number of visa complaints, but they have nothing to do with start-ups. Fiancee visa: {% for profanity in all_profanities %} {{ profanity }} USCIS {% endfor %} I feel better now.
- HistoryInAction 15y ago
  I'm not sure how you could apply a greased weasel to USCIS, but I'm sure they would not appreciate it.
psychotik 15y ago
Please take a few minutes to do this. If you need a first-hand non-sentimental story with a possible solution, here's mine: http://crazyviraj.blogspot.com/2011/06/capitalistic-fix-for-americans-broken.html http://crazyviraj.blogspot.com/2011/06/capitalistic-fix-for-...
- HistoryInAction 15y ago
  Viraj, encourage you to look at this piece of legislation which may affect your wait time: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/52799052-90/chaffetz-bill-legislation-immigration.html.csp http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/52799052-90/chaffetz-b... Thanks for sharing!
dlss 15y ago
Okay, a bit off topic, but I'm hoping I wasn't the only one who clicked this title after sight reading "Have 4 minutes to help startup vista?"
- snkashis 15y ago
  or "Have 4 Mintues to Help startup Visa?"

102 points by OJKoukaz 15y ago

As a foreign (British) entrepreneur looking to make the move next year I appreciate both this movement and those in the US pushing this. I don't see why this hasn't passed yet. Especially because this is beneficial for the US economy.

HistoryInAction 15y ago
Left and right politics in DC. Left wants low-skilled immigration reform. Right wants high-skilled immigration reform. Result is gridlock. We're trying to thread a thin needle.
- dotBen 15y ago
  I'd have to respectfully disagree, or at least suggest the situation is a lot more nuanced than that. Dems (well, Obama) 'clarified' (read: changed the law slightly in a way that didn't need new legislation) the USCIS guidelines for self-sponsored H1Bs for startup founders and also the requirements for EB2 visas for entrepreneurs. They've also been very attentive to the Startup Visa movement. The GOP continue to pursue a blocking stance across the board on all legislation in Congress (essentially as a punitive measure for electing Barack Obama) and they don't seem willing to support any real immigration reform - high or low skilled - that I can see.
  - HistoryInAction 15y ago
    Hell, I'll respectfully disagree with me that there's nuance :) But from a first-order analysis perspective, that's it. I didn't think this was the audience to go much farther beyond that. However, if you want more... The Obama administration was the same administration that advanced the Neufeld memo in 2010 strictly restricting H1-B to founders by making the 'employer work certification' a hard requirement. With the H1-B/EB-2 and EB-5 liberalization this past August, the Neufeld memo is all but overturned, but it could come back at any time, which is why we need Startup Visa legislation. All the same, the big positive in that the Obama administration is willing to consider it a jobs bill and not an immigration bill, which we've got from Valerie Jarrett after sending a briefing off to the White House. The administration been pretty attentive to Startup Visa (Facebook and Twitter town hall mentions and vague reference in the El Paso immigration reform speech in May), but the lack of mention in the LinkedIn speech last month pissed off Conway and has made it much harder to pull in VC attention since. Conway's now focusing his time and effort on the Ed Lee campaign for SF Mayor, such as with the 2Legit 2Quit video. However, Senate Dems, specifically Sen. Menendez of NJ, are much more hard line on the "nothing but comprehensive immigration reform" than the President. While we have the support of 6 Senate Dems—lead sponsors being John Kerry and moderate Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana—we haven't yet come up with any strategy to overcome the comprehensive roadblock. The Chamber of Commerce and Bloomberg administration has 'nudged' the Republican position sufficiently that rumbles are coming out that horribly anti-immigration Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith is said to be putting together an extremely watered down STEM green cards bill: http://www.vdare.com/articles/national-data-by-edwin-s-rubenstein-why-more-immigrant-science-technology-engineering-math- http://www.vdare.com/articles/national-data-by-edwin-s-ruben... Interestingly, Utah is also a big driver of high-skilled immigration reform, according to friends in the Bloomberg administration. Rep. Chaffetz's bill rebalancing H1-B visas to change the flat per-country % changing the status quo of China and Luxembourg having the same number of H1-Bs available is advancing with Smith's support. It has just passed Smith's Judiciary Committee and awaits action on the House floor: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR03012:@@@C http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR03012:@@@C Finally, also note the Obama administration's recent effort to set up a 'Tiger Team' or Skunkworks to cut through red tape in USCIS to make more administrative changes to make the immigration process easier: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=bd537158910e2310VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=68439c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCRD http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f...
jacoblyles 15y ago
I'm not sure how it is in Britain, but there is not much logic/reason in politics in the US.
mattmanser 15y ago
Why do you need to go to the US to start a company? Starting a company in the UK costs £18. Programmers are cheaper in the UK and if you want really cheap ones you can get them from the new additions to the EU block. There's also London or Cambridge if you want startup hubs. There's potential funding from the prince's trust for someone your age as well as incubators, http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/need_help/enterprise_programme.aspx http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/need_help/enterprise_program.... Start a company here!
- brackin 15y ago
  All of the incubators in the UK are mediocre from what I've seen, some in fact ask the applicants to repay the investment yet still take a big chunk of equity. The only real exception I've seen is Seedcamp, which is great. Some others take half of the company in equity. There's a lot more investment in the valley. I have no restrictions, so I can work from anywhere I want at this point in my life. A lot of it is personal, I know a lot of like minded people in the bay area. If I had to stay in the UK then I'd definitely look at raising some angel money from the UK or some other programmes. Mostly It's just personal choice and looking at which is the best fit for me. Note: Expecting to get downvoted as I'm insulting England a bit but really the startup scene isn't fully developed yet although in parts is thriving. I'd rather be honest how I feel than not. If you have a full team, talent, etc then this doesn't matter but if you're just starting out it puts more carriers in your way.
  - mattmanser 15y ago
    That's a broad brush you're painting with there. I've not really looked and have no idea who you're talking about, all the ones that have been on HN are nothing like you're describing. The only one I remember is http://springboard.com http://springboard.com, but there was also a northern based one I can't remember the name of now that had similar terms. Out of interest which ones are you talking about that have these onerous terms?
    - brackin 15y ago
      Yes you're right but the reason I am is because there are so few even if there's only a couple using these methods they make up a large percentage of incubators in the UK. I'm referring to http://oxygenaccelerator.com/ http://oxygenaccelerator.com/

Acen 15y ago

As someone moving from New Zealand all the way to the states for my business, I'm just starting my research on visas. What's the problem you guys are actually trying to tackle?

HistoryInAction 15y ago
No visa exists for scrappy founders without their own money. You need an employer to qualify for H1-B or EB-2. You need $500k to qualify for EB-5. You need $50k and be from a 'treaty nation' to qualify for E-2. American-educated immigrants get kicked out and start companies in their home countries or H1-B and work here until they get a green card, when they'd rather take the plunge and start a company? How many founders are camping in Vancouver, the closest urban non-US setting, jotting down the coast for investor meetings in Silicon Valley? New Zealand, you can get entry status for a 3-month a year, no questions asked. What happens when you raise funding and the angel or VC wants you to locate your company close by to take advantage of their portfolio network? Do you return to NZ to work remotely like Amit Aharoni did? Do you spend your time and money that could be spent on building your company on lawyers to deal with your visas? What happens when an adjudicator rejects your visa, since 'CEO doesn't require a degree,' making it a much harder designation to apply under? Oh, the same adjudicator will be responsible for your appeal, btw.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
untog 15y ago
I'm a British national in NYC right now on an H1B visa. It locks me down to one employer, and the process for transferring the visa between employers is an absolute nightmare (that I am currently in the middle of). I'm very happy at my startup employer, but you can't be surrounded by startup culture without wanting to do it for yourself. I've got tech skills, ideas and business-minded friends and a couple of potential investors- but I can't act on any of this because I can't start and work for my own company. So, I'm here for now. But I don't see a career path ahead of me, just a ton of dead ends. So as it stands right now, if I ever want to get serious about an idea I'll have to take it to London. Arguably, that's not in my interests (I'll have to rebuild a network from scratch) and it's not in the interests of the US for me to leave. The Startup Visa would allow me to form my own company, work for it and hire local employees. Maybe I'm biased, but it seems like a win-win to me.

coryl 15y ago

Canadian here, your help is appreciated!

thomasgerbe 15y ago
As a Canadian, I have to say it's not very hard for Canadians to get VISAs in the U.S.
- coryl 15y ago
  If you're technical, yeah. Always tons of demand for engineers. But if you're not a software engineer, much harder I believe.
  - URSpider94 15y ago
    You don't have to be a software engineer, or even technical, you just have to be a "professional".
- abbasmehdi 15y ago
  Touche. Also there are many ways around it.
- dotBen 15y ago
  As a Canadian I have to say it's easy to get short-term non-immigration visas (TN's, which technically are a status not a visa). But green-card/immigration visas are no easier for Canadians than anyone else.

jisaacstone 15y ago

I have a number of visa complaints, but they have nothing to do with start-ups. Fiancee visa: {% for profanity in all_profanities %} {{ profanity }} USCIS {% endfor %} I feel better now.

HistoryInAction 15y ago
I'm not sure how you could apply a greased weasel to USCIS, but I'm sure they would not appreciate it.

psychotik 15y ago

Please take a few minutes to do this. If you need a first-hand non-sentimental story with a possible solution, here's mine: http://crazyviraj.blogspot.com/2011/06/capitalistic-fix-for-americans-broken.html http://crazyviraj.blogspot.com/2011/06/capitalistic-fix-for-...

HistoryInAction 15y ago
Viraj, encourage you to look at this piece of legislation which may affect your wait time: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/52799052-90/chaffetz-bill-legislation-immigration.html.csp http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/52799052-90/chaffetz-b... Thanks for sharing!

dlss 15y ago

Okay, a bit off topic, but I'm hoping I wasn't the only one who clicked this title after sight reading "Have 4 minutes to help startup vista?"

snkashis 15y ago
or "Have 4 Mintues to Help startup Visa?"