5 ms·

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 t

by 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.
- muyuu 15y ago
  I'd go back to London ASAP. That's not going to change any time soon. By any time soon I mean not this decade at the very least. If anything, they will introduce tighter legislation.
- kokey 15y ago
  I'm a foreigner in the UK on the UK equivalent of an H1B visa (the tier 2 killed migrant visa). I'm also tied to my employer, though it's a consultancy and I'm based at different clients on different projects so it doesn't get too dull. That said, I'm also frustrated that I can't start a business here. There is an entrepreneur visa, but you need either £250,000 of cash that's under your control (no loans) or £50,000 from a UK based VC, and even with that it's not easy to get. I doubt, politically, that it will become easier to get startup visas in the US and the UK. People actually don't want entrepeneurs from foreign cultures in their country. They don't want people from the Middle East and Asia open restaurants, take-aways, tailors, mechanics and other small businesses that employ them and their relatives. They don't want these people to have lifestyle businesses. People are racist and xenophobic. This is why they set the bar either high, so it's someone who will set up a large business that is likely to employ a lot of local people (or pay a lot of taxes) or they limit it to VC funded companies since these invest in certain more desirable types of businesses from a cultural perspective, like hi-tech.
  - mattmanser 15y ago
    It's not racist or xenophobic to give priority to your own citizens over others. We're not racists or xenophobes just because our great-great-great-great-grandparents did a better job at setting up a country than yours. We're not obliged to fix the world just for you, we just want to live our own lives. Our unemployment is high enough to need to give priority to the children of the people who paid for it all, because that was the promise of the struggle. Start a business in your own country. If it's such a crap country, work on fixing it for the next generation. That responsibility's fallen to your generation, stop moaning and stand up.
    - rglullis 15y ago

by 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.

muyuu 15y ago
I'd go back to London ASAP. That's not going to change any time soon. By any time soon I mean not this decade at the very least. If anything, they will introduce tighter legislation.
kokey 15y ago
I'm a foreigner in the UK on the UK equivalent of an H1B visa (the tier 2 killed migrant visa). I'm also tied to my employer, though it's a consultancy and I'm based at different clients on different projects so it doesn't get too dull. That said, I'm also frustrated that I can't start a business here. There is an entrepreneur visa, but you need either £250,000 of cash that's under your control (no loans) or £50,000 from a UK based VC, and even with that it's not easy to get. I doubt, politically, that it will become easier to get startup visas in the US and the UK. People actually don't want entrepeneurs from foreign cultures in their country. They don't want people from the Middle East and Asia open restaurants, take-aways, tailors, mechanics and other small businesses that employ them and their relatives. They don't want these people to have lifestyle businesses. People are racist and xenophobic. This is why they set the bar either high, so it's someone who will set up a large business that is likely to employ a lot of local people (or pay a lot of taxes) or they limit it to VC funded companies since these invest in certain more desirable types of businesses from a cultural perspective, like hi-tech.
- mattmanser 15y ago
  It's not racist or xenophobic to give priority to your own citizens over others. We're not racists or xenophobes just because our great-great-great-great-grandparents did a better job at setting up a country than yours. We're not obliged to fix the world just for you, we just want to live our own lives. Our unemployment is high enough to need to give priority to the children of the people who paid for it all, because that was the promise of the struggle. Start a business in your own country. If it's such a crap country, work on fixing it for the next generation. That responsibility's fallen to your generation, stop moaning and stand up.
  - rglullis 15y ago