4 ms·

Immigrant founder of indee.tv stuck in Vancouver due to visa hassle

19 points by kingsley_20 17y ago

A post by an immigrant entrepreneur who's being denied re-entry to the US, in support of the founder's visa / startup visa.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago
Can we please avoid using hashtags in article titles? This isn't Twitter...
- kingsley_20 17y ago
  Point taken. Better?
kingsley_20 17y ago
Sharan's a friend, but it also touches a nerve because this could have very well have been me. While I think there's a lot of awareness about this topic, there isn't really enough about entrepreneurs who are living through this now (as opposed to people who have somehow successfully transitioned from immigrant to founder), mainly due to the scarcity of these stories.
ujibuip 17y ago
Stuck in Vancouver is hardly a terrible fate. Run the company from there - the city is crawling with tv/film/media people who cost half as much as the do in Ca.
- kingsley_20 17y ago
  Indee.tv was incorporated in the bay area and has been operational for almost a year. He's being refused re-entry. Like myself, Sharan's a first generation immigrant from India, and he doesn't actually have any connections/ roots in Vancouver. He just picked it because he was legally required to re-enter the country ("yes, to stay in the country, Alice, you must leave and re-enter" saith the INS), and Canada's a close "foreign" country.
  - mrfish 17y ago
    Also Vancouver has a HUGE Indian community so I hope he was able to take advantage of that.
- sharan 17y ago
  I realize I may be left with no options, but it's not as easy as just saying run the company from here. For one, I am not a Canadian citizen so I need to apply for all kinds of immigration permissions to move the company and work for it from here. We have also been building momentum with filmmakers and festivals in the Bay Area and my team is based there. To not have access to any of that does create problems for a startup.
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    FYI a man of your qualifications will get fast-tracked through the Canadian immigration process with zero problems.
    - ujibuip 17y ago
      In theory - however in practice "fast-track" and "Canadian government" don't naturally go together.
      - pyre 17y ago
        Make friends with a local and have them contact their MP. My status process sped up pretty quickly with a politician's office on the case. They can probe to ask what's going on with a particular application,etc. (I also believe that my application was 'fast-tracked' because there was an upcoming election too).
        jacquesm 17y ago
        It very much depends on a large number of factors that are not under your control. It's basically a lottery. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. I've had the local mayor, a case officer of the Ontario immigration department (from TO) and a whole bunch of others practically beg the office in Buffalo to finally do something and still time ran out (after 5 years we called it quits). The really sad thing is that it cost a lot of hardworking Canadians their jobs, and the area where we lived jobs, especially well paying ones with employers that have a different view of employees than so many lemons that need to be squeezed are very hard to come by.
maxklein 17y ago
Sometimes, stories like this remind me of that scene in pretty women where Edward says to Julia Roberts : "I never treated you like a prostitute.", and she replies "You just did."
mikeryan 17y ago
First I'm very sympathetic to Sharan's plight. This has to suck. But it raises some real issues with the whole startup founder plan. Does a company with (what looks like) 4 people and a few seed investors count as a startup? This seems like a really low bar. I think pg's initial essay kind of glosses over the difficulty of defining a startup - or for that matter even a "startup investor". I go both ways on this issue. I think letting smart, driven people into the US to work is awesome. But I'm not sold that being the founder of a "startup" is the right bar.
- kingsley_20 17y ago
  Right now, if I wanted to found a startup without taking some of the risks Sharan took (the LLC route), I'd have to get enough funding to pay myself ~70K/year as salary. Then, and if I had respectable funding, and some well known/ respectable people on the board, I can set up shop and have a US Citizen co-founder "hire" me as an H1B. So the system as it stands forces immigrant founders to raise funding, even if you had a completely bootstrappable business plan. That's where the bar is set now, and it definitely dissuades people, and that's why I think many of us advocate lowering it. Substitute it with education, experience or endorsements maybe?
alanthonyc 17y ago
Your story is both inspiring and disheartening at the same time. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

19 points by kingsley_20 17y ago

A post by an immigrant entrepreneur who's being denied re-entry to the US, in support of the founder's visa / startup visa.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago

Can we please avoid using hashtags in article titles? This isn't Twitter...

kingsley_20 17y ago
Point taken. Better?

kingsley_20 17y ago

Sharan's a friend, but it also touches a nerve because this could have very well have been me. While I think there's a lot of awareness about this topic, there isn't really enough about entrepreneurs who are living through this now (as opposed to people who have somehow successfully transitioned from immigrant to founder), mainly due to the scarcity of these stories.

ujibuip 17y ago

Stuck in Vancouver is hardly a terrible fate. Run the company from there - the city is crawling with tv/film/media people who cost half as much as the do in Ca.

kingsley_20 17y ago
Indee.tv was incorporated in the bay area and has been operational for almost a year. He's being refused re-entry. Like myself, Sharan's a first generation immigrant from India, and he doesn't actually have any connections/ roots in Vancouver. He just picked it because he was legally required to re-enter the country ("yes, to stay in the country, Alice, you must leave and re-enter" saith the INS), and Canada's a close "foreign" country.
- mrfish 17y ago
  Also Vancouver has a HUGE Indian community so I hope he was able to take advantage of that.
sharan 17y ago
I realize I may be left with no options, but it's not as easy as just saying run the company from here. For one, I am not a Canadian citizen so I need to apply for all kinds of immigration permissions to move the company and work for it from here. We have also been building momentum with filmmakers and festivals in the Bay Area and my team is based there. To not have access to any of that does create problems for a startup.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  FYI a man of your qualifications will get fast-tracked through the Canadian immigration process with zero problems.
  - ujibuip 17y ago
    In theory - however in practice "fast-track" and "Canadian government" don't naturally go together.
    - pyre 17y ago
      Make friends with a local and have them contact their MP. My status process sped up pretty quickly with a politician's office on the case. They can probe to ask what's going on with a particular application,etc. (I also believe that my application was 'fast-tracked' because there was an upcoming election too).
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        It very much depends on a large number of factors that are not under your control. It's basically a lottery. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. I've had the local mayor, a case officer of the Ontario immigration department (from TO) and a whole bunch of others practically beg the office in Buffalo to finally do something and still time ran out (after 5 years we called it quits). The really sad thing is that it cost a lot of hardworking Canadians their jobs, and the area where we lived jobs, especially well paying ones with employers that have a different view of employees than so many lemons that need to be squeezed are very hard to come by.

maxklein 17y ago

Sometimes, stories like this remind me of that scene in pretty women where Edward says to Julia Roberts : "I never treated you like a prostitute.", and she replies "You just did."

mikeryan 17y ago

First I'm very sympathetic to Sharan's plight. This has to suck. But it raises some real issues with the whole startup founder plan. Does a company with (what looks like) 4 people and a few seed investors count as a startup? This seems like a really low bar. I think pg's initial essay kind of glosses over the difficulty of defining a startup - or for that matter even a "startup investor". I go both ways on this issue. I think letting smart, driven people into the US to work is awesome. But I'm not sold that being the founder of a "startup" is the right bar.

kingsley_20 17y ago
Right now, if I wanted to found a startup without taking some of the risks Sharan took (the LLC route), I'd have to get enough funding to pay myself ~70K/year as salary. Then, and if I had respectable funding, and some well known/ respectable people on the board, I can set up shop and have a US Citizen co-founder "hire" me as an H1B. So the system as it stands forces immigrant founders to raise funding, even if you had a completely bootstrappable business plan. That's where the bar is set now, and it definitely dissuades people, and that's why I think many of us advocate lowering it. Substitute it with education, experience or endorsements maybe?

alanthonyc 17y ago

Your story is both inspiring and disheartening at the same time. Good luck and let us know how it goes.