What the startup visa should really look like

http://eliasbizannes.com/blog/2012/11/what-the-startup-visa-should-really-look-like/

by elias • 14 years ago

39 46 14 years ago

marquis2• 14 years ago

What is so important to actually relocate to the U.S. rather than any other country, or stay where you are? (if you are lucky to be somewhere that's safe and respectful to your way of life). I travel to and partner with the U.S. as a core part of my work but it's never been something I considered to actually permanently move there - you can open a business and a bank account remotely, run your S corp* etc. Is it because funding is hard to find, and harder to find if you are not actually living in NYC or SF? Are there not easier countries to move to, if you're looking to relocate for reasons other than financial, and run your U.S based company remotely? I don't think that there is any shortage of Comp Sci graduates anywhere in the OECD for those looking to hire.

* edit (C corp or LLC)

isalmon4• 14 years ago

You can't own an S corp unless you're a US resident (citizen or GC holder).

hnwh• 14 years ago

But you can own a C-Corp, which is what a venture-funded startup needs to be

marquis2• 14 years ago

You can also be the sole member of an LLC, which is sufficient for having a U.S. bank account and doing business, if you're not looking for VC funds. Real estate agents deal with these kinds of LLC setups anytime for foreign real estate purchases.

sharth• 14 years ago

Why does the company even need to be registered in the USA?

elias2• 14 years ago

Actually, the requirement is that you area tax resident. Similar but very different.

hpatel2• 14 years ago

Given that this discussion is about US immigration, it makes sense to discuss cases where capital needs to be raised(if comparing to OECD countries) or there is a significant advantage to relocating to US(if comparing to non-OECD countries).

One of the main premises is that innovation is stifled because employees in the position to innovate are chained to their jobs via the H1 visa in their prime years.

isalmon4• 14 years ago

Here's my story. I had H-1b for more than 3 years. I know for sure that I was taking someone's job - there's no doubt about that. When I finally got my green card - I quit the next day to start my own company. Now I create jobs.

So it took me 3 years until I could start creating jobs in the US. In my opinion US government should provide incentives for the foreigners to CREATE jobs, not TAKE them. Right now it's exactly the opposite.

This OP's point is I think the most important part of this blog post: "And allow them to graduate into new visa's (like a greencard) once certain milestones have been hit like revenue thresholds (tax paid) and employment (aggregate demand in the economy increases)."

thinkisgood4• 14 years ago

The US does offer a program like this, which the author referred to, and is the EB-5 program. It requires you to invest $1MM in the US and create 10 jobs ($500k and 10 jobs in economic development zones). You can go from a visa to a green card within 3-4 years after proving your investment and the creating of 10 jobs.

eshvk6• 14 years ago

I just read up on this. It works if you have that much capital at the start but what if you don't? What is the alternative for say people, who are fresh out of school and have a bunch of ideas and might in 3-4 years time create value and jobs worth that number or even twice it.

hasenj• 14 years ago

The problem here is the $1MM has to be your to begin with.

What if instead you can get people to invest that amount into your startup and then use that investment to create jobs?

HistoryInAction6• 14 years ago

Great story. Want to tell it on www.immigrantexodus.com? We're using it as a platform to seed press to influence the DC debate and advance startup visa.

craig politihacks com (with the usual distribution of at and dot)

thinkisgood4• 14 years ago

I'm all for opening up the US and allowing more immigrants in. With the author's solution, who determines what is and what is not a start up? If I start a restaurant, am I not a start up? What if I start a cleaning service, a landscaping company, etc?

eshvk6• 14 years ago

I am confused: Is there a reason why those _shouldn't_ be startups? If there is a reasonably baseline of jobs, $J being created in a certain reasonably timeframe, $T, with a certain amount of equity, $D being generated. Why should the U.S. government have an issue with how cool or fancy your startup is?

thinkisgood4• 14 years ago

They should be. The problem is that there are very little barriers to entry to these start ups and as such, pretty much anyone can start one and have a visa.

The problem with setting benchmarks are where do you set them? There is already a program know as the EB-5 program that requires you to invest $1MM ($500k in economic development zones) and create 10 jobs and after 3-4 years you can get a green card.

raganesh• 14 years ago

PG's post from a couple of months ago, titled "Startup = Growth", might be relevant: http://paulgraham.com/growth.html

photorized• 14 years ago

EB-5 also allows for $500,000 investment instead of $1 million, if the business being funded is in a high unemployment area.

cletus• 14 years ago

I'm glad the author mentioned the disparity between work visas and immigration and visas for the "arts" (fashion models, actors, etc), which seem to be trivial to get. I don't understand that at all.

I will say that the last thing a startup visa program needs is discretionary government oversight. That has disaster written all over it.

My opinion is this: you should be able to come to the US and "pay your way". By this I mean demonstrate that a) you can support yourself and b) you are paying for things like health insurance. There probably needs to be a package for (b) such that, from the perspective of the government, you aren't "freeloading".

It should be up to each state to determine what that means. If you reside in NYC perhaps you need $30,000 to support yourself. In Iowa? Maybe $10,000 will do.

While residing in the US on such a visa you can't take a job (you need a visa for that) but you can start a business. This is where it gets tricky because you don't necessarily want to open the floodgates for people who are in de facto employment through a small business.

The packaged health (and other) costs and keeping sufficient funds to support yourself should ameliorate that possibility.

As long as people are willing to pay to reside in the US and work on their big idea, why not let them?

At some point if your company gets funded or you have sufficient revenue and/or employees, you can convert to the appropriate immigration status.

hpatel2• 14 years ago

Even though it makes sense, I think the biggest problem with this solution is preventing people from taking up low paying cash jobs. The US doesn't have an effective way to enforce that yet.

davidw• 14 years ago

As long as people are willing to pay to reside in the US, why not let them?

SwaroopH3• 14 years ago

EIR[1] has worked on a temporary solution to resolve this by re-interpreting the laws for L and O making it more startup friendly. This was further confirmed by Doug Rand (from whitehouse) at GAN[2] conference but no ETA on formalization.

[1]. http://www.uscis.gov/eir [2]. http://gan.co/

HistoryInAction6• 14 years ago

Right, EIR program has been dark since their cancellation of the July webcast of the GA Tech event that was supposed to be the wrap up of their first 90 days.

Anyone hear anything from them since then?

SwaroopH3• 14 years ago

I got the details from Paul Ford, he is one of my mentors and is on the panel. Also, Doug Rand confirmed this at the GAN conference.

emmapersky• 14 years ago

H-1B has no requirement that no US citizen can be found with the qualifications. This is a common misconception. In fact, H-1B is fairly trivial if you meet the criteria (degree or equivalent). This "no qualified US citizen" requirement is associated with EB-2 and EB-3 PERM applications, which is the first step to an employer sponsored green card process.

Also, It is not valid to start a business and pay yourself at least the prevailing wage in order to sponsor an H-1B. In fact, if you are in the ownership chain of a company you more or less can't have it apply for an H-1B on your behalf. There are other routes if you are making serious money though.

HistoryInAction6• 14 years ago

I believe that while this is technically correct, the labor certification that is needed to go through the H1-B process does require a "no qualified US citizen" proof. However, I'm told that's also fairly trivial to surmount, which is the cause of a lot of angst in the anti-immigration (anti-H1B subgroup) community.

potatolicious• 14 years ago

The H1B is just a work visa - it does not require a labor certification at all.

Turning a H1B into a green card is the process that involves the labor cert.

oscarhong• 14 years ago

I'm wondering what would the differences in terms of difficulty between getting citizenship by finding a start up and getting a green card by working for Microsoft be.

patio11• 14 years ago

Did you know a fashion model can easily get a O1 if she has appeared in a few print magazines, but an entrepreneur has to basically have won a noble prize? I could write a book about the issues each of the above visa’s have, but I want to keep this post light as it’s a complicated subject.

Let me quote from the regulations. You need either a Nobel Prize or any three of the following:

Receipt of nationally or internationally recognized prizes or awards for excellence in the field of endeavor

Membership in associations in the field for which classification is sought which require outstanding achievements, as judged by recognized national or international experts in the field

Published material in professional or major trade publications, newspapers or other major media about the beneficiary and the beneficiary’s work in the field for which classification is sought

Original scientific, scholarly, or business-related contributions of major significance in the field

Authorship of scholarly articles in professional journals or other major media in the field for which classification is sought

A high salary or other remuneration for services as evidenced by contracts or other reliable evidence

Participation on a panel, or individually, as a judge of the work of others in the same or in a field of specialization allied to that field for which classification is sought

Employment in a critical or essential capacity for organizations and establishments that have a distinguished reputation

Now comes the hacking bit: can you map any three of those broadly written requirements to three specific achievements a 23 year old programmer could have within two months of setting out to have them? Empirically, more than a few people can. (I'm constrained about what I can tell you about individual folks.)

e.g. While I'm an American citizen and thus wouldn't have to worry about it (the relevant criteria for my Japanese visa are, obviously, different), I could present a fairly strong case for an O1 visa on the basis of:

1) I have been published in a major CS journal. (ACM reprinted a blog post of mine. Totally counts. I'm pretty sure you can make "Guest posted for Smashing Magazine" into one of your three points, if that seems unlikely.)

2) My salary is high (i.e. "at least as high as a starting grad at Google"), as evidenced by copious paper I could produce on that topic. Not a high bar for any engineer to hit.

3) I judged a hackathon once ("participated on a panel as the judge of work of others..."). (So not kidding. Bureaucracies are state machines. You give them exactly what they ask for and get the published transition.)

etc, etc, etc

HistoryInAction6• 14 years ago

The above is very accurate. However, I'll also add that you need either a college degree or a 4 years professional experience for every year of education it replaces to prove your high level of skill.

The salary bit can be difficult, since you're applying as a founder. Not sure how much investors like a very capital-intensive founder, as would be mandated by the law if that's one of the criteria used.

Makes it somewhat more difficult for an 18-year old with multiple exits to qualify.

OzzyOsbourne• 14 years ago

I want to believe this and internalise it, and make it my road map. I intend on getting a 4-year degree as well as a master's degree.

Do you have any evidence on the state machine-ness of bureaucracies? Anecdotes? How can you substantiate your opinion and example?

loumf• 14 years ago

No one can guarantee anything for you. Achieving 3 of the above criteria will not hurt you and are quite easy to achieve. They will also help you in other ways.

Worry about being great -- (Steve Martin quote is relevant here: "be so good they can't ignore you")

psycho2• 14 years ago

Another idea could be giving visas for people who are accepted by accredited accelerators. If PG, for example, believes in someone's ability to make a business why should government officials worry? (that's similar to the original Startup Visa idea but with another investor qualification mechanism and without 100 000 dollars barrier)

elias2• 14 years ago

That's what the startup visa in it current advocacy states: if an entrepreneur has raised 250k then so be it.

So yes, valid idea. But again, not what I' saying: if I want to start a business, it should not be a requirement that I have to raise money or go into an incubator. Those are factors that should accelerate an application, not determine it.

psycho2• 14 years ago

Being foreign tech enterpreneur myself, I think your idea is the most legit. But that is why it seems harder for it to be brought into life, unfortunately.

What the startup visa should really look like

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