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

http://sharanreddy.com/2009/09/founders-visa-please/

by kingsley_20 • 17 years ago

19 22 17 years 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.

kingsley_204• 17 years 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.

ujibuip2• 17 years 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_204• 17 years 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• 17 years ago

Also Vancouver has a HUGE Indian community so I hope he was able to take advantage of that.

sharan2• 17 years 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• 17 years ago

FYI a man of your qualifications will get fast-tracked through the Canadian immigration process with zero problems.

pkaler• 17 years ago

There is a very vibrant startup community here in Vancouver. Check out:

  http://launchpartyhq.com/
  http://bootup.ca/
  http://barcamp.org/BarCampVancouver
  http://www.newmediabc.com/
  http://www.techvibes.com/index/vancouver

ryanwaggoner• 17 years ago

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

kingsley_204• 17 years ago

Point taken. Better?

mikeryan• 17 years 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_204• 17 years 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• 17 years ago

Your story is both inspiring and disheartening at the same time.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

maxklein• 17 years 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."

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

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