dusanbab

Gross profit, operating profit or net profit?

If you mean the latter please show us some examples of public cos with a 90% net profit margin. I don’t think there are many.

A high school friend and I decided to try and port the .NET Compact Framework to Symbian OS, specifically Series 60. The company (https://web.archive.org/web/20100112091803/http://www.redfiv...) was based in Johannesburg, South Africa and although we raised funding, we just took way too long.

We were lucky enough to be able to bootstrap some things with the Mono/Xamarin .NET implementation. Initially we created an interpreter but then created a full JIT compiler. It was not easy, to say the least, getting things to work on that platform.

What also didn’t help was the level of support we got from Symbian/Nokia; our project/startup was mostly met with indifference. By the time we had a viable, mostly functioning .NET Compact Framework v2 running the writing was on the wall vs iPhone.

Any particular area you’re interested in? Hacking on a side project right now with frequent flier miles and points.

Unfortunately it went with it. There were some superficial talks about it winding up in the Symbian Foundation, but those didn’t materialize.

And yes, it probably points to a major problem with a small company developing critical framework or tool components when the codebase isn’t participating in an open source license.

There were many mistakes made along the way, in retrospect.

Was the framework you mentioned in (1) a Microsoft project, or something else?

As a matter of interest, what did you do on the CF team?

Back in 2008/9 I was a co-founder at a company (Red Five Labs) that created a .NET Compact Framework runtime for Symbian OS (featured on most Nokia & Samsung smartphones at the time). We got to a .NET CF 2.0 level of compatibility.

It was a venture-backed startup out of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Although we wrote the runtime ourselves, we made extensive use of some of the mono libraries until we were able to rewrite most of these optimized for Symbian.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20100112091803/http://www.redfiv...

That wouldn't be an expense though, unless they wrote it down. Nitpicking, I know. What's $200MM after all ;)

Actually, this may not be a visa, but rather parole, which is a very interesting way to do this indeed.

I can recommend someone I've met a few times, but didn't end up pursuing an EB-5.

Bear in mind that these projects are often not funded through traditional means and ergo are more risky.

Do you have personal evidence of a good exit leading to an EB-1? You would think it would, but that category seems difficult for entrepreneurship/business.

Ok so it's not just me then :)

Yes, country of nationality does make a difference to DV lottery.

I'm not saying it's all roses. I'm talking about risk/reward.

I'm trying to compare it to the potential upside of any immigrant category. Entrepreneurs present some downside, but no more than any other visa/immigrant category. One heck of a lot more upside though, IMO.

From personal experience I can say there are incorrect assumptions on both the EB-5 and L-1. Happy to share my experience - let me know how to PM you.

EB-5 you can do for $500k plus transactional costs and probably shouldn't go into the business anyway.

E2 absolutely agree it just feels like deferring the problem to a later date. A lot of exposure for not as much in return.

I think the bottom line is you don't need to be in the US as much as you needed to before, given your track record. Here the US should need/want you more than the other way round.

L-1A is probably quite doable though and it's dual intent. You need to wait a year, but that may have passed already anyway.

If you've studied O-1 recipients in non-business's categories, I think founders have it hard. I certainly know of some recipients in other industries and honestly the burden of proof was just not as difficult.

And what's the risk to the US if it isn't? Compared to the impact and risk of existing visa categories?

Wouldn't you have been a good (great!) candidate for an O-1A or EB-1?

Completely understand if you couldn't be bothered at this point though. What a loss for the US.

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I guess there's a slight chance he didn't use any, but I find it hard to believe he didn't get a bit of help from HGH and "Vitamin-S" (steroids).

Not that there is anything wrong with that, but the article feels lopsided without any insight into his supplementation.

I think the frustration with the various state differences is less interesting, to be honest. That's part of what makes the US great IMO - states have to compete with each other as people and businesses can vote with their feet.

The difficulty you encountered during what I would have thought should be a routine L-1 is most concerning & perplexing. I really never understand this point - more than a million new green cards were issued in 2012 [1] but you can't even easily get a temporary work visa.

To make matters worse every year 50K new green cards are issued to completely random people, I mean it's a lottery after all [2]. Why does the US want to hand out residency en masse and then stop people who can create jobs and grow the economy? As an outsider looking in I would think you're getting the worst of both outcomes.

I don't believe there is a good answer. Regrettably decision making has become so paralyzed in the US Congress and Senate and the whole machine only exists to serve itself.

[1] http://www.voanews.com/content/us-issues-million-green-cards... [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_Immigrant_Visa

Edit: references

Regarding your second point, why should he delegate that critical task to someone he hasn't worked with extensively before?

Why should he prove someone else couldn't do that job? They probably could, but he can do it better and it's his money/equity after all.

Sorry to hear L-1 was unsuccessful for you. Care to share what the eventual denial reason was?

We seem to have exactly the same thing going on in Johannesburg, South Africa. Cops / Metro police stop people all the time and start an inquisition about how much a person has been drinking etc, threatening a breathylzer, jail etc.

Of all the times it's happened to me, I've actually completed one breathylzer test (it was zero).

It's borderline harassment at best, at worst solicitation of a bribe. I always ask, "what caused you to stop me or aroused your suspicions that I have been drinking?" and I never get an answer.

Brilliant and succinctly put!

Why can't you use a US iTunes account? How is that illegal? It may well be a violation of the Apple/iTunes TOS but that is different to being illegal.

laughinghan, I don't buy your physical / virtual goods distinction. Your argument is inconsistent - if you were prepared to shoplift the same movie from a store I wouldn't agree with your ethics, but you would at least be acting consistently.

Good point RE social stigma attached to this, but IMO it's simply a reflection of the penalty most territories attach to physical theft compared to virtual. The latter is also a lot easier to perpetrate.

I can't cite evidence immediately, but it's fairly accepted that length of jail terms influence per-capita crime rates of most crime types.

Regarding your edit - I can't understand why anyone doing a startup wouldn't want to be based in the US!

Better executive talent, great engineering talent (but perhaps expensive given demand), plenty of VCs, angels etc & importantly, exit opportunities. As another commenter mentioned, the sheer amount of successes (in the Valley especially) isn't coincidence.

The Startup Visa initiative is a great idea, but is that ever going to happen? The current US immigration system is an extremely good filter at keeping generally law-abiding entrepreneurs out, but letting in the exact kind of individuals it purports to protect the US from.

If you're going to keep potential job-creators out in this economy, why let anyone in?

I found it a frustrating experience too...happy to share more insights directly at dusanb [at] devicemagic dot com.

We do have some interesting customers paying; so your point is well taken. We need to write these up and make the successes more accessible.

Thanks for your feedback.