Hacker News Reader

Comment by adamsmith | Hacker News Reader

having been in all three places, you should leave europe to start your company. but move to silicon valley instead.

I wish this were possible, but the difficulty in doing this is massive. If you are not U.S born, it's QUITE difficult to simply walk in and start a company in the U.S. And you'd spend a lot of time just solving those problems, and have a lot less time to setup your company.

In comparison, I landed in china on thursday. Today is monday, and I have a fully furnished office (with furniture I selected myself), an assistant and 25 interviews with programmers scheduled for this week. The business papers have been submitted, bank accounts have been setup.

This all goes really, really fast.

Where in China are you setting up?

Shenzhen, beside Hong Kong.

while the Startup Visa is a good thing, it's still difficult for people (who are not born here or who don't possess a GC) to start a venture here. Even with the startup visa, there's a lot at stake and a lot of pressure to meet the demands about a certain $ of investment, turnover, operating capital, etc. Not every startup is going to fulfill those criteria right off the bat and the cost of failure is too high.

That's one of the reasons why I'm thinking of moving to India or somewhere Singapore/ Hong Kong in the near future.

Shenzhen is Hong Kong without the terrible apartment costs, but with slightly better internet.

I found the internet much better in HK. Facebook, Youtube, Dropbox, Twitter, Blogspot, etc... are accessible. In Shenzhen, they aren't. Sure you can pay for a VPN, but then performance suffers on other sites.

    If you are not U.S born, it's 
    QUITE difficult to simply
    walk in and start a company
    in the U.S. And you'd spend 
    a lot of time just solving
    those problems, and have a lot 
    less time to setup your company.

Not only that, you might have a hard time even getting to the US in the first place, as one of the requirements for even getting a visa is to show that you have "sufficient ties" to you current country of residence (e.g. a job).

If they suspect you might try to immigrate you won't even get into the country.

If you are trying to immigrate to the US on a non-immigrant visa then hell yes they will put you through the wringer.

Do the proper paperwork and apply through the greencard lottery. There are plenty of empty spots for French and German greencard seekers. Since we share the same language the UK slots are perpetually full. Australians get a special immigration visa (R-1?) just for being awesome.

UK slots? The British aren't even eligible to apply for the green card lottery program (except, I believe, people from Northern Ireland.)

I'm not French or German.

I haven't really heard of the lottery before, and I suspect this is the reason:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_Immigrant_Visa#Winnin...

The amortized chance of "winning" over all regions is 1.51%.

It depends. They have quotas for different countries. Think of how many people are applying from your country. Then think of how many people are applying from Mexico, China, India, Guatemala. That is just the means so you have a much higher probability than if you are from a West European country than you do from a developing country.

That's true, but I am not from a western european country :)

  In comparison, I landed in china on thursday. Today is
  monday, and I have a fully furnished office (with furniture 
  I selected myself), an assistant and 25 interviews with 
  programmers scheduled for this week. The business papers 
  have been submitted, bank accounts have been setup.

How much money did you need to spend for all that?

I wish this were possible, but the difficulty in doing this is massive. If you are not U.S born, it's QUITE difficult to simply walk in and start a company in the U.S.

How do all the Chinese/Korean/Indian people in the US do it?

I often read on Hacker News about how difficult it is to start a software company in the US. But then I live in Brooklyn and people who don't speak english are always starting laundromats, bodegas, fruit stands, hardware shops, restaurants, and so forth. 3 out of the 4 businesses on my block were started by FOB immigrants. The only one that wasn't is a bar.

> How do all the Chinese/Korean/Indian people in the US do it?

A lot of those come via green card lottery. That still means it's hard.

I don't know about Koreans, Indians/Chinese are NOT eligible for green-card lottery program.

I don't know about Chinese or Korean communities but a lot of the indians that you mention primarily come through via family ties.

One person gets here (alone or family) and files for immigration papers for their immediate relatives, starts working here (usually at an establishment of a relative or a person from the same community), makes enough money, transitions to setting up a new business and the someone else takes their place at the previous establishment. That's how the motels and 7/11,Dunkin etc. chains are run ..

This book had a nice description of this phenomenon. http://www.amazon.com/Dhandho-Investor-Value-Method-Returns/...

That's usually the case for DDonuts and Subways but Indians who create high tech startups are usually the ones who stood in line for a greencard ( sometimes for decades ).

The Chinese/Korea/Indian people come here mostly on 12 hr/weekday and weekend indentured servitude via PhD or post-doc program; a few also come on the H1B servitude program.

The FOB immigrants owning stores in Chinatown have either relations to U.S citizens (e.g., uncle, cousins) or they were born in the country and never bothered to try to learn English well (which is fine by me, since I speak Chinese as well).

Also there are quite few bars in Chinatown; they are just in the basement of the restaurants where illegal gambling takes place.

How easy was it to get a visa to start a company? What prerequisites were required?

How will moving to SV help with his number one concern (programmer cost)? In the EU he pays $5000/month for programmers. In the valley he will be paying roughly twice that.

(The valley may have higher quality programmers and a better tech ecosystem, but I'm guessing the author is looking for grunts rather than artisans.)

Didn't he say 5000 Euro a month loaded costs? That's low end of the market where I am in the UK - for people with specific domain knowledge or a proven track record you would be paying a lot more.

what salary does 5000 euro a month loaded costs represent?

You can just get the SV VC's to pay for all that. They'll invest in anything.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com