ASK HN: Do I have to be in America to make success? | Hacker News Reader

ASK HN: Do I have to be in America to make success?

39 pointsahmedaly59 comments

Well.. Around 5 yrs ago, I had an idea for making a statrup.. I worked on it.. and developed it.. and I got thousands of users.. who were using my website..

I am from Egypt, and I had an American friend who supported the website.. by paying for it's hosting and all other related fees...

Around a year ago, I totally stopped working on it, and even it's shut down now.. My main problem was getting into America..

Whatever, I want to re-start this startup again.. but of course it's kind of impossible for a young Arab Muslim to travel to America (This is the truth regardless what you hear in your American media).. so I wonder.. is it possible to make a successful American startup, even if you are not in America? And is it possible to get acquired later by an American enterprise?

What gave me some hope again.. that recently an Arabian social network was acquired by Yahoo!.. which is maktoob.com website.. and that refreshed my dreams for making something successful..

What do you think? It's very frustrating to be stopped.. just based on your religion!

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Stop your frustration and forget about the world hating you because you are an "Arabic Muslim". US don't love you because you are a "poor", "third-world" citizen. Proof? Get $1 million and you'll access the states. Any country, really!

So the first thing is: It's not about who you are. It's about how much money you have.

You said your startup is a website (probably a kind of SaaS). If it's successful why not charge your users. Get paid via FastSpring (they take a fee, but deliver money to your card, bank, paypal... and manage your subscription). You don't need access to the USA. You only need to form a company in Egypt, declare your revenue, pay your taxes, pay hosting with your card (provided by Fast Spring). Hire programmers in Egypt (they are cheap) and get yourself off the ground.

Your main problem is getting into the US. But why do you want to get their? You actually don't, it actually add expenses and Visa problems. And with only thousands of users, you can live like a Prince in Egypt.

First, as someone who is not originally an American, it is tough to get into America legally regardless of your religion or country of origin.

The USCIS, formerly called the BSCIS, formally called the INS is tough to go through for everyone. You need to understand that this is not becuase of your religion or whatever - its becuase you are not American like the rest of the world (be it Irish, French, SOuth African, Egyptian etc...)

They are equally unhelpful and incompetent to people of all nations.

Sorry for making a comment off-topic..but you are wrong! Just for your information, all Europeans can enter U.S. without a visa, through the visa waiver program... which is not available option for Arab Muslims.

I am talking about entering America, regardless the purpose of travel!

Vacation, sure, but for a work visa it's quite tough!

I am talking about entering America, regardless the purpose! It's kind of impossible for a young Arab Muslim to enter America.. or obtain any kind of U.S. visa (tourism, business, study)

No. You talked about entering America for business purposes.

I spent two summers working in the international services department of a major American medical school, helping with visa applications for foreign medical students and doctors.

I can tell you that we had Iranian nationals studying there. (Yes, I know, not Arab). It's certainly not impossible; other posters are right that the biggest barriers are cost, US immigration services' incompetence, and slow response time to applications.

For vacation only! You cannot use that for business. Being a tourist for a few weeks will not result in funding...

You said: For vacation only! You cannot use that for business.

Sorry to nit pick but it's always worth clarifying these issues if people might make decisions based on them.. You can use the VWP for business: http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html

  The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) enables nationals of 36 participating
  countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business 
  (visitor [B] visa purposes only) for stays of 90 days or less without
  obtaining a visa.

However, you cannot "work." Some things are explicitly allowed, though:

  consult with business associates, travel for a scientific, educational, 
  professional or business convention, or conference on specific dates,
  settle an estate, or negotiate a contract

Getting funding should fall under a valid B-1 usage as long as you're not doing any work but merely demoing/meeting people/thrashing out contracts. It would take a few words with the folks at your local US Embassy to nail that down though.

You're right, I'm wrong on that one. Business trips are covered, but you cannot actually work.

It's funny though because there are some exceptions even to that, if you start digging :-) Last time I checked "repairmen doing in-warranty repairs" can use B-1/VWP. There are a few other odd exceptions too.

Odd. I imagine its the whole you cannot do anything where money would change hands?

The waiver program is tied to citizenship, not ethnicity or religion. Arab Muslims who are citizens of a VWP nation are just as eligible as everyone else.

It's also not available to Arab Christians, or people from China, Russia, or a lot of other places. Only 36 countries are in the Visa Waiver program, and you'll notice that the representation of Central and South America, Africa, and Asia is very, very bad.

I personally hate the way US immigration policy works, and I'm American! I live in the EU and my husband is an EU citizen, and we get hassled every time.

But to me, it sounds like you're making excuses - and you're making them personal. That's no problem to me, but it will be a problem to you, because if you're in the habit of excuse-making, you will fail at business no matter what you do.

Such an interesting discussion for me. I'm Hany, an Egyptian American, currently living in the states and involved with technology.

The one thing that I absolutely will say is better in the United States than other places is funding. The idea of Venture Capital (and the sheer amount of investors) is found more here than anywhere else. A good network of capable engineers is nice but honestly you can find that in a lot of places.

To this day, the idea of starting a startup, getting funding, being an entrepreneur, and possibly failing is very American. To this day, the simple idea of "failing is okay" is more concentrated here. But other than that, you can be successful anywhere, really. The odds might be harder but not necessarily so much harder that it would be deemed impossible. Just my two cents.

Feel free to contact me, btw. I'd love to help any way I can. Email's in profile.

Well, I am glad to fin you here. :) There are many challenges that guys on this website are NOT aware of!

For example.. if I want to charge my users, it's very hard to do that, because PayPal is NOT available for Egyptians. Also it's NOT easy to setup an international merchant account, to accept payments on the internet.

There are very critical challenges, which makes it much harder to make any success... not to mention that it's impossible indeed to get funding opportunity in Egypt, as you know... we don't have this culture here yet..

You really won't find that culture anywhere but here, really. Even Europe doesn't fully have that yet.

Finding success while working in Egypt is really not impossible. It lends to just working differently. You probably can't grow a consumer website in Egypt; but SaaS (software as a service) doesn't necessarily have to be created from an American company.

Also, there's such a HUGE need for Arab consumer websites. Somehow, Masrawy, YallaKora, and yes even Maktoob just don't cut it for me. The level of quality is rather low, so that's a great in for someone like who seems knowledgeable and a HackerNews user. There's definite opportunity there.

As I said. Email me and we can talk more.

edit: I think someone mentioned this already but it's worth re-mentioning. In some aspects, living outside of America and a costly place like San Francisco, can be a great benefit. Simply put, if you and I both make $1000, your $1000 will go a much longer way in Egypt than mine will here in a big expensive American city.

Just objectively, I think it's unrealistic for you to expect anyone to fund a five year old site that has only managed to attract a few thousand users, and apparently not enough paying users to cover its own server costs. The fact that you are not in the United States is probably not the reason for your lack of success to date.

That said, as an entrepreneur who is NOT in the United States, I agree that setting up payment systems is a real pain point. My suggestion is that you get a part-time job. It will cost you a few thousand a year to own an international business (register it anywhere) and you may end up paying prohibitively for the right to process credit cards (5%+ per transaction).

But it is possible. In the meantime, if you really want to slum it, there is nothing stopping you from putting up a payment screen and collecting credit card numbers, then getting your friend in the US to collect the cash for you while you build a compelling case for someone to lend you the money to do things more legitimately. I suspect that once you've started your own business and have a revenue stream, you won't want investment though.

... it's kind of impossible for a young Arab Muslim to travel to America (This is the truth regardless what you hear in your American media)

Nonsense. I personally live in an area with a large immigrant Muslim population, both from the Middle East and from Africa. (This is the truth regardless of what you hear in your Egyptian media.)

I don't want to continue commenting off-topic, but I am former Stanford student, and although that.. I could not enter America! And I am talking based on applying for U.S. visa, which is a formal information (they release the stats for visa applicants).

Honestly buddy, keep your stats. I have neighbors. It's difficult for anyone who's not from a rich country to immigrate here, not just Muslims. It's difficult for Indians, Latin Americans, Africans, everyone.

edit: By the way, if you didn't want all this off-topic discussion, you shouldn't have said what you did in the post. You should have asked your question with just the relevant information.

I am not talking about immigration... I am talking about entering America. All Arab Muslims who apply for U.S. visa, fill a specific forms which created for Muslim Arabs from age 18 to 45 yrs.

You did not apply for a U.S. visa, so of course you have no idea about it. :)

How do you plan on starting a company here if you cannot live here permanently?

You don't need to be in America or a US citizen to start a US company. The company is essentially just an entity to 'hold' the business assets so you can easily sell them to another American company.

1. Get visa, go to U.S.

2. Start U.S. company

3. Find U.S. investors, notify them you won't be staying in the country for more than a few months

4. ??????

5. Profit

You don't need to go to the US to start the company. It's just a paperwork exercise so you've got a company in a convenient form to sell or raise investment later.

What's staying in the US got to do with building a website? If you build a business that makes money, then it doesn't really matter where your arse is in the world.

How is any of this fundamentally different to the Tim Ferris-style of running your business from a beach somewhere? If you have a web-based business your physical location only matters if you need millions of dollars to run it - and if that's the kind of business the OP is planning, then he needs to rethink his basic model and come up with something more appropriate to his situation.

If you are building a company that can only survive with capital funding, the funders will care very much where your arse is.

The TF model is much much smarter, but it also requires the guts to create a valuable product that you can charge for directly -- not the dream of creating a delicious startup snack to be gobbled up by Google.

What form are you referring to? I've poked around the US Embassy Cairo site and I don't see any out of the ordinary requirements. Also, I sincerely doubt there are any forms that only have to be filled out by practitioners of a specific religion.

I imagine he's referring to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Registration program, which is pretty blatantly targeted at Muslims (based on a quick glance, the only nation on the list that's not majority Muslim is North Korea).

EDIT: See ICE's website for an official source: http://www.ice.gov/pi/specialregistration/index.htm and http://www.ice.gov/pi/specialregistration/archive.htm. The domestic registration procedures are on an archived page because they applied to people in the US prior to the effective date of the port-of-entry procedures.

That's an unsourced article that has been flagged as unsourced for a long time, for something that ought to be easily sourced. The fact remains that young people from Arab countries travel to the United States a lot, and some immigrate each year.

P.S. A test case to try out would be to try to travel to all the countries that are said to be on that list with a United States passport that has a visa stamp in it from Israel. That can be problematic too.

I have to have two passports for this reason - one for entering Israel and one for everywhere else. A surprising number of countries get a bit steamy about having an Israel Visa stamp.

Israeli border guards will also stamp a piece of paper stapled to your passport if you ask them (so it can be removed when you leave)

It seems like you're fixated on getting into the U.S.

I've seen a lot of people in this state of mind, and it seems to me that wanting something desperately makes it hard to actually get it (it puts you in the wrong state of mind).

Focus on building a great product and don't think about being acquired. Make something people want, get users to love your product. Find ways to monetize the wealth you created.

It seems like what you're really asking is "I want to get into the U.S., can I do that by making a website and hoping to get acquired?".

I think the answer to that is "not likely".

There are successful people outside of the US, ergo: no.

Hi, email me at flarson[at]whiteslate.com, I have some connections in your country and might be able to help you successfully launch your startup.

Bear in mind you don't have to "be acquired" to do well. You can, more easily, sell technology, domains, customers, information, or other business assets you produce to US (or non-US) companies.

Further, even if you don't live in the US, your sites can target US users just as any US site can. If you need to charge money, you'll need to figure out a billing system to accept $, but there are few compelling reasons to be in the US merely to serve users there (though depending on how you do it, the IRS may think otherwise).

All that said, if you look at and learn from American businesses and you have a good feel for your local market (or the Arabic market in general), you might even have a position most of us would envy! You can more easily "take" ideas that have been proven in the West and do an Arabic twist on them (I don't know about the Arabic world, but this tactic is common in non English speaking European countries).

Don't use your race to explain why it's troublesome to move to America. I'm a caucasian from Canada and it is very difficult for even me to move there. While race does have a little bit to do with it, shitty American politics are even worse.

Well, actually if you were a "young rich Arab muslim", then you'd enter without any problems. :)

I have a suggestion, not about entering USA.

From what I have observed, many of non-US based successful start-ups are domestic projects and then a big company comes and buys them, as in your example. My suggestion here is, you can target the arab world. As this has enough people, I can also suggest you targeting the muslim world which consists of 1.5 billion people. By doing so, you'd not have to leave your country or deal with the crap.

Why do you have to move to America to develop a product that provides value to people everywhere, including Americans?

Do that, and I'm pretty sure those American investors will find you.

This is exactly the question... would I have a chance to get a funding opportunity?

Well, couldn't you find Egyptian investors to fund you?

loool... this is something uncommon here in Egypt. :) In fact, internet usage stills low yet.

You'll find investors with the 'smart money' are very well-informed in comparison to the general population, as they must be by necessity.

You need to turn it around and make what you are thinking of as a disadvantage an advantage for you.

There are plenty of rich Arab Muslims around. Chase them for investment - ask them why they aren't funding Arab Muslim companies and are instead investing in News Corporation (eg http://www.kingdom.com.sa/en/MC_PR_NewsDetails.asp?p=3&I...).

Not only are they rich, but many of them are well connected, too.

You don't need to be in America to 'make success'. There are many non US startups that did very well. Also, getting into the US to startup is nearly impossible, so you'll have to look for other options anyway.

1) You don't need an 'American friend' to pay for hosting, all you need is a creditcard.

2) You'll need to properly setup a company. Given your circumstances, I would look at the free zones in the UAE. There you'll find the most business friendly places of the whole (Arab) Middle East. No corruption and bureaucracy there. Second, given the focus you put on being a young Muslim Arab, I'm sure you'll find your way in the UAE, just a short flight from Egypt.

You can find more info on UAE free zones at

http://www.dubaiinternetcity.com/ (the Dubai Free Zone for IT companies)

http://www.rakftz.com/ (the (cheaper) Free Zone of Ras al Khaimah (another emirate of the UAE).

Write something useful that people will pay you money for, and you can do it from anywhere. People have been successful since before America was America. This will continue.

In fact, your costs are much lower outside the developed world, reducing your risk and how much money you have to find to start your business (if anything). Your customers can be anywhere. Spend low, earn high. And I'm willing to bet that the competition is much lower because The Valley isn't even aware you exist, or that your town or city exist. You could be super-successful and still be under their radar.

Turn what you consider your weakness, into your strength.

If you honestly feel that you can't do your startup in Egypt, look to Europe as well as the US. There's a broader range of immigration policies and plenty of places with a 'startup culture'.

Alternatively, develop a model that doesn't require external funding, at least until you've got demonstrable traction. You can create a US company even without being in the US and it can sell shares as normal.

I know there's this huge pressure to get to San Francisco, but it's really not the only place in the world where you can succeed.

No, you don't have to be in America to be a success. But a much better question is, "Do you have what it takes to be successful in America?" Because if you do, then you should come here.

If you have what it takes to be successful in America you'll be just fine everywhere else.

No reason to move to the other side of the world.

If someone has "what it takes to be a success in America", they should spend their time and talent on being a success at home rather than trying to convince US government officials that 1) they are not taking Americans' jobs, and for us Arab muslims that 2) they are not a terrorist.

Please note that the problems are 1) you have to do this when your competitors do not, and 2) your explanations have to go though a government official, ie you will waste many years and the process has nothing to do with logic or facts.

I say this as someone who left the USA even after my employer and my wife's both offered to convert our H1B visas to greencards. But I decided that 6 years (our H1B time in the USA) was already too long that I delayed my startup, and waiting for the green card again was not worth it.

I think your real problem is not that you are not in the USA, it is that you are in Egypt. Bahrain, my country, has problems, but Egypt is something else.

So I think you should really go to Dubai. (I want to say Bahrain, but Dubia is our Silicon Valley, so go there my friend.)

Also, while in Egypt, or Dubai, or anywhere else in the Arab world... apply to Seedcamp. In my year, Talasim from Jordan won, as did my own company, although I applied from Cambridge, UK. But now I am in the Gulf, pursuing clients, and I can tell you that I have access to some here who are more sophisticated than any I saw in the USA. So use what have, go where you can work quickly, because that is what you need for success, not being in the USA.

If you do choose to target your site at America I'd recommend you work on your English. Honestly though, why don't you target the citizens of your home country? You're going to have more trouble fighting the culture barriers in the US anyway (assuming your product isn't highly technical).

What about this particular startup required you to get to America? The world is a pretty big place and there's plenty of other places to work within that don't have the (hopefully temporary) political issues with your religion.

I don't think your goal should be getting acquired. And many businesses are successful even in 3rd world countries.

World is much bigger than America. Of course, there are established economic clusters, like the valley, but it isn't the only destination.

Try Bangalore, India or China. Try to find a niche for your startup around your home (which means find a people with a task/problem and money and turn it into your next startup. Usually that is some internet service for an non-IT established business).

And it is also possible, but really difficult, to bootstrap yourself, if your startup idea is really innovative. Technology is very cheap nowadays.

And the last but not the least - try to find people in situation like your and cooperate and collaborate with them.

I'm personally think that geo-dispersed teams, like that one which develops FreeBSD or Webkit or Go are the answer to the problem. Communication is the key, not a connectivity.

Bootstrapping is easy. Shopping yourself around for funding, and then managing your investor's expectations and demands on top of your theoretical customers', is hard.

It is not so easy if you also need to earn money somehow for living.

Right, because I was living off my trust fund…

Here's what you do to bootstrap, a time-honored technique: Build it in your spare time. Freelance, at a higher rate than you'd earn at a regular job (totally possible), so you can work fewer hours. Figure out how to create windfall incomes to help fund your project -- I cowrote a technical ebook, and develop & give training courses. I only had to develop the course once, and edit it each time.

That's how I have created Freckle (http://letsfreckle.com) and how we are creating Charm (http://charmde.sk), among other products. (I was finally able to quit consulting on the side in January, except for an outstanding contract, to focus on products alone. My tactics work.)

My recommendation is that you bootstrap your startup for now, this should be possible if your startup is of a social media style thing. Once you have traction, you can try asking here again and maybe you'll get some more interesting advice.

America is a puritanical Christian nation. I'm surprised they allowed the Catholics in.

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