Ask HN: Why Startup Visa when there is L-1? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why Startup Visa when there is L-1?

24 pointsBerislavLopac12 comments

I've just learned of the L-1 (subtypes L-1A and L-1B) US visa, which seems to me ideal to what Startup Visa is intended to cover. Of course, this requires the startup to have an office in the applicant's country, but at least in come cases (for example, the widely publicised case of Zemanta's co-founder) that is already true, while in others it shouldn't be too difficult to achieve.

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The main issue is you have to be working for the company for over a year to qualify individually.

Secondly, it is supposed to be used in a situation where the US parent company wants to transfer a member of staff from an international office.

I'm not sure to what extent the DHS look for the nuance of it being a US based PARENT company (which is not the situation you are actually describing) but I know that when international companies want to open US offices they often go down the E2 route, especially as they can then obtain visas for other employees of the same nationality. But that wouldn't work for venture backed startups due to the >50% ownership requirements.

On a personal level, this is also a crap visa route because you are locked to the L1 sponsor employer - meaning you would have to go home if you no longer were employed by the company (either by choice or by the company folding).

From the Wikipedia article: "L-1 visas are available to employees of an international company with offices in both a home country and the United States, or which intend to open a new office in the United States while maintaining their home country interests."

I agree it probably wouldn't be applicable in all cases, but it would cover a significant amount.

And as for the last paragraph: is anything different proposed for the startup visa? We're talking visas for startup founders here, not immigration shortcuts.

Just to follow up: the wordage of the wikipedia article doesn't really match the legal advice I received.

I don't think it's exactly clear what is being proposed with the startup visa but many other types of visa such as H1B contain a "porting" element which the L-1 specifically does not.

The policy that was proposed last year—and I don't have any say over changes despite now all-but running the political game supporting StartupVisa—was that if you had gotten $250k in VC or superangel funding (where superangel was defined as being a US citizen, aka not jeff clavier, that hit some bar of annual investing) or $100k per immigrant co-founder, you gained a two-year visa. If, at the end of those two years, your startup reached $1M in annual revenue, raised $1M in funding, or hired 5 people, you got a green card.

As far as I know, that's still what the VC guys backing this are going for, though I do know that folks like Kauffman, Vivek Wadhwa, and a fair number of others think this policy doesn't go far enough as, quote, 9 out of 10 successful startups don't raise outside capital, unquote. Still, it's an improvement in my books and seems well worth passing. The biggest issue is making clear to the politicians that this is an issue well beyond Silicon Valley, as Pelosi said that she felt the Startup Visa was too narrowly focused geographically, which of course it isn't.

I'm also collecting stories of affected entrepreneurs and the jobs at risk without Startup Visa to post on the new tumblr in preparation for a push during SXSW: startupvisa.tumblr.com

we are planning to revise & expand the rqmts, prob lower the amounts as well... however, we still want to have a bill that will pass, and will not be subject to "gaming" for people that really aren't doing startups.

Imagine this scenario --> International candidate, top college graduate from US, works for 2 yr with Google, has a startup idea and people are willing to put money on it. So do you expect him to go back to his home country, start the company there and then come to US using L1? Can you even begin to justify how does this makes sense? Plus, US immigration authorities are especially tough on smaller companies sponsoring L1 --> so if this guy has 10 employees (assuming a startup) in his home country it will be tough for him to get the L1. USCIS may think that this guy is a potential immigrant and using his small company as a tool to settle in US.

More details on L-1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa

It's unfortunately pretty impossible to get for a small startup.

This isn't a direct answer to your question, but I felt I had to say it.

If you have a good business idea it will work outside the USA, therefore you don't need a visa to succeed.

Not really. I'd have to go back to India to do it. In India, the payment problem hasn't been solved yet. People barely use their debit / credit cards to buy stuff at stores let alone online. The initial fear that the US had when online purchases were introduced are being replayed in India. People are told to never use their cards online.

With all these problems, It's pretty hard to actually build and sustain non B2B businesses in India atleast.

I think there are other countries besides the USA and India to start a business.

I am currently working on my startup, remotely, from Brazil, with my cofounder in the US. We don't have an open company yet. We are applying to YC, and soon we will have to actually legally open it. This is certainly the case where a L-1 visa wouldn't help us much...

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