

Ask HN: Foreign YC Founders - did you move to California for the program? - jongold

Heard various stories from international founders - living for 3 months on tourist visas, flying back &#38; forth for office hours but living mainly at home etc - what did you do?<p>Also opened it up as a Quora thread if you want to answer anonymously - http://www.quora.com/Y-Combinator/Foreign-YC-Founders-where-did-you-live-during-the-program<p>Thanks :)
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SwaroopH
Not YC but Tech Wildcatters (April-July): I hail from India holding a business
visa and depending on airports, I generally don't have a problem staying 3-6
months (my I94 always gets 6 months of stamp). SFO and DFW immigration has
been very welcoming to entrepreneurs. Can't say the same for ORD. The officer
didn't know what a startup meant and thought I was making up a word; oh, and
also apparently stealing jobs :/ Although I've only landed there just once and
it could've been a one off case.

Strictly speaking, B1/B2 doesn't allow you to work. I have a visa called B1 in
lieu of H which allows you to do H work without taking a salary, of course.
It's also not tied to a particular company but to an individual. I have no
idea how I got this visa because I applied for a regular B1 and the annotation
was added to the visa – it also isn't a widely recognized visa (embassy issues
it) and I would suggest against applying for it. I guess they gave it
considering my history of startups.

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koopajah
I think it's pretty much mandatory to move there for three months. I've read a
few days ago something where pg explains they tried once to have a founder
remotely and it was not successful, they were way behind the others for demo
day, it was hard to progress/exchange/etc. But he also said that you can
manage with only part of the team moving there, for example if you're three
and one cannot commit to moving that would still be ok and could work.

EDIT : ok found it, it's right in the FAQ, must have been reading it again a
few days ago ^^ <http://ycombinator.com/faq.html> under "Can we do it without
moving to where you are?"

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sim0n
I moved from England to San Jose for the 3 months (rented a place from another
YC founder).

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tadruj
B1 (business) visa is easiest to get and it allows you to do fundraising,
which is what you officially do during YC process. It allows you to apply for
6 month visit on the first entry to the US and then multiple re-entries until
you'll get funding and find possibilities/time for a more _useful_ visa, like
J, E, O or H1B.

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Yahnz
Exactly what you heard. Some VC's wanted the entire eng team to move to SV
(not trivial if it's more than just you and cofounder) but we managed to not
go there.

If you have an existing company that's been around for a bit you may want to
look into L1 visas.

Plan on moving here for a while as a founder.

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nchuhoai
I would actually be curious which lengths people go at the Visa Interview to
get to the US.

Yes there is the Visa Waiver Program for people who can so, but assuming you
are working on your company, I doubt that technically legal.

From my understanding of the law, you cannot enter the US in YC unless you
don't actually work for your company. Then again, in reality you can probably
get away with just staying wishy-washy (for which I would be still curious
what people have said: Im going to learn at a program? Going to visit some
people?)

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cmelbye
I'm fairly sure the visa waiver program allows business, otherwise people in
other countries would have to apply for a new visa every time they came here
for a business trip.

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brackin
The visa waiver allows for business purposes but it gets complicated. Many go
for three months, return for a while and then go back or sort out their full
visa. The YC program is only 3 months long so it's not a huge problem for
many.

You do have to be in California for most of your time, just because you
wouldn't get much of the value otherwise.

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mdkess
How do visas work in this situation? Are you allowed to work on tourist visas?

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matthewowen
Presumably by 'tourist visa', OP means the visa waiver program (at least for
people from Europe/Australia/etc) - you can enter on this if you're visiting
on business. Where business stops and work ends seems like a difficult
question to answer.

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TazeTSchnitzel
He's from India, I expect he means some sort of genuine tourist entry visa.
Never been to the US, so I don't know about its visas, however.

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jongold
I'm from the UK - meant the VWP :)

Thanks for the replies everyone

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TazeTSchnitzel
Oopsie. Got confused with another HN story, my bad!

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vammok
Not YC, but from a Dallas-based incubator. I flew out multiple times on
business AFTER getting into the US, and every time I flew back in, I was
granted an additional six months stay.

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jamesjguthrie
I'll do it if I apply next time and get in.

