
Ask YC: Non-US founders - sraquo
I am from Russia and would like to apply to YCombinator. As far as I know, you can get to work in your own startup in the USA only if you<p>- are a student (J1 visa, not even sure if this works),<p>- plan to invest $100K in the US (E-type visa),<p>- can be considered an "alien of extraordinary ability",<p>- a US-based company that has an overseas office transfers you from there to US (O-visa)<p>As far as I know, the founders of YC-funded companies who came from abroad used one of the above methods.<p>Neither of the above is a way I could go (not a student, don't have $100K, do not qualify as alien of extraordinary ability, don't have an established company in the US).<p>I assume that it is impossible to start a company and work for it without a work permit in the USA, so YCombinator would not even consider my application.<p>So, are there any other ways to get to YC for foreigners?<p>And on a related note, what countries are more friendly to foreigners and have a startup community at the same time? I've only heard of Canada.<p>Thank you, really, for any advice!<p>--Nikita
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car
An E-2 visa is not contingent on $100k, the money invested just has to be
sufficient for the type of business to be established. So for a software
startup, it can be on the order of ~$20-30k.

You'll have to write a business plan, and submit that as part of the
application. The main deciding points - apart from a reasonable plan and
presentation - are, that the business will eventually employ US citizens, and
that the money invested comes from abroad.

Worked for me, good luck to you.

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sraquo
Thank you, will dig deeper into E-2

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lv_
You should go thru an American Broker.... maybe one in the Philippines

