
Ask HN: Need Advice with UK's Tier 1 Exceptional Talent Visa - uk-visa
UK has a special visa program wherein it gives out 200 visas each year to people who have shown exceptional talent, or exceptional potential, in the technology field. It&#x27;s great for self-employed folks, and entrepreneurs.<p>I am preparing to apply for this visa.<p>Basically, I am stuck on two points.<p>1. How talented is &#x27;exceptionally talented&#x27;?<p>It&#x27;s hard to gauge how high the bar is set. I couldn&#x27;t find much information about people who got this visa.<p>I am a 23-year old self-employed, self-taught developer who runs a couple of moderately-successful, profitable online ventures. I have a few hundred paying customers on my SaaS platform, and 10k+ license sales for my distributed software.<p>2. Need two recommendation letters from recognized experts in tech (doesn&#x27;t have to be a UK-based expert)<p>How famous does the expert have to be? Does a $200k-revenue-founder work? or does it have to be a $100m-exit-founder?<p>I am flying to London next week, and was hoping to spend most of my time networking. It&#x27;s a pretty long shot, but I am hoping I can get at least one recommendation letter out of it.<p>Does anyone on HN have experience with this visa type?<p>Any advice on how someone who is bad at networking can get a recommendation letter from a who&#x27;s who of London&#x27;s tech scene?
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afarrell
As a US citizen who finished up a UK job search a while ago, I looked at this
visa a while ago and concluded:

1) It was meant for The sort of folks that earn titles like "Principal
Engineer"

2) It was going to be way easier to get a Tier-2 visa sponsorship.

My advice would be to reach out to the influential people who already follow
your blog, have have gone to your talks, or who use your product.

