

Ask HN: legally start a Bay Area startup without being American? - klein_waffle

I'm a Canadian, and have worked in the Bay Area on various visas since 2005 or so. Now I'd like to start my own venture here, but I don't yet have a Green Card. What are the options?<p>Some have advised that I create some sort of corporation, technically owned by an investor or someone else I trust, of which I'm an employee. That's a bit scary to me for obvious reasons. At the moment I don't have an American co-founder I trust enough. (I know that according to pg's criteria this means the whole thing is a non-starter anyway, but let's assume that I'd get some co-founders later once I had a spiffy proof of concept.)
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petercooper
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

As a Canadian you have some visa categories open to you that others do not. I
don't know anything about those so cannot comment on them further.

However, the US has the E-2 Treaty Investor visa for situations like this -
see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-2_visa> and
<http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1273.html> .. Canada is a
treaty signatory. There's quite a lot to it, but essentially it allows you to
enter and work within the US to control an investment. Investment must be
"significant" with respect to the sort of business it is (so if you were
opening a steel mill, $200k probably wouldn't cut it, but a software company?
Theoretically it could be as little as $100k). There was a post linked from HN
recently about a British group of guys who used the E-2 successfully to set up
a company in the Bay Area.

Alternatively, you could work on your company in Canada for a period of a
couple of years then open a US branch/subsidary and transfer to it through an
L visa.

The short story, though, is that it's really, really hard and generally rather
expensive, unless you have access to some Canadian focused visa class I'm not
aware of. Going to work at an established American company is not particularly
hard (assuming you have a degree) but anything beyond that involves a great
deal of pain. I've been investigating moving to the US as a self employed
person for about six years now and am still not close to discovering a good
route (with "save $250k in cash" as my current, tricky to attain fallback
position).

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klein_waffle
As far as I know, the only benefits of being Canadian are the TN visas and a
slightly faster route towards H1-B status. But both of those are for
professionals working for some sponsoring company.

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turbod
Hi, I've been in the same shoes as you.

As far as your options: having an American co-founder or business agent is a
good start.

However, regardless of what option you choose to pursue to enter the US as a
Canadian, I would recommend if you are bootstrapping your own venture, that it
would be best to get to profitability or at least a promising product before
exploring your options for working and living in California. It is not only
expensive, but very time consuming to work out the details. It's definitely
worth all the trouble, but focus on your company and product first.

I hope it works out for you.

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aditya
Don't take this as legal immigration advice, but:

1\. Create product on the side while working for someone OR move back to
Canada and work on it full-time

2\. Start an LLC (non-US citizens can do this, and C-corps)

3\. Raise money or become profitable (actual amount varies, some say $200k or
more)

4\. Find a business co-founder and other employees

5\. Sponsor your visa and come back to the US or go fulltime with your own co.

6\. PROFIT !!! (oh, wait, that was step 3...)

I'd suggest getting the proof of concept done, and then worrying about
everything else. Execute first, ask questions later.

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brandon272
I think that unless you are investing a large sum to start this business and
can indicate that it will benefit the local area (e.g. that it will employ a
lot of people), your best bet would be to get a job and have your employer
sponsor your immigration.

On that note, it may just be (substantially) easier to start your business in
Canada. Are there specific reasons you want to start your business in the Bay
Area, aside from personal preference?

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klein_waffle
The reasons to stay in the Bay Area are mostly personal. I have more friends
here than back "home" now. I can demo to people every day of the week if I
want. I like the city and the culture. And this is an amazing area for the
concentration of talent that I'll eventually want to bring on board.

I have lived in Vancouver and I'm not going to knock it, all kinds of cool
things have come out of there, and the lifestyle is great too. But where is my
Maker Faire? My functional language discussion groups?

To me, this is an attempt at lifestyle design. If I just wanted to grind away
at something without my friends and preferred hangouts in close reach... well,
that's not enough right now.

Perhaps the idea of 'lifestyle design' is incompatible with starting a new
venture. I suppose I have to just sacrifice _everything_ for the good of the
idea?

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dxjones
Why not be a Toronto-based startup, also doing busines in SF?

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klein_waffle
Well, I don't know what you mean by "doing business" in SF. If you mean the
LLC is technically founded in Canada and just happens to have an SF branch,
maybe that would be fine. But, that seems legally dubious to me.

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surfmike
Why not just startup in Toronto? I'm actually a Bay Area boy who lives in
Toronto; I came here to do his Master's at U. of Toronto. I've stayed ever
since working for a startup, and my roommate is about to start a company with
his fellow labmates as well. There is a great community of startups here, and
lots of amazing talent from U. of Toronto and Waterloo.

~~~
comatose_kid
Care to point out a few examples - just genuinely curious. In 02 things seemed
pretty dry - mostly finance or glorified IT gigs.

~~~
alex_c
<http://startupindex.ca/startups/>

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mingyeow
Hey bro, i am singaporean, and I have a bay area startup. My co-founder has a
green card. I started a company,and I am working here on a temp work visa. Not
ideal, but works. let me know if you want more details

