Canadian in NYC on restrictive visa here. You can actually sponsor your own H1B now, but you need at least seed funding to be able to sponsor your own visa. It doesn't matter if you have users or paying customers -- you need to be able to show that you have the money to be able to pay yourself at least 50K-60K (for a developer) for 3 years.
Yeah, it's a start. But there's definitely a Catch 22 situation whereby you have to convince an investor that you're worth the extra time and uncertainty involved.