Webinar: "How Expats can Start Up in the U.S.", featuring Entryless and Unshackled

My name is Adeo Ressi. Let me adjust here a little bit. I am CEO of the Founder Institute. We're also in the process of launching a new global venture fund called Expansive Ventures. And we're here to talk today about what it's like to launch a company in the United States as a foreigner. Now, oh, I see a freeze. Hopefully that won't happen again. It's going to be a pretty interesting conversation today. We have some great people joining us, and let me give you a brief overview. So as many of you know, some of the greatest companies in history have been launched in the United States, in Silicon Valley, by people from foreign nationalities. That could be companies like Google, or SpaceX or Tesla or Yahoo or Sun and many others. So what we're gonna do today is talk a little bit about some experiences of doing that correctly, right? Or some new ideas on how to do it as well. So we have two founders here today of US-based businesses are gonna talk about their challenges launching their own businesses, their own strategies of getting those businesses off the ground. So it should be a pretty exciting webinar for everyone who's signed on today. Let me just give you a quick overview of what the Founder Institute is first to kick things off, and then I'll be bringing people on screen and talking about the topic. Topic at hand. So the Founder Institute is a global incubator. We're in approximately 100 cities worldwide, everywhere from Afghanistan to Paris. Right at this very moment, we're enrolling in 25 cities. So if you want to see where we're enrolling, in case you're in one of those cities, you can go to fi.co/join. They'll pop it up on the screen there for you to learn more. Now, very soon, in January of 2015, we'll also be launching an immersion program for founders around the world and around the United States to come to Silicon Valley and do a deep dive on what it takes to build a business here using some of the best practices that are deployed in Silicon Valley. So it's a one-week immersion program called the Founder Lab. You can go to founderlab.com to learn more. And we have an incredible agenda. It's 5 action-packed days where you'll be in back-to-back meetings with top Silicon Valley CEOs discussing their approach to key things like KPIs, getting press, etc. Then you'll go do field visits with different companies from top Silicon Valley companies to media outlets that are headquartered in Silicon Valley. And you'll also have the opportunity to meet with different top investors throughout the region and practice your pitching and idea presentation with some of the best minds that the world has to offer in terms of funding. So again, That's a program launching in January, but the admissions deadline for that is this Sunday, December 14th. And again, it's founderlab.com. One of the cool things, by the way, is in order to make that program super rewarding, those that apply will actually get to pitch a panel of top investors in Silicon Valley to get it, you know, as part of the admissions process. What we're trying to do is make everything about this program awesome, not just the program itself but the actual application process. So let's talk a little bit about the topic at hand. So I'm gonna be bringing the, um, the different speakers on in one moment, and what I'd like to do is, I presume most people on this webinar have questions about what it might be like to incorporate a business in America, whether you live here or not. If you're a foreigner living in America, you probably have questions about visas and other requirements. So whatever your questions are, if you type them in the chat, I have a team of people who are collecting your various questions and will allow us to— and we'll queue them up as we go through the webinar. We'll either add them in to different sections as the webinar is ongoing, or we'll add them in at the end if they're not topically related as it goes on. So again, if you have questions, start typing them in the chat and we'll make sure they're integrated into the session right now. So without further ado, let's bring on a couple speakers that we have. So I want to first introduce Nitin. He is the founder or founding partner of Unshackled. It's an amazing organization. He's originally from India. He's raised $3.5 million. As essentially a fund.

Mexico, and his company Entryless has been doing incredibly well. It's blowing up. It, it essentially allows you as a medium to large business to redirect all of your invoices to their system, and then they have a series of automated and manual tools to input those invoices automatically to your accounting system, saving, you know, hundreds of hours of manual entry by accountants who would much rather do other things with their time, I imagine. And, you know, I've seen the stats and numbers and the business is really doing amazing. And one thing that Mike has done is he's written about very extensively his experience of getting off the ground and figuring out the visa situation in a creative way. And I see that Mike is now being replaced by a spinner, which, you know, doesn't allow him to talk. So let me see if I can add some things. I mean, I know a lot about the business. So while his spinner resolves, I'll add a little couple details. About his background and what he's done. So as I mentioned, he went through the Founder Institute. Oh, there you are, Mike, you're back. Your head is now fully seen. Can you give us a few words about how you've done it entryless and what you've done at a high level to launch your business in the States? Mike, I can't hear you, which means that generally if I can't hear you, maybe nobody else can hear you. So if you just keep saying some stuff, maybe checking your mic, we'll come back to you in a second. So one of the things that I know that Mike did is he wrote extensively about his experiences trying to get a startup visa, which is, you know, one of the things that the American government has tried to do to make it a little easier for startups to get into the country. Mike, can you say something just to see if your sound is working again? Hmm, no. Nitin, can you hear Mike or is it just me? Okay, Mike, we're going to keep working on that. What I recommend is chat with our tech team and we'll try and figure it out. In the meantime, let's get going while we work out Mike's technical issues because we want to hear the founder side of the story for sure. Let's talk, let's ask a simple question and we'll get started with you, Nitin, while again we work out the technical issues with Mike. Why did you wind up in the US? You know, how did you end up here? Why did you end up here? What brought you here? And I guess, you know, was part of that, are you happy that you came here?

I think my bosses brought me here. So the background is I was working in Asia Pacific, traveling a lot in the ex-Facebook days. I got bored of traveling, or I should say tired. Joined Deloitte Consulting back in India, and 2 weeks later I was here in Silicon Valley against my wishes, by the way, because US was the only country I had to go get a visa for. That aside, once I landed here, I was very thankful that that's how things worked out, because once you show up in the Valley, the culture just just brings you in. And ever since then, the ecosystem, the friendliness of people all around us is what has kept me here. So thanks to Deloitte, I'm here doing what I'm doing.

Yeah, and well, I mean, speaking of the friendliness for just one second, I mean, my partner in the venture fund, John Soberg, came to me one day, he's like, I got a friend that He wants to work in the office.

I'm like, okay.

So, I mean, you know, it's, it was literally like someone asked if you could use the office and boom, you have an office, right? So it's that type of collaborative, super helpful.

You're absolutely right.

And I'm sure you see that across the board.

Yeah. And it works, it works everywhere, particularly as an immigrant where when you come in, you're new to the environment, you don't know anybody here. It really takes, it really takes an accepting culture to, to bring people in and make them a part of the system. So it's people like yourself who've been here for a long term, people like John and everybody. I mean, you think of our investor network, it's all percolated down from one, one person liking what we are doing and opening the doors to the next three, and then the next three and the next three. That's just how That's just how we think the rally works.

Yeah, it's awesome. Mike, are you able to chat yet, talk yet? No. Maybe, you know what I would recommend, maybe if you every once in a while as you debug, say something so that when you're talking we can hear. So you kind of, you waited until you got your first visa to actually come. Can you tell me like what kind of visa did you get when you first arrived? And, you know, what was that experience like? And then, you know, how did you transition into staying here? So I hear you love it, but give us a little bit more on that.

So initially I came here on a tourist visa, which is valid for up to 6 months. While I was here on that visa, Deloitte also applied for a more was able to transfer it. But the downside is with H-1B, you always at all, all times need an employer to sponsor your visa, or you have to leave the country because you're here simply to work as an employee. You cannot quit the job and just, you know, for some time work on your startup, unlike if you are a green card holder or a citizen, you can.

So I see a lot of foreign names in the list. It looks like we have people from all around the world.

We've got—

I see Asia, certainly, probably Vietnam, the Middle East, and all— and again, probably everywhere else. I see some Spanish names, so it could be Europe or South America.

So, you know, how many—

let me ask a more practical question because you're in this business now, right? And We'll get Mike on in a moment. Hopefully we'll resolve his technical issues. So, you know, how many people do you think start out and come here on the tourist visa and that's the hook, you know, when they're in the startup mode? You know, is that really the gateway, if you will, or in your estimation from the experiences that you have in the daily business?

I think that's a gateway for for some people, but it's not a sustainable gateway because the tourist visa does not allow you to work here. The, the sustainable gateway is coming here as an employee on H-1, or you come here as a student on an F-1, which then gives you an OPT timeframe in which you can work, do a startup, do whatever you want, and during that timeframe find an employer who would sponsor your H-1B. There's other work visa categories as well, which it's an alphabet soup. So pick your alphabet and put a number next to it and it becomes a visa. And depending on the country—

QR1?

I'm sure there's something like that for some country. But it's literally, you know, every country has its own sort of criteria and categories. There's TN visa for Canadians, there's E3 for Australians, and everything else in between for everybody else. So you really need to look at what are the best—

right? So some—

so what you— what you're—

let me just clarify what you just said because I think it might— again, it might have gone over some people's head. Different countries have different work visa requirements within the US. So there's some blanket ones that apply to everybody, and then there's some countries that have special circumstances. You mentioned two that I'm aware of, Canada and Australia, but I also believe the UK has a pretty good relationship with the US as well, from what I understand. So it's not, it's not simply a one-size-fits-all. There's a pantheon of different options available depending on what country you're from.

That's right. So blanket categories— you summarized it very well— blanket categories like H-1, H-1B, or F-1 for students apply to almost all countries. There's very few that are barred from those. The other categories are more country-specific. So the E-1s and E-2s, for example, are applicable only to treaty countries. E3 is only for Australia. So yes, you kind of have to evaluate your options based on your specifics.

And some are easier to get based on your country of origin than others, from what I understand. So unfortunately, what—

one of the—

let me— you brought up the student thing for a while, and I'm just gonna pick your brain as an expert for a minute. We have a bunch of really awesome questions, so I'm hoping Mike can come back on, but we'll catch back up. I see he's working on getting his camera configured. So another thing that I commonly see is if you come to America and study, there's usually a hangover period on your student visa. And that seems to be another big area where I see founders leveraging that, you know, period of time after their student visa is— after their studies are over but their student visa persists. and they use that time sometimes to get a job, but a lot of times to start a company as well.

Is—

have you seen that in your experiences?

Absolutely. That's called an OPT, Optional Practical Training. The purpose of that period, which is 1 year general, and then STEM students get an extra 17 months post-graduation. So once in your lifetime, Once in your lifetime after graduating, you can use that 29 months in the case of STEM and 1 year in the case of others. Looks like Mike's back on.

Mike, can you say something? Hi!

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can. You told us this beforehand. But great. Yes, so you were saying one year non-STEM, an additional 17 months with STEM, and people use that—

So you can do whatever you want in that period. There are no restrictions. You can work on your company. There's no restrictions even that you have to pay any minimum wages or anything. So a lot of students, for example, graduating out of Stanford, who we work with very closely, would spend time on their own startup trying to get it to a stage where it's funded, and then the startup can apply for an H-1B for its employees, including the founders who are considered employees if they have a job and they report to somebody. So the purpose of that OPT is to help these students that got the U.S. education and training to be able to stay in the U.S. In most cases, though, what I see happening is students who, you know, are not able to raise adequate funding, adequate being what USCIS considers enough to be able to pay over the next 3-year period, so think $500,000, $600K or more, ultimately end up taking, you know, they bury the startup idea and end up taking the job with a larger company. So one of the big things that we are looking to do with Unshackled is a big part of our pipeline is these OPT students who, instead of going to these bigger companies, are excited about becoming a part of Unshackled. And so when the H-1B applications open in April, uh, for OPT founders who are part of Unshackled, we will apply their H-1Bs. Um, so that way they don't have to bury the idea and go to a Google or LinkedIn just to get their H-1B. Right.

One other thing quickly that you said, Nitin, that's super important, and let's— Mike, we'll catch you back up— is that, you know, a lot of times these visas have windows and quotas. So there's a window of time when they're given out, so there's also an equivocal window of time that you definitely want to get your application in by and there's a quota, and in some cases it's even a lottery system for how they're awarded. So, you know, there's way, usually way more qualified applicants than there are the quota visas in a category. So it's not uncommon for someone to apply to multiple categories. Mike, excuse me, uh, it might not look like it, but I'm getting over a bit of a flu. Let's jump over to you for a moment. And hear a bit of your story. So how did you wind up in the US? Why did you come here? What made you leave beautiful Mexico? Yeah, the warmth.

Shoot.

Yeah, totally. So back in '09, I just recently graduated and I wanted to experience the United States and how they did business because I was always doing new things and taking new entrepreneurial side of it. So I came under a J-1 visa, which is basically an exchange visa where you can be an intern of a company. And then from that point, I learned kind of all the accounting process on the United States companies and decided to move to a different company. But for that, I needed to jump to a different visa. So what I ended up doing was to ask for a TN visa and then have a sponsorship. So I essentially asked for a work permit here in the US, and then I got the offer, and then I asked for the sponsorship. So I had to go back to Mexico, do all the visa application, and then I had to do that for 3 years. But that appeared super easy versus getting an E-2 investor visa so I can actually take on entrepreneurship off entry list. And actually found the company and make it— try to get the product back and fit in the process. And that's where things really got interesting. But that's how I originally came here.

So you came here under a student visa, exchange visa essentially, which allowed you to be an intern and that got you what you needed. And then, you know, another thing that happens for those of you that don't know that Mike is referencing is a lot of times you need to do a little bit of a back and forth, popping back to your home country, waiting for some visa paperwork to be processed before you can come back to the US, which is extremely annoying. Let's talk about that a second, Mike, now that you're on. How— you said you did that over a period of 3 years. What, you know, are you talking you'd go back to Mexico for a month at a time, or What was your bounce?

Yeah, it's a big problem because I had to go back every year and stay there for about 15 days to a month doing the renewal because I had to go over different appointments. But for the E-2 investor visa that allowed me to actually found Entryless was because I already had a Social Security number here in the US. So that's how I was able to jump. And I changed the visa status, but you need to go, you need to go every, I had to go every year and they request a new visa for that company. And then for my company, for Entryless, it's essentially the same process, but it's just a different visa. So I am actually going in January again.

And now you're at a point where your company needs to be incorporated. Go ahead and do it, and if your attorney tells you you can't, find a better attorney. You got to fire the guy who tells you you can't.

Yeah, again, super important. This is one of the most misunderstood— I hear people say, I can't, I can't found a company. I'm like, what do you mean? Like, so, um, U.S. corporations are formed every day by every imaginable citizen everywhere in the world, from crazy backwater countries to, you know, major allies and everything in between. So don't— if a lawyer says you can't set up a company, as Nitin said, that is the wrong lawyer to be talking to. I'm going to give you a little piece of legal advice, and I'm not a lawyer, so, you know, but this is not really legal advice, it's more advice on how to deal with lawyers. So don't ask your lawyer, "Can I do it?" Ask your lawyer, "How can I do it?" Right? So I'm never like, "Hey, can I do this?" because most of the time the easy answer is like, "No." But if you ask a lawyer how you can do it, then they can come up with solutions that to your problem, right? So don't say, "Can I do it?" Say, "How can I do it?" So that it's a super important point. There's a lot of bad data out there. So one of the specific questions is, which we can help, is, "Can a startup sponsor an employee, and what are the associated legal steps and fees required?" So, okay, now I can set up a company, I have set up a company, how do I go about sponsoring someone, and how much does it cost? Why don't we go with you, Nitin, and then we'll jump over to Bob.

This is where you really need a lawyer, and a lot of those things about you can't kind of start becoming relevant, because to be able to hire workers on a visa, the company needs to meet certain criteria. One of those criteria is that there should be an employer-employee relationship. Another criteria is that you're paying prevailing market wages, and then the third criteria is that the company is capable of paying those market wages. Now, these conditions apply to visas like H-1B and E-3. They don't apply to, for example, an L-1 visa or an E-2 visa. So, this is where I say you really need a good attorney to tell you the specifics of each visa type applicable to each of the employees. However, for a lot of the questions that come to us are about, I'm on opt or I'm on H-1B, what is the minimum condition that my company needs to meet? And the way we address that is, look, I'm personally, I'm on H-1B and I'm an employee of my company when I'm also a part owner of my company. I'm, I'm the co-founder of Unshackle, and the reason I can do that is because I have been hired by the board of directors of Unshackled, and if I don't do my job, the board is going to fire me. So it is an employer-employee relationship. Similarly, once the company is funded past a certain amount, a safe amount is $500,000, but in some cases we have seen even with $350K, $400K companies do get visas transferred. It's, it's a little more risky below $500K. But, you know, those— so those, those situations start playing around here. Each visa type has its own conditions. OPT, for example, has no conditions. You can hire an OPT worker who is a founder on a full-time basis and not pay them any salary at all, no problem. H-1B, you cannot do that.

So you just— Mike, do you want to answer? So what are the— how can a startup sponsor an employee and what are the associated legal steps and fees required?

I just answer and I'll throw in some thoughts.

Yeah, no, so I think, I mean, oh yeah, so I was right on the point. I will just add, if that's a hurdle that you want to take at that early stage in your startup to go over all the process of hiring someone, from the outside and not getting worked on in the process. So I think that's just like a hurdle that you need to evaluate if it makes sense to take that early. If it's yourself, there are other ways to get sponsored, right? But if it's an employee, I will measure first if it's, I mean, good to go over that hurdle at that early stage.

So the $500K that Nitin mentioned is in America. For those of you who are not in America, it's not a lot of money. It's not— don't get me wrong, it's a lot of money, but it's not like I would say the average—

Here in Silicon Valley is that you have an ecosystem that supports and that really helps you move along with your entrepreneurial career and entrepreneurial path. So I think that's something that gets very underestimated in other parts of the world, and which why Silicon Valley thrives on creating those multi-billion dollar startups. I think it's just that the ecosystem is so, is really connected, right? That it really gives you a competitive advantage of being here and creating a company here because of all the help that you can get from multiple people and how fast, how that translates into how fast you can move with your startup. And I think that's something that at least I have not seen in other places that I've been in, for example, Mexico or other places in the US. I think that's something that is pretty unique about Bali and what it means for startups.

Yeah, I think I completely echo that sentiment. I think it's the ecosystem, and the ecosystem is a very generic term that is kind of overused, but what really that means is we have investors who are willing to take risks. We have people who've had experience selling software or whatever you're selling, building communities if you're building a community, selling gaming solutions if you're doing that. So which, if I go to India and try to find somebody who's grown a ridesharing company, there's probably 3 of them. In the US, I can probably find 45 of them and probably get one of them interested in working with me if I'm trying to do rideshare airplanes or whatever that I'm, whatever is it that I'm trying to do, right? So the people, the investors, the advisors, That is what this ecosystem really, really brings. The other question you asked is why do we see a lot of immigrants do this here versus doing it in their own country? And I think the ecosystem gives the platform. The reason we see so many immigrants being successful is simply because they came here with a drive and hunger. And, you know, just the fact that they left the comfort of home and they're coming here to do something more meaningful gives them that edge. And I think that's the one big reason we see a very big percentage of successful companies having immigrant founders.

Okay, so let me give you sort of a quick wrap-up question. You know, one lesson learned the hard way that you're like, and one piece of advice. So what is like One thing that, wow, that was super hard and I was an idiot. And one, like, all right, I'm one of the people either watching now live or watching a recording of it later on. If you should definitely follow this piece of advice. So one and one, you want to go first?

Why not? So the lesson learned for me, the biggest adjustment I had to make was just how I was managing people coming from an environment which was very authoritative. I really had to learn how to be a leader and not a manager. And I'm so fortunate that I was at a company like Deloitte, which really coaches you these skills, versus if I was at a startup, I would have probably gotten fired versus being coached. So to me, the biggest adjustment was becoming that leader, and I can now see how that's helping me in all aspects of life, not just at work. In terms of the one piece of advice, I think that I say this now 20 times a day, is the focus on the team. Every entrepreneur wants to do the maximum in minimum amount of time, and oftentimes when we are running at the speed of light, we forget that we really need a team to be fully successful. So as you look at your startup and the vision that you're trying to achieve, look at your team and relate to it. Do you have all the pieces that you need to get to your goal? And if you're missing some critical pieces, you got to fill those gaps before you jump in on a full-time basis and obviously take the risk that you're taking. So more than anything else, I think team is the most important thing that an entrepreneur needs to focus on.

Mike, hard lesson and piece of advice everyone.

So I think one of the hardest lessons was kind of echoing what Ankit mentioned, the transition of working at a company and then what you need to do for your startup to take off. And one time you mentioned, I think, Adel, that you need to be good at too many things, right? So that's the startup role, right? The startup founder role. And that's something that has been hard on me because I wasn't a marketing expert and I wasn't a sales expert. And that's one of the top priorities that you need to do because you're selling to your team the vision, you're selling to investors the vision, and you're selling to your customers that you're solving them a problem that they haven't realized that they might, that they have. So I think that was a critical part for me. And then a piece of advice would be, Of course, yeah, the team, as Nitin mentioned, but I'll add a second part, which is focus on getting distribution, because no matter how good your piece of software is, and no matter how good everything else you have, if you don't have customers that are knocking down the doors and that are willing to throw you their money because your solution is so good, I'll focus that first, right, on— once you have the team, I'll focus on that first and how you can get that, of course, with a good product and a good product-market fit. But how do you achieve that and do it faster? I think that's something that would have helped me streamline my entrepreneurial path. And I think that's why big companies are getting to grow so fast. You have tremendous entrepreneurs that adjust so quickly because the demand from the outside of getting traction, right, uh, forced them to go over. And that's why I think it relates to what Dean was saying, that you get entrepreneurs and you get people from all around the world that are so good because they have the hunger to do more.

Yeah, I mean, look, at the Founder Institute, we're doubling every year. And what that means, it sounds great and all, but what that means is that if you have a process that worked yesterday, it might not work tomorrow because you're in— have twice as much of everything, right? So it's just, uh, you have to constantly adapt to be successful. So listen, guys, I— and everyone listening and everyone watching now and in the future, What I want to say is that we have two really amazing companies here sharing with you their perspective of bringing their vision to America. So Unshackled with Nitin is really a fantastic organization. I, you know, it's long overdue. What Nitin's doing is super important for the world. So if you're thinking of starting a company and you're here in America with a visa, you know, or even thinking maybe to move here, you should definitely check it out. It is a solution to your problem today, right? And secondly, Mike at Entryless— Entryless is— I've seen the numbers. It is one of the most impressive companies I've witnessed in a long time. It's got the kind of growth curves that you see at at great companies like Evernote or, you know, fill in the blank of a fast-growing, well-known technology firm, what I see Mike achieving is incredible. So keep an eye on EntryList. I'm sure it's going to be in the news a lot. It's doing incredibly well, and these guys have made valuable time of theirs available to help all of you. So again, warm round of applause for you guys.

Thanks, thanks, Adair, for the kind words.

And thank you so much.