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How to attend YC when you are on H1B

24 points by machupai ↗ HN
I have searched YC and got following links

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158969

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4408

But none of them has comments from actual people who has done it.

If any of you guys who has already attended YC please respond back

1. What visa do i need to get if my intention is only to be here for 3 month duration to attend the YC program

2. If i want to stay back after 3 months, Which Visa should i get

I know YC do not help with Visa. Wished they had collected the details from other founders (and how they did it), and posted it for the rest of the world.

8 comments

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machupai
Ex YC, Please step up and help. I know so many people like me who need a light in this direction. the number of upvotes i got (never got for so many for any of my previous posts) proves this. Perhaps this could be the best help you could ever do to a would be YC :)
ig1
(I don't really have any expertise in this, this is mostly what I've heard on the grapevine)

I don't believe you can attend YC while on an H1B.

Typically foreign YC participants use a B-1 or an equivalent visa waiver to take part in YC.

For staying afterwards the typical approach seems to be to get your startup to sponsor you for a H1B or an L-1 visa, but I believe this is only really a feasible approach if your startup has raised a VC round and has multiple founders.

pnhoang
yes please I am interested.
pclark
do from YC till fund raising under visa waiver program. Don't get a B-1 because you'll probably get rejected and this raises lots of suspicion whenever you enter USA in the future as you have to declare it.

If more than 2 co-founders and you all have degrees, get H1Bs.

If less than 3 co-founders or no degrees, crush it some more and get O-1.

If you have not raised significant (eg: $1M+) capital by demo day you will not be able to get a visa, go back home, iterate, come back under VWP when you can raise capital, then get visa. It is a tremendous stress.

ig1
If you're from a country which has a visa waiver program in place you don't need a B1. The visa waiver is usable for tourist or business purposes with business purposes being those defined under a B1 visa.

If you come from a country which doesn't have a visa waiver program in place then the B1 is your only option I believe.

pclark
the problem with vwp is you can only stay 90 days and you really need 180 days for yc + fund raising
ig1
Can you fly out the country and come back again for another 90 days ?
pclark
In theory if you can prove you do not live in USA. It's a stress.