Trump begins to dismantle Obama’s “startup visa” program

It's often a condition of venture capitalist funding. VCs often want startups to be close-by so they can mentor/supervise the company, and encourage them to partner with other companies they are backing.

That's why I'm in the Bay Area. When our company was scaling up, we went looking for tech investment in Australia, and found that it simply doesn't exist beyond the "angel investment" level. We had some connections there, but they all pointed us to the Bay Area. That's where the vast majority of tech VCs are.

After a year of struggling to raise any degree of money in Australia, we had immediate success with our pitch in the Bay Area. But there was a catch - if they backed us, we needed to relocate to be close-by, so they could mentor us. As Australians, we can get an E-3 visa pretty much automatically, so we had no excuse, and did what was required to get the funding to continue our growth.

Honestly, the company would have been just fine back in Australia. We actually found it easier to find good talent there, as opposed to the Bay Area, where there is huge demand for experienced engineers. Plus, operating costs were an order of magnitude lower. But VCs get antsy at the idea of having the company in a location where they can't easily keep an eye on it.

If you're a startup, and your business model doesn't support bootstrapping, then you've often got no option other than to relocate to where the VCs are.

It's often a condition of venture capitalist funding. VCs often want startups to be close-by so they can mentor/supervise the company, and encourage them to partner with other companies they are backing.

That's why I'm in the Bay Area. When our company was scaling up, we went looking for tech investment in Australia, and found that it simply doesn't exist beyond the "angel investment" level. We had some connections there, but they all pointed us to the Bay Area. That's where the vast majority of tech VCs are.

After a year of struggling to raise any degree of money in Australia, we had immediate success with our pitch in the Bay Area. But there was a catch - if they backed us, we needed to relocate to be close-by, so they could mentor us. As Australians, we can get an E-3 visa pretty much automatically, so we had no excuse, and did what was required to get the funding to continue our growth.

Honestly, the company would have been just fine back in Australia. We actually found it easier to find good talent there, as opposed to the Bay Area, where there is huge demand for experienced engineers. Plus, operating costs were an order of magnitude lower. But VCs get antsy at the idea of having the company in a location where they can't easily keep an eye on it.

If you're a startup, and your business model doesn't support bootstrapping, then you've often got no option other than to relocate to where the VCs are.