Mitzel Group<\/a>. She told StartupSmart<\/i> the frustration Australians founders can feel trying to get to the US is unnecessary with a bit of background research.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of misinformation out there about the hurdles to get here,\u201d Freeman says. \u201cIt\u2019s not that hard to get into the US. We want you guys here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Freeman says the untapped opportunity for Australian startup founders and tech talent trying to get to the states is the E3 visa, which is available to 10,500 Australians every year.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The E3 is a speciality occupation visa available for anyone who has the equivalent of a US bachelor\u2019s degree in the field they are applying to work in. The visas have been available since 2005.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s not a visa that necessarily leads to immigration, there are no statutory limits on how many times it can be extended.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very similar to the H-1B, but there\u2019s only 85,000 of those for the whole world, which is seven billion people. This one is just for you, which gives you a 40 times better shot,\u201d Freeman says.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
People can\u2019t sponsor themselves for a visa. Freeman recommends founders who are the first employee over set up a business unit in the US with a board of directors who have oversight of the role to give you some distance from the sponsoring process.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Securing external advice from a board that spans both countries is also valuable to ensure you are compliant with immigration legislation.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is possible to skate by and not be completely compliant initially, but if you end up offering a company for an IPO, you want to hire another foreign national, you get audited or a local investor is doing due diligence and they discover your noncompliance, it becomes an issue quickly,\u201d Freeman says.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Freeman adds the other two useful visas for entrepreneurs to explore are the E2 and L1, although both have slightly different requirements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since 2005, the US has made available over 10,000 two-year visas to Australians, which are perfect for entrepreneurs seeking capital<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39853"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}