Life of FBi | Non-Tech Start-up Founder

A few recent events …

1. Recently I had a discussion with a Babson faculty member, for whom I have tremendous respect, about much of entrepreneurial education missing the point. On one extreme it is about theory, business plans, 5 year cash-flows, to most young entrepreneurs, what is termed as bullshit. On the other extreme, it champions young hotshots who have raised money. It makes venture capital the most aspirational of all goals. I sometimes cannot believe I actually spent time studying the components of a J-curve. What about building a great profitable business?

2. In a ridiculously yet awesomely long episode of @Jason Calcanis’s This Week In Startups(#TWIST), guest David Heinemeier Hansson, Partner in 37 Signals, criticized passionately the entire entrepreneurial landscape for being too focused on coasting on other people’s money rather than hustling to make your own.

- Jason argued for the home runs, large amounts of capital were necessary.

- DHH retorted that those home runs are like trying to win the lottery.

- Jason didn’t disagree, agreeing the large majority of VCs either perform below market or lose money.

In their recent book, Rework, DHH and Jason Fried argue that ‘entrepreneur’ is a bad word with too much baggage. What happened to building a profitable business from the low hanging fruit, similar argument Gary Vee makes.

3. All of the articles on StartupVisa Bill are just me-too, which is fine, that’s just how journalism works. It’s the same Geoffrey Moore diffusion of innovation curve, one influences the other, etc. The real juice comes from Eric Ries. But what is really interesting is the me-too articles draw varying comments from different demographics, i.e. not everyone reading Inc is reading Eric Ries’s blog Startup Lessons Learned. What I find amazing is this absolute illogical argument that a StartupVisa would take away American jobs.

Fact: My startup is three Americans and me. I’m now in Shanghai because of this; Invent a Cool Clothing Site, Now Leave the Country. From June, two of my co-founders are joining me in Shanghai. So yes, a lack of #StartupVisa is in fact taking jobs away from America.

4. Our recent team conversations have shifted very much from ‘we want to build a great business and bootstrap to profitability’ to ‘if by some statistical anomaly the #StartupVisa gets passed, we’re going to have to try and raise $250,000 to get Fan back in the country’.

Amidst all the talk of #StartupVisa, I thought I’d pose the following simple question:

Do You Have a Better Chance of Raising Money if You’re an Immigrant?

The following excerpts where taken from Richard Herman, author of Immigrant Inc, Why Immigrant Entrepreneurs Are Driving the New Economy (and how they will the American worker), and supporter of #StartupVisa

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Take a listen to what some of the biggest VCs are saying about immigrant talent & entrepreneurship:

Michael Moritz/Sequoia
Is not fluke that Seqoia has backed many other immigrant-founded companies, including Google, Yahoo, Paypal, YouTube, LinkinIn, Nvidia, a123systems, and others.
In fact, the website for Sequoia proudly proclaims their attraction to immigrant newcomers:

“UNDERDOGS. The collision of intelligence and ambition with opportunity is unbeatable. Almost everyone we have ever invested in has been a complete unknown at the time we met. Many have been immigrants or first generation Americans with barely a penny to their name. Underdogs are our favorite kind of people.”

Sequoia’s Michael Moritz, a former board member of Google with a net worth reported at over $1 billion and listed as one of Time’s most influential 100 people in the world, has written:

“An entrepreneur without passion is an empty vessel. Anyone who starts a business — and wants it to last — needs this quality. It is a journey against all odds. Every business starts with one or two people, an idea and nothing else — no employees, no money, no product, no customers and no shareholders….Force venture capitalists to choose between a well-heeled Ivy League student and a smart and impoverished immigrant, and we’ll pick the latter every time. The lily-livered need not apply for a life at a start-up. Tenacity is a necessity.”

In 2007, before the Cardiff Business Club in his native Wales, Moritz had this to about immigration restrictions of high-skilled talent:

“It’s no coincidence. You go around most of these companies and….all of the founders and very early employees are either an immigrant or a first-generation American. That has been the fuel that has propelled these companies”

John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins

Billionaire, investor in immigrant founded companies: Google, Sun Microsystem
The day after Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, VC John Doer was asked this question at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco:

“What should the new Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Government do?”
Doer responded with his immigration reform mantra:
“staple a green card to the diploma” of any international student graduating from a U.S. university with a degree in engineering.

Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures, former General Partner Kleiner & Perkins, co-founder Sun Microsystems, billionaire, a founder of TiE
“How many jobs have entrepreneurs, Indian entrepreneurs, in Silicon Valley created over the last 15, 20 years? Hundreds of thousands I would guess.” Vinod Kholsa in CBS news.

Guy Kawasaki, is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and an author. From his blog: How to Change the World: A practical blog for impractical people

“How to Kick Silicon Valley’s Butt:
Encourage immigration: I am a third-generation Japanese American. My family moved here to drive a taxi and clean white people’s homes. If I had a choice between funding someone from a family who moved here from Vietnam whose father and mother run a 7-Eleven verses a descendant of a Mayflower passenger with “IV” in his name, I’ll give you half a guess as to my preference. You need to encourage smart, hungry, and aggressive people to immigrate from around the world. Add to do that, you need good schools. To mix several metaphors, if you want to cover your ass, you need to open your kimono because trust fund kids don’t make good entrepreneurs.”