Supporting A Movement Towards A Founder's Visa

from the this-would-be-good dept

Back in April, we wrote about Paul Graham's excellent idea to create a special startup founder's visa to help allow the founders of startups the ability to come to the US and build their companies here. This is important as studies have shown how skilled foreign entrepreneurs have been vital in building up our tech industry and creating new jobs. A recent study showed that 25% of all tech startups in the US and over 50% of those in Silicon Valley are founded by immigrants. There's simply no reason not to help more immigrants start companies in the US, but our current immigration setup is a mess, and it's quite difficult. I've seen companies fail (and, even was working closely with one many years ago) when a founder had to leave the country due to visa issues. However, after Paul Graham's suggestion, not much has been mentioned.

However, VC Brad Feld says that he's heard from a Congressional Rep who's actually interested in the idea, and he's trying to build up more support behind the idea -- and he's looking for feedback on the concept itself and how to make it a reality. I can't think of a single good reason for us not to encourage more skilled immigration -- especially if it's for the purpose of starting a company. Hopefully, this actually gets some traction.

Filed Under: founders, immigration, visa

Do Celebrities And Startups Mix?

from the where's-william-shatner? dept

Back during the first dot com boom, you may recall that various startups started to suddenly find "celebrity" front men, from Whoopi Goldberg touting "Flooz" to William Shatner pitching Priceline. This time around, it appears that the various Hollywood celebrities are perhaps a bit more involved in various web startups, but does it matter beyond getting an initial burst of press? Liz Gannes, over at GigaOm, has a good look at the rise of "celebrity" startup founders, noting that while there are a bunch of Hollywood folks jumping in and starting web companies, not many of them have done all that well (at best, a few are muddling along). Apparently, unlike Hollywood, having a big name star isn't all that's needed to make something a success. It also needs a plan that works.

Filed Under: celebrities, founders, silicon valley, startups

What Happens If A Startup Founder Gets Hit By A Bus?

from the perhaps-not-much dept

The importance of a founder working at a company is a question that gets a lot of attention for various reasons. Most startup founders certainly want to stick around and see their "baby" through, obviously. However, once investors get involved, the role of founders gets trickier. Investors often ask the key question: "what happens if a key founder gets hit by a bus?" That's the point at which a founder needs to convince the investor that the structure of the company itself is so well established that it can live on without the founder. Of course, if they're too convincing, it can backfire when the investors look to replace the founder (as they very often do), noting that the founder made a convincing enough argument as to why they're not needed.

Of course, until now, all of the stories on this were anecdotal. But, Paul Kedrosky points us to new research that was done on what happens if a founder dies early on in the life of a company, in an attempt to determine just how important it is for founders to stick around. It may surprise many (as it surprised me) to discover that, apparently, there isn't much of an impact if the founder passes on. The only real impact is a brief hit to profitability -- but it doesn't seem to have much long term impact. In other words, it really does take a team of folks to successfully implement an idea and bring it to market. While that doesn't necessarily mean founders are "expendable," it does highlight the importance of a strong overall team, rather than reliance on a single "visionary" expected to guide all aspects of the company. It doesn't mean founders shouldn't watch out for speeding buses, however.

Filed Under: founders, startups

It Doesn't Matter Who Founded Facebook. It Matters Who Made It A Success

from the face-the-facts dept

The NY Times appears to have just come across the now ancient claims that Mark Zuckerberg got the idea for Facebook from another Harvard classmate who started a system called houseSYSTEM that had a Facebook-like featureset. The guy behind houseSYSTEM, Aaron Greenspan, has been pushing that story for years. Then, of course, there's the more high profile claims (and silly lawsuit) from the founders of a company called ConnectU, which claims that Zuckerberg stole the idea from Facebook from them. All of these stories (and lawsuits) miss the point. It doesn't matter whose idea it was originally. The concept of an online facebook or a social network wasn't new at the time anyway. Friendster had launched long before any of these guys were thinking up the idea (and there were social networks like Ryze and SixDegrees before that anyway). The point isn't who came up with the idea -- but who could take that idea and actually build it into something successful that people wanted to use. And, for whatever reason, it was Mark Zuckerberg who was able to do that (with the help of plenty of other folks). The idea, itself, is somewhat meaningless if there's no execution behind it. There's no reason to worry about who came up with this idea or that idea when all we need to do is look at who made the idea work.

Filed Under: founders
Companies: facebook