Comment by keeptrying | Hacker News Reader

Comment by keeptrying | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Even after you move to SV you'll still be on a H1B and so cant really start your own company till you get a GC. that will take you 5 years if everything goes well. (There are ways to start a company on a H1 but none in a way that allow you to have optimal control of the company.)

I'm from India and I just recently quit to start on my own. I'm 33 - I got my GC 1 year ago.

My sincere advice: Stay in India.

India is going to hit the point where everyone starts doing things on the internet. Its very nearly there. But when it explodes, there will be tons of of money to be made. You will be sitting on huge numbers of people just learning to use the internet for their daily lives.

And I would definitely advise you to join the startup. You will learn nothing but tech from Amazon. I would even take a paycut if you can ask for some non-tech responsibility in the startup, ie on the business side. You need to understand how the deals are made - even more so because your dealing in India.

Stay in India and learn how to start your own business - catch the upcoming internet wave. You are positioned perfectly to ride this out and make millions. I'm serious about this.

Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge.

My instinct wants to me to join the startup but I am a little hesitant to miss out on having Amazon on my resume and the opportunity to get to SV, since it has been echoed many times here that SV is the best place to be if you want to start on your own.

But your post has given me, if I can say so, courage to just go with the first option.

Being an entrepreneur is about 2 things.

1. Learning the skills you need to do step 2.

2. Creating something that people want and figuring out a way to help them pay for it.

Its well documented in books like "The Talent Code" that the most effective way to learn is to be an environment where everyone else is doing the same thing and being sucessful at it. So yes SV would be the best way to start a VC backed startup.

But there is actually something thats more important than the above 2 - a HUGE SURGING MARKET. People in SV are not near Indian middle class and arent focussed on it even though: "The middle class in India and China is bigger than the middle class is US + Europe + Brazil + Africa combined". Give this and the fact that you CAN learn on your own I think you should stya in India and try there.

Use social media to watch videos from SV and learn. But stay in a huge growing market with much less startup competition. Even if you suck at execution but listen to the market your bound to become rich.

Now if you didnt have to do 1.5 + 5 years of slaving away for a corporate master before you could start your own company in SV then I would recommend SV but you dont have that option (unless you qualify for founder visa when that bill gets enacted).

All said and done, go out tomorrow buy Rs 2000 of vegetables from a vendor and try to resell it at market where you live. You'll learn sales and negotiation and you'll get the feeling of getting paid with cash - it'll be a great first step :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com