Foreign Founders

Welcome to another episode of Foreign Founders. Many of our listeners have written in to ask about wanting to cover immigration issues for entrepreneurs and founders. We have a special guest and “friend of the pod”, Sophie Alcorn.

Sophie is the founder and CEO of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and a top U.S. immigration law attorney. She and her team supports international founders and global talent to obtain U.S. visas and green cards. She is a TechCrunch contributor for their immigration column, a host of the Sophie Alcorn Podcast, and have just published her new book “Ask Sophie: The Founder’s Guide to Visas and Green Cards.”.

I’m grateful to have her on the show to simplify the U.S. immigration system. Thank you for joining us, Sophie!

To work with Sophie and her top class immigration team, go to https://www.alcorn.law/

Buy Ask Sophie™: The Founder’s Guide to Visas & Green Cards - available now!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CH7BWSWF

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The U.S. Healthcare industry is humungous! Healthcare spending in the country accounts for 18.3% of the U.S. GDP in 2021, or $4.3 trillion. That’s $12,914 per person per year! But, healthcare spending and healthcare professionals are not evenly distributed, and some areas in the country are healthcare deserts.

Today we have an immigrant entrepreneur, Ahmed “Eddie” Qureshi who is tackling this problem head-on. He is the founder and CEO of Valorant Health. Valorant Health is the AI-enabled health platform that connects 67 million individuals in the underserved communities to healthcare providers and services.

Their partnerships include those with the U.S. Air Force to expand access to personalized mental health services to Air Force personnel, and with the Catawba community through the Indian Health Services to modernize and digitize their mental health access.

We kick off with his journey to the U.S., including moving with his family and siblings to nine different cities (!), to his family’s background in healthcare and entrepreneurship, and finally how he’s addressing healthcare accessibility through Valorant Health.

Enjoy the episode!

Do you want to connect with Valorant Health and their mission? Reach out through their website: https://www.valoranthealth.com/

X / Twitter: https://twitter.com/valoranthealth

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/valorant-health/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are you an immigrant looking to get promoted, land a step-up job, or start a side business? On today’s episode, we have Varun Negandhi, who is an engineer and entrepreneur. He is a Sr. Engineer and Partner at EngSim, an automotive consulting company. And he is a founder at BeyondGrad where he helps immigrants boost their income with value-added courses.

Varun caught my eye because he’s curating incredibly valuable resources on his LinkedIn and website to help immigrants. He had first hand dealing with all these challenges, and impart his experience on the episode.

Enjoy the episode!

Want major change in your professional life this year or the next? Engage with BeyondGrad below.

https://www.beyondgrad.com/

To follow Varun's daily content, follow him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vnegandhi

Promotion Fast Track for Immigrant Professionals: https://www.beyondgrad.com/the-promotion-fast-track

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to the Foreign Founders podcast. Today, we’re covering Semyon (SEM-yon) Dukach (do-cake) ’s article on Crunchbase titled “Hey, VCs: Here are 3 Mistakes You’re Making In Pitch Meetings With Immigrant Founders.”

This is a continuation from last week’s theme of global competition for talent, because Semyon starts out by stating that roughly 80% of graduate students studying computer science and electrical engineering are international students, however, the immigration policies in countries like Canada, Australia and the UK are becoming more appealing and post grads are choosing to live and work outside of the U.S.

He continues.

“By overlooking these would be-immigrants, the U.S. is undermining its own potential and jeopardizing its future as a global leader in innovation.” Mmhmm, I agree. Then Semyon says “I believe fellow venture capitalists are doing the same”

OK! That’s spicy, let’s get into this. “Based on my experience investing in immigrant founders, I’ve noticed three mistakes VCs make in pitch meetings that lead to promising founders slipping under the radar.”

First, VCs are not digging into founder background stories, and immigrant founders are not leaning into their own stories. Because why focus on my own story if the story that’s important is the company’s, like what is the tech behind it and what the go to market strategies are.

Semyon says “when it comes to immigrant founders, however, personal stories tend to reveal the exact qualities needed to survive in times of economic uncertainty. Many have overcome economic or governmental instability, learning a new culture and language, and starting from ground zero.”

I think that’s right, and that’s why I continue to tell immigrant founder stories through Foreign Founders. These are often stories that are untold, but they are fascinating stories of challenges and change.

Second, Semyon says that he finds immigrant founders are often not as good as “selling themselves” as natives. Sometimes it’s cultural or self-protection. ‘From my experience, immigrant founders are less likely to build marginally life-improving products like luxury brands. Instead, they build businesses that have a reason to exist in people’s lives even when budgets are tight.’

His practical advice? VCs should ask founders about their best case scenario in 10 years, or the total size of the potential market to kick start a discussion of the scale without the showmanship.

Finally, Semyon says “what immigrant founders may lack in local networks, they make up for in their ability to navigate unfamiliar systems and their communities abroad. His closing “More than half of the most successful startups in the U.S. were founded by immigrants. Don’t let cultural differences keep you from a smart investment.”

I hope this was helpful not only for VCs but also for immigrant founders. Your story and your background is part of your uniqueness and edge - use it!

Full article:

https://news.crunchbase.com/diversity/immigrant-startup-founders-dukach-one-way

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to another Immigrant Informational where we cover current topics in under 5 minutes! We’re covering Canada’s new tech talent strategy for founders. At the end of June 2023, Canada’s Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Minister Sean Fraser announced Canada’s revamped ‘Tech Talent Strategy’ with six new initiatives. This article is from our friends at Launch Academy, article is linked in the show notes.

Canada’s government is innovating, and they want to attract the best global talents to help transform Canada into a tech powerhouse. So what are they?

First up → The Startup Visa Program, designed to facilitate permanent residency for entrepreneurs who create companies and employ Canadians, will get a renewed prioritization process (because of incredible demand) that will include multiple factors like capital commitments and endorsements from partners. Here are the improvements:

• Increased application intake planned for the next two years
• Applicants and their families can apply for a work permit that is up to three years instead of one year, and these work permits do not restrict the applicants to work for their own business
• Work permits are available to each entrepreneurial team, rather than those deemed essential and urgently needed in Canada
• The government is prioritizing applications that are supported by VC, angel investor groups, business incubators and entities who are members of Canada’s Tech Network

Other areas of note…

Startups can employ global talent as there’s a new two-week work permit processing under the Global Skills Strategy program. Those in the STEM field have a category selection under the Express Entry Program. Those who have an H1-B can apply to a special Canadian work permit.

Ultimately, Canada is doing a lot for immigrant and international talent and founders with these new changes. It’s clear that their intention is to become a global tech leader. How will other countries like the U.S. respond?

Full article:

https://www.launchacademy.ca/latest-changes-to-the-canadian-startup-visa-program-2023/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is not just for marketers, it’s for founders, growth teams and accelerators who are looking to accelerate their growth through rapid iteration and experiments.

We have Satwik Govindarajula, founder of Uptiq. Uptiq is an AI powered growth platform that helps teams plan and execute growth hacking experiments. Any startup team can brainstorm, prioritize, execute and track your experiments and see what moves your north star metric all in one place.

In the episode, we cover topics of building a startup in Porto and various pros and cons of its startup ecosystem, as well as how Uptiq thinks about building their growth platform in the age of AI.

Enjoy the episode!

If you’re a startup looking to grow, you can do that with Uptiq today. They also have a lot of really cool free tools listed below!

Uptiq for Startups: https://uptiq.app/startups

Uptiq for Accelerators: https://uptiq.app/

Unit Economics calculator: https://uptiq.app/ue

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uptiq-app/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you always wondered what the world would be like if you’re able to not only own your own data, but use it in a way that is beneficial to you?

Markus Lampinen, CEO and co-founder of Prifina, is solving this problem and we cover a lot of ground. Prifina’s mission is to empower individuals with their personal data, and create a developer ecosystem that allows developers and creators to build apps for individuals.

In the episode, we cover a variety of topics from Markus’ childhood moving around with his family , to discussing the data use cases from healthcare to how we think about data privacy in the modern world.

Enjoy the episode!

Do you have an idea for what data apps should be developed for individuals? Prifina is onboarding developers and partners.

https://www.prifina.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/myprifina

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prifina/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if you can build AI apps without learning to code, and build it in minutes? Our guest, Calin Drimbau, is building broadn.io to do just that.

Calin believes that there will be a new “creator economy” that is built on top of the next phase of no-code infrastructure using AI. Calin talks about his background growing up in a small 200 home village in Romania to building broadn through multiple iterations. I’m really excited to share this episode because Calin and I really truly believe in building, and giving the right tools for others to do so easily.

In the episode, Calin states that every single person on earth will be a creator. So the real question is “what will you create?”

Enjoy the episode!

Join the broadn community and get early access to their no-code platform.

https://www.broadn.io/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/getbroadn

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broadn/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@getbroadn

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you ever struggled to remember details from your last meeting or find a document created by your colleague on Google Drive, Slack or any other work apps? In this episode, we have Elizabeth Tishchenko, Co-Founder of Nevemind, where we talk about this pain!

Nevemind is a productivity software that instantly answers any questions based on your personal data. Elizabeth shares her story of growing up in Ukraine and eventually making it to Oslo, Norway.

We explore the benefits and challenges of building a company in Oslo as an international founder, how Nevemind is building the future ‘AI answering machine’, and what Elizabeth thinks about AI in the present and in the future.

Enjoy the episode!

Nevemind is now open for their closed beta. If you want to join a world where your thoughts can be turned into action, go to their website and join the waitlist.

https://nevemind.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GetNevemind

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nevemind/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The long wait is over! We’re excited to kick off season two of Foreign Founders with Markus Pesonen, co-founder and CEO of Olo.

Markus wants you to learn the language of your nervous system using Olo and say goodbye to your anxiety and stress. Olo is the most beautiful app I’ve experienced in a long time, the pure simplicity and beauty of the product keeps you at ease. In the episode, Markus covers topics of his background and how he came to create Olo, especially in the aftermath of his then “career peak” playing at the Royal Albert Hall.

Markus shares the current meditation apps and approach does not suit our modern living, and advocates for what he calls “positive mind wandering” to replace meditation. There’s a lot more great insights and learning from this episode, and I can’t wait for you to hear it.

Enjoy the episode!

Download Olo on the iOS and Google Play stores today!

https://www.olo.space/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/olo.space/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/olo_space

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/olospace/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.