Things might be pretty rotten in the United States now, but at least they are still working hard to come up with innovative ways to get themselves out of the mire.
Take a proposal recently introduced by US Senators John Kerry (yes, the former Democrat presidential candidate) Richard Lugar (a Republican). The pair have come up with something called the Start up Visa Act, which is designed to encourage immigrant entrepreneurs to come to the US, start companies and create jobs.
The rules work like this. Applicants need to get at least $US100,000 from an angel investor sponsor or at least $US250,000 from a qualified venture capital firm.
After two years, the entrepreneur will be allowed to become a legal resident if they manage to create five or more jobs (hiring your spouse or kids isn’t included), attract an additional $US1 million in investment, or generate $US1 million in revenue.
Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? If the US could get a hundred thousand of those businesses up and running, you’d have to think the US economy would be on the way to recovery.
Some big names have backed the deal, including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and some prominent venture capital groups. One of these, the National Venture Capital Association, has produced stats to show that a quarter of the venture-capital-backed, publicly-listed businesses in the US have a immigrant founder or co-founder, including Intel, Sun Microsystems, eBay, Yahoo and Google. Not a bad little list!
It’s not exactly clear whether the proposal will become law (from what I have read is seems that it’s unlikely), but it is a great example of a bit of out-of-the-box thinking.
Could a similar idea work here? Like the US, Australia does have visas for business owners who want to come here and start a business, but the bar is set pretty high.
The applicant and their partner need $500,000 in assets and need to have been in a business with a turnover of more than $500,000. Another key requirement is an “overall successful business career”, which suggests that the visa is more slanted towards established entrepreneurs rather than start up entrepreneurs.
Australia’s need for a big economic stimulus isn’t as great as the US, but the idea of encouraging an influx of start up entrepreneurs with great ideas, new ways of doing business, interesting technologies and a huge carrot to make their businesses work sounds like an exciting proposition.
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