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Dear Sophie: Can I still get a green card through marriage if I’m divorcing?
Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.
“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”
Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.
Dear Sophie,
I received a conditional green card after my wife and I got married in 2019. Recently, we have made the difficult decision to end our marriage. I want to continue living and working in the United States.
Is it still possible for me to complete my green card based on my marriage through the I-751 process or do I need to do something else, like ask my employer to sponsor me for a work visa?
— Better to Have Loved and Lost
Dear Better,
I’m sorry to hear your marriage didn’t work out. Rest assured, you can still proceed with getting a full-fledged green card even though you and your wife are divorcing. Listen to my recent podcast with Anita Koumriqian, my law partner, in which we discuss the removal of conditions on permanent residence for people who got two-year green cards through marriage.
As you know, since you were married for less than two years when you applied for your green card through marriage, you were issued a conditional green card that is only valid for two years rather than a 10-year green card. The purpose of the I-751 is to show that the couple entered into a genuine, good faith marriage. Usually, couples must file an I-751 petition together. However, an individual may file a petition without a spouse if any of the following apply:
- If the marriage ended through annulment or divorce.
- If the U.S. citizen spouse died.
- If the conditional resident (and/or children) was battered or subjected to extreme cruelty.
If your divorce is not yet finalized and you don’t have a family law attorney yet, I do recommend that you work with a family law attorney, who is necessary to help streamline the process. I also recommend consulting an immigration attorney as soon as possible to prepare the I-751 filing since it can get tricky for an individual in divorce proceedings. Both need to work together and in parallel to ensure that everything goes smoothly for you with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Image Credits: Joanna Buniak / Sophie Alcorn (opens in a new window)
When to file to remove conditions on permanent residence
The I-751 should be filed within the 90-day period before your conditional green card is set to expire. I recommend filing as soon as you can within that window. Keep in mind that, if you file your I-751 petition too early, it may be returned to you. And if you file it after your conditional green card expires, you not only face having to leave the U.S., but USCIS could also deny your petition if you fail to provide a compelling reason. If you are in this situation, definitely let your immigration attorney know.
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Back to the suture: The future of healthcare is in the home
The pandemic has highlighted some of the brightest spots — and greatest areas of need — in America’s healthcare system. On one hand, we’ve witnessed the vibrancy of America’s innovation engine, with notable contributions by U.S.-based scientists and companies for vaccines and treatments.
On the other hand, the pandemic has highlighted both the distribution challenges and cost inefficiencies of the healthcare system, which now accounts for nearly a fifth of our GDP — far more than any other country — yet lags many other developed nations in clinical outcomes.
Many of these challenges stem from a lack of alignment between payment and incentive models, as well as an overreliance on hospitals as centers for care delivery. A third of healthcare costs are incurred at hospitals, though at-home models can be more effective and affordable. Furthermore, most providers rely on fee for service instead of preventive care arrangements.
These factors combine to make care in this country reactive, transactional and inefficient. We can improve both outcomes and costs by moving care from the hospital back to the place it started — at home.
Right now in-home care accounts for only 3% of the healthcare market. We predict that it will grow to 10% or more within the next decade.
In-home care is nothing new. In the 1930s, over 40% of physician-patient encounters took place in the home, but by the 1980s, that figure dropped to under 1%, driven by changes in health economics and technologies that led to today’s hospital-dominant model of care.
That 50-year shift consolidated costs, centralized access to specialized diagnostics and treatments, and created centers of excellence. It also created a transition from proactive to reactive care, eliminating the longitudinal relationship between patient and provider. In today’s system, patients are often diagnosed by and receive treatment from individual doctors who do not consult one another. These highly siloed treatments often take place only after the patient needs emergency care. This creates higher costs — and worse outcomes.
That’s where in-home care can help. Right now in-home care accounts for only 3% of the healthcare market. We predict that it will grow to 10% or more within the next decade. This growth will improve the patient experience, achieve better clinical outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.
To make these improvements, in-home healthcare strategies will need to leverage next-generation technology and value-based care strategies. Fortunately, the window of opportunity for change is open right now.
Five factors driving the opportunity for change
Over the last few years, five significant innovations have created new incentives to drive dramatic changes in the way care is delivered.
- Technologies like remote patient monitoring (RPM) and telemedicine have matured to a point that can be deployed at scale. These technologies enable providers to remotely manage patients in a proactive, long-term relationship from the comfort of their homes and at a reduced cost.
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How to establish a health tech startup advisory board
When you enter the health tech industry as a new startup, an advisory board is a crucial foundational step. A board can guide you through industry-specific nuances, help you make important decisions and prove your legitimacy to investors looking for a strong industry background.
An advisory board will be able to give you strategic insights about both your company and the wider healthcare and technology industries.
In my experience of raising capital, the unpredictable financial situation at the beginning of the pandemic meant we nearly lost our $2 million round, but came through with a committed $250,000, which we used to bring in about $500,000 in revenue.
Something that helped this process was building our advisory board and starting small — we didn’t go for all of healthcare but instead focused on two healthcare verticals. This allowed us to prove our concept, build case studies and win contracts with specific teams in our customers’ companies.
It pays off to stay focused and prove your worth so that your advisory board members can champion you in niche markets, with the potential to expand in the future. For this reason, it’s important to identify the main intention behind your board, and exactly who should be on it.
Who to recruit
Three to five people is an ideal starting point for an advisory board, depending on the size and stage of your company. In health tech, you need more than just the healthcare perspective — you also need the insight of those who have already grown technology companies, perhaps outside of the industry. Our company’s board is an even split of two healthcare and two technology advisers, and, ideally, you want to find a fifth who is well versed in both industries.
It pays off to stay focused and prove your worth so that your advisory board members can champion you in niche markets, with the potential to expand in the future.
An M.D., a Ph.D. from a respected institution or a thought leader in your relevant field of healthcare is the most important asset to an advisory board. These are the highly decorated physicians who have strong connections and act as a reference for their peers.
They provide instant credibility for your company, help you get into the minds of both patients and healthcare providers, and can outline how various health systems work.
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Dear Sophie: Tips on EB-1A and EB-2 NIW?
Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.
“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”
Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.
Dear Sophie,
I’m on an H-1B living and working in the U.S. I want to apply for a green card on my own. I’m concerned about only relying on my current employer and I want to be able to easily change jobs or create a startup. I’ve been looking at the EB-1A and EB-2 NIW.
I’m not sure if I would qualify for an EB-1A, but since I was born in India, I face a much longer wait for an EB-2 NIW. Any tips on how to proceed?
— Inventive from India
Dear Inventive,
Thanks for your question. Take a listen to my podcast episode in which I discuss the latest tech immigration news and delve into the benefits and requirements of the EB-1A green card for individuals of extraordinary ability and the EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver) green card, which as you know are the main employment-based green cards for which individuals can self-sponsor.
I recommend you consult an experienced immigration attorney who can evaluate your abilities and accomplishments and assess your prospects for each green card. After an initial consultation with new clients, we’re able to provide a lot more detail to folks on their specific options since these are such individualized pathways.
There are some groups of people who might need every advantage. Those can include folks born in India or China, who might face long green card backlogs. Another such group includes people whose skills and accomplishments might be borderline for an EB-1A green card for extraordinary ability. In some cases — if eligible and to have every opportunity for green card security and to mitigate wait times as much as possible — our clients choose to file both the EB-1A and EB-2 NIW in parallel.
Image Credits: Joanna Buniak / Sophie Alcorn (opens in a new window)
The EB-1A is the highest priority green card and the standard for qualifying is much higher than for the EB-2 NIW. And that means an EB-1A is typically quicker to get, which is particularly the case now: According to the August 2021 Visa Bulletin, there is no wait for an EB-1A green card regardless of country of birth, while only individuals who were born in India and have a priority date of June 1, 2011 or earlier can proceed with their EB-2 NIW petition.
Please remember that the Visa Bulletin fluctuates and changes every month. Also, the EB-1A is currently eligible for premium processing on the I-140. Although there is talk to add this option to the EB-2 NIW one day, premium processing is not available for EB-2 NIW I-140s yet.
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Taking consumer subscription software to the great outdoors
The pandemic has been extremely painful for many. But as lockdowns lifted and people began resuming their outdoor hobbies, mobile-first businesses have seen growth accelerate as consumers turned to digital tools to improve their time outdoors.
The Dyrt, for example, is the top camping app on the Apple and Google Play App Stores. The app sits at the confluence of two trends: An increased interest in outdoor recreation and travel, and an explosion in consumer subscription software (CSS).
The Dyrt launched its premium offering in 2019, The Dyrt PRO, in time to take advantage of the rising number of Americans making the great outdoors part of their lifestyle. A year later, it had a new subscriber every two minutes paying for features like offline maps and detailed camping information.
CSS businesses at the forefront of outdoor activities have closed major deals in recent years such as hunting app OnX (Summit Partners), hiking app Alltrails (Spectrum Equity), Surfline (The Chernin Group) and mountain bike leader Pinkbike (Outside Media). Companies like Netflix and Spotify have trained consumers to pay monthly or annual fees for software that enhances their lives, creating a business model investors view as reliable and poised for growth.
I think of different outdoor activities almost like individual genres on Netflix. Dominating camping or surfing might be like capturing the streaming market for comedy or horror.
Fitness and the outdoor passion space is one of the most exciting CSS categories in a growing landscape that includes everything from family planning/management services to entertainment and education. I believe CSS is still in the early stages of its growth — perhaps where B2B SaaS was a decade ago.
So what sets apart the great CSS businesses from the good ones?
Passion equals profits on the CSS flywheel
The beauty of the CSS model is the complete alignment between the business and its customers. CSS companies don’t have to please advertisers, and they can design purely for their users.
This dynamic is particularly powerful for CSS companies in the outdoors space, which make your favorite outdoor activity better with performance analytics and enhanced information such as maps, reviews, air quality reports and fire warnings. Consumers are happy to spend money on the activities and hobbies they enjoy, and CSS companies are able to make pleasing those consumers their top priority.
The result is what I call the CSS flywheel, in which a quality CSS product attracts and retains loyal users. Those users contribute their data through posts, photos and reviews, which creates a better product that further attracts new users, and so on.
The CSS flywheel shows the cycle that results when a quality CSS product attracts and retains loyal users. Image Credits: GP Bullhound
When companies get this flywheel right, it’s incredibly appealing to investors, because of the advantages of scale in CSS. Each niche will probably be dominated by one or two players, and a given niche can have tens of millions of consumers.
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Insider hacks to streamline your SOC 3 certification application
If you’re a tech company offering anyone a service, somewhere in your future is a security assessment giving you the seal of approval to manage clients’ data and operate on your devices. No one takes security lightly anymore. The business costs of cyberattacks have now hit an all-time high. Government bodies, companies and consumers need the assurance that the next software they download isn’t going to be an open door for hackers.
For good reason, security certifications like the SOC 3 really put you through the wringer. My company, Waydev, has just attained the SOC 3 certification, becoming one of the first development analytics tools to receive that accreditation. We learned so much from the process, we felt it was right to share our experience with others that might be daunted by the prospect.
As a non-tech founder, it was hard not only to navigate the process, but to appreciate its value. But by putting our business caps on, our team was able to optimize our approach and minimize the time and effort needed to achieve our goal. In doing so, we were granted SOC 3 compliance in two weeks, as opposed to the two months it takes some companies.
We also turned the assessment into an opportunity to better our product, align our internal teams, boost our brand and even launch partnerships.
So here’s our advice on how teams can smoothly reach an SOC 3 while simultaneously balancing workloads and minimizing disruption to users.
First, bring your teams on board
Because we can’t expect employees to stack those hours on top of their regular workdays, as a leader you have to accept — and communicate — that the speed of your output will inevitably decrease.
As a founder, you’ll be acting as captain steering a ship into that SOC 3 port, and you’ll need all members of your crew to join forces. This isn’t a job for a specially designated security team alone and will require deep involvement from your development and other teams, too. That might lead to internal resistance, as they still have a full-time job tending to your product and customers.
That’s why it’s so important to start by being crystal clear with your employees about what this process will mean to their work lives. However, they have to embrace the true benefits that will arise. SOC 3 will immediately raise your brand’s appeal and likely see new customers come in as a result.
Each employee will also come out the other end with well-honed cybersecurity skills — they’ll have a deep understanding of potential cyber threats to the company, and all security initiatives will carry a far lighter burden. There’s also the sense of pride and fulfillment that comes with having an indisputable edge over your competitors.
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Growth tactics that will jump-start your customer base
Five years ago, the playbook for launching a new company involved a tried-and-true list of to-dos. Once you built an awesome product with a catchy name, you’d try to get a feature article on TechCrunch, a front-page hit on Hacker News, hunted on ProductHunt and an AMA on Quora.
While all of these today remain impressive milestones, it’s never been harder to corral eyeballs and hit a breakout adoption trajectory.
In this new decade, it is possible to first out-market your competitor, and then raise lots of money, hire the best team and build, rather than the other way around (building first, then marketing).
Looks like @stripe redesigned their landing page.
How long until we see these colorful gradients on other startups’ landing pages?
https://t.co/c6DL5mEUm4 pic.twitter.com/cCh8NyXawy
— Marc Köhlbrugge (@marckohlbrugge) July 7, 2020
Outbound marketing tools and company newsletters are useful, but they’re also a slow burn and offer low conversion in the new creator economy. So where does this leave us?
With audiences spread out over so many platforms, reaching cult status requires some level of hacking. Brand-building is no longer a one-hit game, but an exercise in repetition: It may take four or five times for a user to see your startup’s name or logo to recognize, remember or Google it.
Below are some growth tactics that I hope will help jump-start the effort to building an engaged user base.
Laying the groundwork for user-generated content
Before users are evangelists, they are observers. Consider creating a bot to alert you of any product mentions on Twitter, or surface subject-matter discussions on Reddit (“Best tools to manage AWS costs?” or “Which marketplace do you resell your old electronics on?”), which you can then respond to with thoughtful commentary.
Join relevant communities on Discord, infiltrate Slack groups of relevant conferences (including past iterations of a conference — chances are those groups are still alive with activity), follow forums on StackOverflow and engage in the discussions on all these channels.
The more often you post, the better your posts convert. The more your handle appears on newsfeeds, the more likely it will be included on widely quoted “listicles.”
My list of coolest startups around today:@Replit – no more dev environments@highlightrun – understand how people use your app@DoNotPayLaw – saves
+
@Superhuman – first pleasant email app@Railway_App – what Heroku should have been@pipe – recurring revenue = assets
— Zain Allarakhia (@zallarak) May 18, 2021
Most “user-generated content” in the early innings should be generated by you, from both personal accounts and company accounts.
Build in public …
Building in public is scary given the speed at which ideas can be copied, but competition will always exist, since new ideas are not born in vacuums. Companies like Railway and Replit post to Twitter every time they post a new changelog. Stir brands its feature releases as “drops,” similar to streetwear drops.
Building in public can also lend opportunities for virality, which requires drama, comedy or both. Hey.com’s launch was buoyed by Basecamp’s public fight against Apple over existing App Store take rates.
Mmhmm, the virtual camera app that adds TV-presenter flair to video meetings, launched with a viral video that hit over 1.5 million views. The company continues to release entertaining YouTube demos to showcase new use cases.
Help TechCrunch find the best growth marketers for startups.
Provide a recommendation in this quick survey and we’ll share the results with everybody.
… or build in private
Like an artist teasing an upcoming album, some companies are able to drum up substantial anticipation ahead of exiting stealth mode. When two ex-Apple execs founded Humane, they crafted beautiful social media pages full of sophisticated photography without revealing a single hint of what they set out to build.
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More companies should shift to a work-from-home model
Nearly three in 10 employees (29%) would quit their job if they were told they were no longer allowed to work remotely, according to a recent survey. In addition, a recent Harvard Business Study found that “companies that let their workers decide where and when to do their jobs — whether in another city or in the middle of the night — increase employee productivity, reduce turnover and lower organizational costs.”
Over the past 18 months, while instituting a remote work model, our turnover rate at Insightly was the lowest in company history and an internal survey found happiness levels to be twice as high from the previous year. This in the midst of a major pandemic, social movement, forest fires and a disruptive election — all happening at the same time.
As long as your employees are available when your customers are in need and goals are consistently met, 9 to 5 no longer needs to be a thing.
On a larger, global scale, employers from companies around the world are coming to the same realization: You don’t need an office to be productive and employees are happier working from home.
The next logical step is, at the same time, a majorly disruptive one and a 180-degree shift toward how companies have operated for over 100 years — the transition from in-person headquarters to a remote, work-from-anywhere model. In line with this shift, we’ve foregone our 40,000-square-foot Soma office space and employees are able to work from anywhere in the United States while keeping the same salary.
There will no doubt be challenges, and there already have been. But with these challenges also arises immense opportunity. Here are a few battle-tested tips on how to maintain productivity while delivering flexibility with this new work model:
Reallocate overhead savings
Let employees choose where they live. Allowing this option will better their lives and make for happy, engaged employees. Overhead costs, especially in large cities such as San Francisco, are the largest operating expense for most companies. Take this large sum of money and invest in employee happiness. You don’t need thousands of square feet in office space to be successful.
That massive overhead cost you just got rid of? Use this toward more meaningful employee experiences that will enhance their lives.
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Disaster recovery can be an effective way to ease into the cloud
Operating in the cloud is soon going to be a reality for many businesses whether they like it or not. Points of contention with this shift often arise from unfamiliarity and discomfort with cloud operations. However, cloud migrations don’t have to be a full lift and shift.
Instead, leaders unfamiliar with the cloud should start by moving over their disaster recovery program to the cloud, which helps to gain familiarity and understanding before a full migration of production workloads.
What is DRaaS?
Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) is cloud-based disaster recovery delivered as a service to organizations in a self-service, partially managed or fully managed service model. The agility of DR in the cloud affords businesses a geographically diverse location to failover operations and run as close to normal as possible following a disruptive event. DRaaS emphasizes speed of recovery so that this failover is as seamless as possible. Plus, technology teams can offload some of the more burdensome aspects of maintaining and testing their disaster recovery.
When it comes to disaster recovery testing, allow for extra time to let your IT staff learn the ins and outs of the cloud environment.
DRaaS is a perfect candidate for a first step into the cloud for five main reasons:
- Using DRaaS helps leaders get accustomed to the ins and outs of cloud before conducting a full production shift.
- Testing cycles of the DRaaS solution allows IT teams to see firsthand how their applications will operate in a cloud environment, enabling them to identify the applications that will need a full or partial refactor before migrating to the cloud.
- With DRaaS, technology leaders can demonstrate an early win in the cloud without risking full production.
- DRaaS success helps gain full buy-in from stakeholders, board members and executives.
- The replication tools that DRaaS uses are sometimes the same tools used to migrate workloads for production environments — this helps the technology team practice their cloud migration strategy.
Steps to start your DRaaS journey to the cloud
Define your strategy
Do your research to determine if DRaaS is right for you given your long-term organizational goals. You don’t want to start down a path to one cloud environment if that cloud isn’t aligned with your company’s objectives, both for the short and long term. Having cross-functional conversations among business units and with company executives will assist in defining and iterating your strategy.
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Dear Sophie: Can I hire an engineer whose green card is being sponsored by another company?
Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.
“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”
Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.
Dear Sophie,
I want to extend an offer to an engineer who has been working in the U.S. on an H-1B for almost five years. Her current employer is sponsoring her for an EB-2 green card, and our startup wants to hire her as a senior engineer.
What happens to her green card process? Can we take it over?
— Recruiting in Richmond
Dear Recruiting,
Congrats on finding the right candidate for your role. Your startup’s ability to take over the EB-2 green card process for this candidate — or whether you have to start the green card process from the beginning — depends on where she is in the green card process and whether the position you are offering is similar to her current role.
Take a listen to my podcast in which my colleague, Gilberto Orozco Jr., an associate attorney at my firm, and I discuss the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act — or AC21 — including “green card portability.”
Enacted in 2000, AC21 gives international talent in certain situations the flexibility to change jobs during the green card process and the ability to extend an H-1B visa beyond the six-year limit to avoid having to leave the United States while waiting for a green card. I recommend discussing your situation and goals with an experienced immigration attorney to determine your options.
Image Credits: Joanna Buniak / Sophie Alcorn (opens in a new window)
The process for EB-2 green cards
As I mentioned earlier, what happens to the green card process if your candidate changes jobs depends on where she is in the EB-2 green card process. There are two types of EB-2 green cards that have slightly different processes:
- EB-2 green card for advanced degree professionals
- EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver) for persons of exceptional ability
The EB-2 green card requires an employer sponsor and has a three-step process:
- Getting PERM (Program Electronic Review Management) labor certification from the U.S. Department of Labor.
- Submitting a green card petition (Form I-140) to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for approval.
- Getting USCIS approval after filing an adjustment of status to permanent residence application (Form I-485), which can be filed along with Form I-140 depending on whether an EB-2 green card number is available based on the candidate’s country of birth, and being interviewed by a USCIS officer or obtaining a green card abroad through consular processing and the State Department.
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