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How to avoid the startup trap of the parasitic consultant

Published December 9, 2019

Early-stage startups have a massive problem: there are way, way too many things to do, and never enough people to do them. Whether it’s growth marketing, or product design, or software engineering or a myriad list of other tasks, something somewhere isn’t going to get done by the founding team and early employees.

And so it is only natural to seek outside help to assist with those tasks, part-timers (and sometimes full-timers) who can add their talent and experience to a company’s early success.

There’s just one problem: consultants are horrifyingly misaligned with startups, as a recent discussion about how to be a great consultant attests. And so if you are going to work with consultants as a founder, there are massive traps you must avoid in order to make effective use of these people.

I’m a big fan of The Browser, an email newsletter by Robert Cottrell which curates a list of five articles a day across the web that Cottrell thinks are the best of the day. One of his selections in a recent issue was part two of a four part series on being a great consultant written by Tom Critchlow, who is adapting lessons from the theater world into the work of being a consultant.

Fountain, a platform for recruiting gig and hourly workers, raises $23M

Published October 29, 2019

Contract, self-employed and temporary jobs are on the rise in developed markets, with some 85% of the global workforce, 2.7 billion people, estimated to be on some form of hourly wage rather than flat salary.

Today, a startup that helps companies source these kinds of candidates is announcing a round of funding to help meet that demand. Fountain, which has built a platform to find and screen candidates for field roles — not knowledge-worker desk jobs, but hourly work that likely has you on your feet — has raised $23 million, money that it will be using to continue expanding its platform, the kinds of services it provides to its customers and its geographical footprint.

Fountain already has some scale: The company currently sources and processes more than 1 million inbound candidate applications each month, filling some 150,000 jobs in the process, CEO and founder Keith Ryu said in an interview.

In addition to building engines to source candidates through a number of channels, such as traditional job boards, social media channels, a company’s own site and more, Fountain then helps with screening, interview scheduling, background checks (using third-party providers for this part), communicating with the candidate, handling the paperwork and, finally, onboarding.

Led by DCM, this latest round also included a potentially strategic backer, the Chinese recruitment site 51job, as well as Origin Ventures, Uncork Capital and others that are not being named. This brings the total raised by Fountain, which previously was called OnboardIQ and had been incubated in Y Combinator, to $34 million.

Fountain’s business targets two main kinds of employers. First, ridesharing companies like Uber, delivery startups like Postmates and home services providers like Thumbtack all function by virtue of their pools of “gig” workers, self-employed people who choose their own working hours and dip into the platforms for assignments when they have time to fulfill them.

But the challenge of finding good people for field jobs is not venture-backed startups’ alone. The second big category that Fountain taps for business is the wider pool of retail and food industry businesses that have long relied on hourly workers but also find it hard to source qualified and reliable people.

Between those two, Ryu said that customers cover big “gig economy” businesses like Uber Eats, Caviar and Cabify; large fast food franchises, including Taco Bell, Burger King and KFC chains; and a number of other customers that use Fountain’s APIs for white-label services and prefer not to be named. (I think it’s interesting that Uber Eats is on Fountain’s customer list, but Uber is not.)

Fountain was founded in 2015, arguably at the peak of demand for recruiting gig economy workers. In the years since then, and especially in recent times, demands have moved away for these companies from aggressive expansion (bringing on, for example, lots of new drivers), and into more profitable operations. Ryu said that the knock-on effect for Fountain has not been a reduction, but a change, in terms of the services required, with some companies opting to outsource, whereas in the past they might have handled recruitment in-house.

“There has been some attention to reducing operating costs per driver, including driver acquisition,” he said. “That is where we have been getting involved, using our size [and reach] to reduce the cost to the employer.”

This also has had the effect of also seeing Fountain change up its own strategy to make more of an effort to target more traditional businesses that are based around hourly employees: no longer contractors, but still very much in the field.

“As the unrivaled leader in gig hiring and recruiting, Fountain is already reshaping the way billions of job seekers interact with employers,” says David Chao, co-founder and partner at DCM, in a statement. “Fountain has been exceptionally capital efficient and has best-in-class customer retention,” adds Kyle Lui, partner at DCM.

Fountain is not disclosing its valuation with this round. In its last round, back in 2017, it had a very modest $40 million price on it, although given its growth since then (it had sourced 5 million candidates in two years in 2017; now it sources 1 million each month) this is likely to be significantly higher.

Labor leaders and startup founders talk how to build a sustainable gig economy

Published October 16, 2019

Over the past few years, gig economy companies and the treatment of their labor force has become a hot button issue for public and private sector debate.

At our recent annual Disrupt event in San Francisco, we dug into how founders, companies and the broader community can play a positive role in the gig economy, with help from Derecka Mehrens, an executive director at Working Partnerships USA and co-founder of Silicon Valley Rising — an advocacy campaign focused on fighting for tech worker rights and creating an inclusive tech economy — and Amanda de Cadenet, founder of Girlgaze, a platform that connects advertisers with a network of 200,000 female-identifying and non-binary creatives.

Derecka and Amanda dove deep into where incumbent gig companies have fallen short, what they’re doing to right the ship, whether VC and hyper-growth mentalities fit into a sustainable gig economy, as well as thoughts on Uber’s new ‘Uber Works’ platform and CA AB-5. The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Where current gig companies are failing

Arman Tabatabai: What was the original promise and value proposition of the gig economy? What went wrong?

Derecka Mehrens: The gig economy exists in a larger context, which is one in which neoliberalism is failing, trickle-down economics is proven wrong, and every day working people aren’t surviving and are looking for something more.

And so you have a situation in which the system we put together to create employment, to create our communities, to build our housing, to give us jobs is dysfunctional. And within that, folks are going to come up with disruptive solutions to pieces of it with a promise in mind to solve a problem. But without a larger solution, that will end up, in our view, exacerbating existing inequalities.

Robinhood revives checking with new debit card & 2% interest

Published October 8, 2019

This time it actually has insurance. Zero-fee stock-trading app Robinhood is launching Cash Management, a new feature that earns users 2.05% APY interest on uninvested money in their account with the ability to spend it through a special Mastercard debit card. The waitlist opens today in the U.S. with the first users to be admitted soon. “If you have $5,000 in your account while you’re thinking about what to invest in, you’d have an extra $105 at the end of the year” thanks to Robinhood Cash Management’s interest, co-CEO Baiju Bhatt tells me.

The $7.6 billion-valuation startup first attempted something similar in December with Robinhood Checking, promising a stunningly tall 3% interest rate. But the product turned into a PR disaster when the Securities Investor Protection Corporation that was supposed to insure users’ funds declared Robinhood ineligible, with its CEO noting it had never agreed to cover checking accounts. That led Robinhood to shelve the feature, scrub its site of any mention of Checking and apologize.

Robinhood Cash Management’s debit cards, featuring the same design from the scrapped Checking launch

Now despite Bhatt claiming “Cash Management is a brand new program built from the ground up,” it will offer the same debit card design and network of 75,000 ATMs. It’s even using an identical promo image for its half-translucent green, black, white and American flag debit card designs. But each user’s funds will be covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation up to $1.25 million. To get around the $250,000 FDIC limit per bank, Robinhood is partnering with six banks that it will spread a user’s cash across as necessary to bundle up to that sum. Robinhood earns money by taking a chunk of the interchange fees from transactions on its debit card run in partnership with Sutton Bank, and from a fee paid by the six banks cash gets swept into.

To help it avoid further regulatory missteps, Robinhood yesterday added former SEC commissioner Dan Gallagher as its first independent board member. He joins the startup’s recently hired COO, CFO, chief compliance officer, VP of Risk & Compliance and VP of Legal & Regulatory to bring more supervision to Robinhood.

Baiju Bhatt Vlad Tenev Co Founders and Co CEOs 1

Robinhood co-founders and co-CEOs (from left): Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev

The opt-in feature prevents users from missing out on earning interest if they keep money in their Robinhood account, and makes funds from stock sales quickly accessible via the debit card for spending or withdrawal. That convenience could give Robinhood an edge as its loses one if its key differentiators. Last week, its top incumbent competitors Charles Schwab, E*Trade and AmeriTrade all dropped their $4.95 to $6.95 fees on stock trades to match Robinhood’s free offering. That makes Cash Management and Robinhood Crypto even more critical to its continued growth. That’s necessary to justify the $7.6 billion valuation from its recent $323 million Series E raise led by DST Global that brings it to $860 million in total funding.

How Robinhood Cash Management works

“We decided the best thing to do is giving people the peace of mind that their money is held at these banks, while trying to pay back the very best interest rates,” Bhatt tells me. [Disclosure: I know Robinhood’s co-founders from college.]

With Cash Management, once users deposit cash into the Robinhood accounts and opt into the program, they’re eligible to earn interest. Any balance on their account, including returns from sales of securities or cryptocurrencies, is swept into the FDIC-insured partner banks via Promontory’s debit suite system. Those banks include Wells Fargo, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, U.S. Bank and Bank of Baroda. If one of those banks folds, the FDIC will make customers whole for up to $250,000, equaling $1.25 million across all six working with Robinhood. Users are able to opt out of specific banks.

There the cash earns a variable annual percentage yield (APY) that may fluctuate based on market factors like the Fed fund’s rate. Currently Robinhood offers a 2.05% APY, but refused to compare it to competitors. However, it ranks relatively high amongst popular banking options like these, according to Bankrate, especially given it has no minimum balance:

BMO Harris – 2.20% APY, $5,000 Minimum Balance
BBVA – 2.15% APY, $10,000 Minimum Balance
UFB Direct – 2.15% APY, $25,000 Minimum Balance
Sallie Mae – 2.00% APY, No Minimum Balance
State Farm Bank – 2.00% APY, No Minimum Balance
TIAA Bank – 2.00% APY, $500 Minimum Balance
Wells Fargo – 1.95% APY, $25,000 Minimum Balance
Investors eAccess – 1.90% APY, No Minimum Balance

Robinhood Cash Management will also compete directly with Wealthfront Cash that launched in February and now offers 2.07% APY interest, but lacks a debit card or ATMs. Betterment Checking & Savings does provide a Visa debit card, but its current APY is 1.79%.

Cash Management users can select from the four debit card styles that are accepted anywhere that takes Mastercard, plus 75,000 ATMs. It also works with Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. There are no foreign transaction fees, maintenance fees or account minimum.

A variety of new Cash Management features are being added to the Robinhood app. You can get notifications and emails for all your transactions, and lock the card from your phone if you suspect fraud. You also can opt for location protection, which alerts you if your card is used too far away from your phone. An in-app ATM finder shows users where they can get cash without a fee.

“Partially we want this to be a good business but we also want this to be a big part of customer’s lives,” says Robinhood VP of product Josh Elman. Instead of nickel and diming Cash Management users, the startup monetizes by charging its partners. But the bigger strategy is to get more users on Robinhood in hopes some will subscribe to Robinhood Gold. There users pay a variable monthly fee depending on how much they want to borrow from the startup to trade on margin.

Robinhood co-CEO Baiju Bhatt speaks with TechCrunch’s Josh Constine at Disrupt SF 2018

“I think the main takeaway over the last year has been that since last December, our company has been very committed to building an organization that has a really strong culture [of compliance]” Bhatt concludes. “We’ve grown the leadership team over the last year with experience from risk and finance backgrounds. We think that’s reflected pretty clearly in how Robinhood operates and the diligence that went into building this new program.”

No longer a scrappy startup, the budding fintech giant must now grapple with much greater regulatory scrutiny. With more than 6 million users, the SEC won’t stand for it putting people’s finances in in jeopardy.

A startup factory? $1.2B-exit team launches $65M super{set}

Published October 2, 2019

Think Jack Dorsey’s jobs are tough? Well, Tom Chavez is running six startups. He thinks building businesses can be boiled down to science, so today he’s unveiling his laboratory for founding, funding and operating companies. He and his team have already proven they can do it themselves after selling their startups Rapt to Microsoft and Krux to Salesforce for a combined $1.2 billion. Now they’ve raised a $65 million fund for “super{set}”, an enterprise startup studio with a half-dozen companies currently in motion.

The idea is that {super}set either conceptualizes a company or brings in founders whose dream they can make a reality. The studio provides early funding and expertise while the startup works from their shared space in San Francisco, plus future ones in New York and Boston. The secret sauce is the “super{set} Code,” an execution playbook plus technological tools and building blocks that guide the strategy and eliminate redundant work. “Our belief is that we can make the companies 10x faster and increase capital efficiency by 5X,” says Chavez of his partnership with {super}set co-founders Vivek Vaidya, who acts as CTO, and Jae Lim who manages the fund.

The {super}set team (from left): Tom Chavez, Jae Lim, Jen Elena and Vivek Vaidya

Perhaps the question isn’t whether the portfolio startups can scale, but if the humans behind them can without breaking. It’s stressful running a single company, let alone six. Even with the order of operations nailed down, each encounters unique challenges and no plan is one-size-fits-all. But after delivering 17.5X returns to their past investors, Chavez et al. have proven their power to repeatedly recognize what enterprises need and build admittedly boring but bountiful products in customer data management, and advertising yield.

The studio’s playbooks cover business plan formation, pitch strategies, go to market, revenue, machine learning, management principles, HR processes, sales methods, pipeline measurement, product sequencing, finance, legal and more. There’s also shared engineering code it provides, so each startup doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. “I don’t think you can systemize it but I do think you can accelerate and de-risk the path,” Chavez explains.

{super}set Code

Today, the first {super}set company is coming out of stealth. Eskalera helps enterprises retain top talent by tracking diversity and inclusion stats of employees to engage them with career growth and community programs. Chavez is the CEO, but plans to install a new one shortly so he can focus more time on founding more startups. There are 55 employees across the first six companies, with two already generating revenue and most ready to emerge in the next nine months.

The funding for Eskalera and other {super}set companies comes with unique terms. Because Chavez and the team aren’t just board members you hear from once a quarter but “shoulder to shoulder with the entrepreneurs” as he repeats several times in our interview, the startups pay more equity for the cash.

The hope is having seasoned leadership aboard is worth it. “We’re product people first and foremost,” Chavez tells me. “What are you going to build? Who’s going to buy it? Why? What’s the technical moat? We’re not people doing jazz hands.” The {super}set team has plenty of skin in the game, though, given Chavez himself put in a big chunk of the $65 million, and the fund sticks to a standard management fee.

Eskalera

To supercharge the companies, {super}set brings in expert staffers in artificial intelligence, data science and more, who then align with the most relevant companies in the portfolio. They get equity grants to incentivize them to work hard on the startups’ behalf. “The worry I have about these larger funds is that they have an incentive disconnect where they work for the fees” Chavez says. His fund hopes to win through follow-on funding of its winners.

{super}set co-founder Tom Chavez

If portfolio companies hit hard times, Chavez says {super}set will stick with them. “My first company had multiple layoffs and a major pivot. We had an enterperenur that walked away. They lost conviction, but we brought that company to an $180 million exit after people said there was no effing way and that felt really good,” Chavez says of staying the course. “The good entrepreneurs have that demonic energy.” But if everyone involved agrees a project isn’t working, they’ll shutter it. “It comes back to opportunity cost of people’s time.”

Chavez has respect for studios taking different approaches, like Atomic in consumer startups, Science in e-commerce and Pioneer Square Labs, which maintains a larger fund staff. “What excites me is moving entrepreneurship a step forward. Why couldn’t we franchise this in other cities?” He hopes {super}set can attract top talent that “just want to work on cool shit” rather than getting sucked into a single company.

Can {super}set keep all the plates spinning and really lower their risk? “If we’re wrong there will be a giant orange plume streak across the sky. The early returns are promising but we have to prove it,” Chavez says. But after accruing plenty of wealth for himself, he says the thrill that keeps him in the startup game is seeing life-changing outcomes for his teams. “I have spreadsheets showing the wealth generated by employees of companies I’ve built and nothing makes me happier than seeing them pay for tuitions, property, or retiring.”

Hear how to hire at breakneck speed at TechCrunch Disrupt SF

Published September 18, 2019

Nothing can get built without talented people with the right skillsets, which is why startups hitting their growth phases have to go from hiring a smattering of employees to building systems that can hire dozens to hundreds of people per year. How can startups double and triple headcount year after year in a sustainable way, all while not losing the culture that made them what they are in the first place?

We’ve got an incredible discussion lined up on the Extra Crunch stage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF this year that answers that prompt from some of the most knowledgeable people in the business.

First, we have Harj Taggar of Triplebyte, a platform designed to accelerate the hiring of quality and vetted engineers for tech startups. Taggar was the first partner to join Y Combinator, where he spent five years helping some of the most successful startups in the world grow from humble origins to debuting at the New York Stock Exchange. Taggar brings a wealth of experience of observing high-growth companies hire, and also brings significant expertise from Triplebyte on what works and what doesn’t at scale for startup hiring.

Next, we have Liz Wessel, CEO and co-founder of WayUp, a platform for student professionals to connect with new jobs and opportunities that has raised more than $27 million in venture capital from Trinity and General Catalyst. Wessel brings a deep operational background to the discussion, not just hiring dozens of people for her own startup, but also seeing how hiring operates horizontally across industries and sectors through her employment platform.

Finally, we have Scott Cutler, CEO and co-founder of StockX, an ecommerce platform for buying and selling sneakers as well as streetwear, handbags and more. StockX has raised $160 million across several rounds of venture capital, and has hundreds of employees. Before he founded StockX, Cutler was head of the Americas for eBay and president of StubHub. He brings both a large tech and a rapidly-growing startup perspective to the discussion.

We’re amped for this conversation, and we can’t wait to see you there! Buy tickets to Disrupt SF here at an early-bird rate!

Did you know Extra Crunch annual members get 20% off all TechCrunch event tickets? Head over here to get your annual pass, and then email extracrunch@techcrunch.com to get your 20% discount. Please note that it can take up to 24 hours to issue the discount code.

Despite Brexit, UK startups can compete with Silicon Valley to win tech talent

Published September 11, 2019

Mehul Patel
Contributor

Mehul Patel is the CEO of Hired , the marketplace that matches tech talent with the world’s most innovative companies.

Brexit has taken over discourse in the UK and beyond. In the UK alone, it is mentioned over 500 million times a day, in 92 million conversations — and for good reason. While the UK has yet to leave the EU, the impact of Brexit has already rippled through industries all over the world. The UK’s technology sector is no exception. While innovation endures in the midst of Brexit, data reveals that innovative companies are losing the ability to attract people from all over the world and are suffering from a substantial talent leak.

It is no secret that the UK was already experiencing a talent shortage, even without the added pressure created by today’s political landscape. Technology is developing rapidly and demand for tech workers continues to outpace supply, creating a fiercely competitive hiring landscape.

The shortage of available tech talent has already created a deficit that could cost the UK £141 billion in GDP growth by 2028, stifling innovation. Now, with Brexit threatening the UK’s cosmopolitan tech landscape — and the economy at large — we may soon see international tech talent moving elsewhere; in fact, 60% of London businesses think they’ll lose access to tech talent once the UK leaves the EU.

So, how can UK-based companies proactively attract and retain top tech talent to prevent a Brexit brain drain? UK businesses must ensure that their hiring funnels are a top priority and focus on understanding what matters most to tech talent beyond salary, so that they don’t lose out to US tech hubs.

Brexit aside, why is San Francisco more appealing than the UK?

All the weird stuff that happens to you after you close your round

Published September 10, 2019

Matt Rodak
Contributor

Matt Rodak is the founder and CEO of Fund That Flip, a market-leading residential real estate investment platform.

We just closed our $11 million Series A financing, and within 15 minutes of the news hitting the wire, the weirdness began. It turns out that once you announce to the world that you have money, everyone wants a piece. Some want to earn your business, some actually want your business, some want you to move your business, and others just want to straight-up steal your business.

These are the weird things that no one tells you will happen after you close your round that I’m hoping you will find helpful, insightful and maybe spare you a headache or two.

International students face immigration hurdles under Trump

Published September 9, 2019

Xiao Wang
Contributor

Xiao Wang is CEO at Boundless, a technology startup that has helped thousands of immigrant families apply for marriage green cards and U.S. citizenship while providing affordable access to independent immigration attorneys.

Getting an employment-based visa

An employment-based green card requires an executive-level job, a truly extraordinary résumé, or an employer willing to pony up thousands of dollars in fees and labor-certification costs. Because it’s hard to get a green card, most international STEM students aim for an H-1B visa, which lets you work for a specified U.S. employer for up to six years. It’s not a permanent solution, but it can be a useful launchpad for your career.

Even getting an H-1B isn’t easy, though. There’s a hard cap on H-1Bs: This year, there were more than 200,000 applicants vying for just 85,000 visas. Recipients are selected via lottery, and while you could land an H-1B on your first attempt, many tech workers have to try again — and again, and again — before they finally get lucky.

In the meantime, international students typically start out using the temporary work authorization through their student visa until they transfer to an H-1B.

Let’s dig into the details of what’s allowed under your student visa:

If you’re on an F-1 visa

Image via Getty Images / South_agency

The F-1 student visa is one of the main on-ramps to the U.S. tech sector for foreign-born workers. That’s largely thanks to Bush- and Obama-era changes that expanded the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which allows F-1 holders to work at American companies after graduating, from 12 to 36 months.

Graduates with multiple STEM degrees (such as a bachelor’s and master’s degrees) can also chain together their OPT periods, working for up to six years in total before switching to another visa. That’s great news because each year of OPT is another chance to play the H-1B lottery, increasing your odds of winning a visa.

To use OPT, you’ll need to get a work permit (“Employment Authorization Document,” or EAD) as you near graduation. You’ll also need to file for visa extensions in order to make the most of your OPT entitlement.

If you’re on a J-1 visa

Similar to the F-1, the J-1 visa is designed for students involved in cultural exchange programs or who receive substantial funding from governments or institutions.

As a J-1 student, you won’t get OPT but 18 months of Academic Training (AT). Any internships or jobs you take during your studies will count toward your AT allotment, so it’s possible to finish your degree with less than 18 months of work authorization remaining. And while a second 18-month AT period is available for postdoctoral research, there’s no automatic extension for STEM degree holders: Once your 18 months are up, you’ll need to leave the United States.

There’s another catch: Many J-1 visas come with a home residency requirement (HRR), requiring holders to return to their home country for two years before seeking a work-based or family-sponsored U.S. visa — that or apply for an HRR waiver.

If you’re on an M-1 visa

The M-1 visa is used by students at technical and vocational schools, not academic programs. As student visas go, it’s very restrictive: You won’t be able to work off-campus and can’t work for more than six months. You also won’t be able to switch to an F-1 visa and won’t find it easy to transition to an H-1B. If you hope to stay in the United States long-term, think carefully about whether an M-1 is right for you.

No job lined up?

If you don’t have a job offer, there are other ways to stay in the United States after finishing your studies. One popular option is to enter a graduate program: Getting a master’s degree could extend your student visa by a year or two, while upgrading to a PhD program could get you several additional years. In fact, an advanced U.S. degree under your belt effectively doubles your chances of getting an H-1B in the same lottery.

If you can’t find work and don’t want to keep studying, you’ll need existing family ties to a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident (green card holder). If you’re the direct relative of one (for example, a spouse or child), then things are relatively easier: You have a clear path toward a family-based green card, allowing you to live and work permanently in the United States. That’s true even if you’ve become a family member through marriage: You’ll be able to obtain a marriage-based green card more quickly and easily than an H-1B or other employment-based green cards.

If you’re the spouse or child of someone on a temporary visa, such as an H-1B or O-1 visa holder, you can usually obtain a dependent’s visa. Such visas often allow you to study, but you won’t qualify for OPT after graduating. It’s also getting harder for H4 visa holders to obtain work permits, so don’t count on using a dependent’s visa to launch your career in Silicon Valley. In many cases, OPT is still a better springboard to an H-1B or green card.

If the person who claims you as a dependent applies for permanent residence, you may be able to get a green card through “derivative” benefits, meaning their green card eligibility trickles down to you.

Next step: Mark your calendar

Image via Getty Images / normaals

Whatever immigration status you currently have or want to get, you’ll need to plan ahead. In some cases, you might need to start planning your next step almost as soon as you begin your studies, in order to make sure you aren’t left without a valid visa.

For graduate study: Update your existing student visa before the end of the 60-day grace period (for F-1 visas) or 30-day grace period (for J-1 visas) following the program completion date listed on your Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) record and I-20 or DS-2019 form.
For F-1 OPT: Apply no sooner than 90 days before and no later than 60 days after completing your studies. If your official completion date is June 1, 2020, for instance, you can apply for OPT between March 3 and July 31 of that year.
For J-1 AT: Apply shortly before your program ends. Your school will facilitate your AT application and will set its own deadline to process your paperwork before the end of your studies, but your AT must begin no later than 30 days after completing your program.
For H-1B visas: Play the annual visa lottery held in early April. You’ll need a job offer lined up well in advance from an employer who’s willing to sponsor you. You can’t begin working until your H-1B is approved, unless you have separate work authorization through OPT, AT, or some other means.
For employment-based green cards: The timeline depends on your specific green card category, but you’ll generally wait months or years.
For green cards through marriage to a U.S. citizen: You’ll typically wait 10–13 months, but you’ll be able to stay in the United States while in the meantime, even if your student visa expires.
For green cards through marriage to a permanent resident: You’ll typically wait 29–38 months, but you’ll need another valid visa, such as an unexpired F-1, for the first 11–15 months.
For family-based green cards (other than for spouses and children of U.S. citizens): You might face a lengthy wait depending on your relationship to your sponsoring relative and home country.

Whatever your plans, remember that immigration rules are constantly changing — and seldom in ways that benefit new immigrants. If you can, file your visa or green card application right away to avoid nasty surprises.

Trouble coming down the line

It’s important not only to understand your current visa but also to recognize that the U.S. immigration system is in flux — and many of the planned changes spell bad news even for immigrants with advanced degrees and vitally needed skills.

The new public charge rule, for instance, will make it harder to get a green card if you’ve used public benefits and allows the U.S. government to deny your application if they suspect you’ll fall on hard times in the future. For STEM grads with solid job offers, that might not seem like a major concern, but the new rule will apply even to those on temporary visas, including H-1Bs, who wish to extend or change their immigration status. At the least, it’s a sign of how much harder the immigration process is getting.

The Trump administration is also targeting students with a new “unlawful presence” rule that imposes tough punishments for minor violations of student visa terms. Fortunately, the rule is tied up in court, but if it goes through, it could lead to lengthy bans on future work visas if you overstay on your student visa, work in ways that aren’t authorized, or otherwise fail to play by the rules.

Such changes underscore the importance of doing your own due diligence and not simply relying on your college or employer to steer you right. Figuring out your immigration options can feel overwhelming — but as the many thousands of foreign-born STEM graduates who’ve successfully built careers in the United States can tell you, it’s well worth the effort.

Get your pressing immigration questions answered

Have a question about the complex and shifting immigration process? Boundless can help. Please send your immigration-related questions to our resident immigration expert, Anjana Prasad, at ask.anjana@boundless.com. We will consider your question for a future column on the Boundless blog.

How to move from VP of Sales to CRO with leading exec recruiter David Ives

Published August 27, 2019

It wasn’t so long ago that sales meant just showing up with a deck and a smile. These days, it seems that sales leaders almost need a PhD in statistics just to get through the typical day managing a sales funnel. From SQLs and MQLs to NDRR and managing overall retention, the roles of VP of Sales and Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) are evolving rapidly in tandem with the best practices of SaaS startups.

Few people know this world better than David Ives, who is a partner at True Search, one of the top executive recruiting firms in the country where he co-leads the go-to-market practice. David has led countless CRO and VP of Sales searches, and in the process, has learned not just what CEOs and boards are looking for, but also the kinds of skills that candidates need to shine in these important career inflection points.

In our conversation, we talk about the evolving nature of the sales org, how leaders can best position themselves for future advancement, what companies are looking for today in new executive sales hires, and compensation changes in the industry.

This interview has been extensively edited and condensed for clarity

Introduction and background

Danny: Why don’t we start with your background — how did you get into recruiting?

David: So my background was definitely unique. I started as an enterprise sales rep of the truest form selling subscription-based data analytics and systems into capital markets, so into investment banks, trading desks, hedge funds, asset managers, portfolio managers — you name it. Then I drifted purposely, intentionally away from capital markets and did about four different growth technology companies. I landed at NewsCred, and it was a neat time — it was really the birth of the startup landscape with the whole Flatiron district in New York.

Later, I was looking for my next CRO opportunity and was networking with some of the investor folks that I knew. I had a friend of mine who was a talent partner at a private equity firm who said to me, “I’ve always thought that you’d be really good at this and we’re starting to push for our search firms to have operators.” I went and met with Brad and Joe [founders of True], and three weeks later I was in the seat.

Danny: That’s great. And what do you do at True?

David: Well, we moved to a specialization model right when I got here. I don’t know if I was the test case or not, but I didn’t know search, so my skillset was that I knew the role. I run our go-to-market practice with another partner, and we have probably 40, 45 people in that group. We focus exclusively on sales, marketing, customer success, we’ll do biz dev. I probably skew more to CRO than anything else, but I do CMO and VP of marketing as well, and then I do a handful of business development, chief client officers, and VPs of customer success a year. That’s my mix basically.

What is the skillset of a modern CRO?

Danny: You’ve been in the sales leadership space for a long time, and you’ve been in the recruiting space for a couple of years. What are some of the changes that you’re seeing today in terms of candidates, skills, and experiences?

David: I think a big change has been from what I call a backend pipeline manager to what I would call a full funnel manager.