Silicon Valley Frontlines

Things Are Looking Up!

Well, I've been taking a little breather from the blog for a few weeks and now it's time to get back in the swing of things!

One reason for the breather - in the last few weeks things have become incredibly busy! While that's good news for me personally after such a quiet year so far, I think it's even more encouraging for the startup community as a whole.

I think we should be encouraged by the apparent stabilization in the business environment, even though problems still abound. It's clear there is improving sentiment and higher confidence and it's showing even for early stage companies. Some examples I'm seeing (I have to avoid using names due to the confidential nature of the information and the fact that I do work for each of the companies mentioned):

• One company is finding significant new interest in it's voice solutions including from a major service provider in Asia
• A software company is engaged in a new customer opportunity that - alone - could increase it's bookings this year by 50%
• A third received a favourable mention in a major trade publication and as a result is getting significant interest from big-name advertisers for opportunities in it's social network
• A fourth just closed it's first revenue deals after launching many trials earlier this year
• A fifth is accelerating it's efforts to ramp up business here in the U.S. on top of it's European successes
• I've just been approached by a company looking for help in evaluating multiple possible acquisition offers

I could not say any of this earlier this year. And it's both refreshing and welcome to be saying it now! Unfortunately this has not yet translated into closing of new funding for these companies - but you know that this kind of progress will get VC attention sooner or later.

U.S. Immigration Policy Frustrates Startups!

Fred Wilson's post a week or so ago about the problems that one of his portfolio companies has getting a U.S. visa for one of the founders rings a big bell. Here's how he phrased it - "I started my day in a board meeting with one of our companies that was started in Europe. It turns out one of the founders of that company, one that is growing and hiring in the US, cannot get back into the States right now because of a Visa issue."

I've been working with a variety of startups out of the Plug and Play TechCenter for most of this year and I guess that some 40% of the new companies coming there originated outside the U.S.. These are businesses founded by young entrepreneurs who know that they need to relocate here to tap into the Valley ecosystem of funding, talent, prospective customers, partners and access the U.S. market. Despite efforts by many governments in Europe and Asia to develop their own Silicon Valleys there is still no real substitute for being here.

This trend represents an influx of new ideas, perspectives and talents that will be part of the next evolution of the Valley - and its a wonderful thing! And guess what? These entrepreneurs create jobs here. They don't take jobs away from this community - they add to them. Yet our asinine immigration policy makes these people endure constant returns to their home countries for weeks or months on end in order to renew visas, be interviewed at the U.S. embassy, etc etc. What a waste of time, money and opportunity!

The founders of two startups I'm working with - Martin Tantow of 3scale out of Barcelona and Alfonso De La Nuez from UserZoom out of Madrid - are both back in Europe now for extended period dealing with such visa challenges. They will get them of course, but their efforts to hire people, get funding and develop their businesses here stall each time they are gone. Which helps no-one.

There is, fortunately, a grass-roots effort going on to solve this, orchestrated among others by some folks at StartupVisa.com and supported by many with Valley connections. Basically they propose to create a Founder's Visa that will take care of all this. Great idea, definitely overdue. You can contribute to StartupVisa's efforts on their site.