You can open an LLC in the US being a foreigner. In fact, you don't even have to come to the US to open it. As such, the social security number is optional.
As a founder with a very strong Latino accent, I would like to share my success with other entrepreneurs who speak English as a second language: If you want a professionally recorded voice over for your demo video, pitch, or whatever, can get one for FREE from VoiceBunny here: http://blog.voicebunny.com/2013/08/30/no-startup-left-behind...
It appears that most of these entrepreneurs are documented immigrants, which may be an argument in favor of keeping the current US immigration system. However, it's important to keep a few things in mind:
a) Some of these entrepreneurs were able to stay in the US because they got married to an American citizen (that's my case, BTW).
b) Many would-be-entrepreneurs that tried to migrate to the US end up setting shops somewhere else because they couldn't stay legally.
c) Most entrepreneurs that are undocumented immigrants in the US (I know many that own small businesses) have major issues scaling their businesses and won't ever show up in articles like that one. For example: its extremely difficult for them to get credit lines. Additionally, they won't ever talk to the press because they are afraid, and legitimately so, of becoming a deportation target.
The current immigration system in the US is broken. Ignorance and political-driven xenophobia are not helping. I really wonder how long it will take for most Americans to realize that although it used to be a privilege to migrate to the US, the global dynamics have shifted. It's now a privilege for the US the welcome many immigrants, specially technology and entrepreneurship-oriented ones. Many other countries already figured that out and have adapted their laws.
The WeHostels App. If that doesn't work, then the Hotel Tonight app. And if that doesn't work, then booking.com. I usually book last minute, as you can probably guess.
VoiceBunny allows anyone quick access to thousands of voices in dozens of languages. Whether it's a one-time short project, or a project requiring thousands of recordings, VoiceBunny makes it effortless to find the perfect voice at affordable prices. Our clients can use our API, run castings, etc.
It seems that Meetup.com has a major UX issue, as it may not be easy for new users to figure that their service is meant to be used by groups that meet recurrently, and not by groups that may meet just once.
Having said that, I've been using Meetup.com for over four years now and I can only say but great things about the service. I used it to create the two largest meetups in Bogota: BogoTech http://www.meetup.com/bogotech/ and BogoDev http://www.bogodev.org/
I certainly see nothing on any of their pages to suggest that they ban more formal conferences. All their language is very broad and vague. The fact that "Organizer" is an official class of user who have to pay is a pretty strong indicator that it's not exclusively some loose informal thing.
Even in their terms of service, there's nothing that comes close to banning conferences. The only thing remotely related is that they disallow advertising commercial services.
Yes, and bringing on a non-technical cofounder who can do marketing for you. What's better, 50% interest with a big market share or 100% of none? How are you ever going to be on the front page of TechCrunch?
Seriously, this is an open-source project. Why in the world would he use a professional voice over? That's just weird.
If anything, the home page is too polished. People seem to be mistaking it for a well-funded commercial endeavor.
We "hacked" Fred Wilson's blog for PR, which in turned helped us get to TechCrunch. Here is the story:
Without the knowledge of Fred, we created an automatic podcast for his blog, AVC.com, using our API. We had no idea how he would react. It was weeks of effort, time, and money spent to build AVC.fm with the hope that Mr. Wilson would love us (or at least not send us a cease and desist!) And then, there was the tweet that made the weeks of brainstorming, trials and errors, and late nights, all worth it:
"AVC.fm, the unofficial blogcast of @avc created by @VoiceBunny avc.fm via @VoiceBunny."
by — Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) February 21, 2012
Fred tweeted our work and our name to his 207,000+ fans. That day, VoiceBunny.com got a huge amount of visits, with most coming out of Silicon Valley. We, of course, reached out to Fred right away and a few emails later, you can now hear AVC.fm right on Fred's blog at AVC.com.
Before you get into the “how” of a PR stunt, you must first figure out the “why”. You don’t want attention just for the sake of attention. You have got to capture the attention of the right people. And for VoiceBunny both Fred and his audience were the right audience.
The VoiceBunny team is a big fan of Fred Wilson’s work and especially his blog, AVC.com, but we didn’t always have time to read it everyday. So, we thought it would be great if AVC.com had a podcast so we could listen on our commutes or while we were working. So we thought, let’s make one for him! What better way to show off our technology and get the attention of the VC community? Mr. Wilson is a big supporter of the “freedom to innovate” and that’s why we felt creating AVC.fm was the perfect project for VoiceBunny.
So, since Mr. Wilson publishes under a Creative Commons license, we did not have to worry about getting his permission first. The VoiceBunny API automatically pulls the text from AVC.com after Fred posts and posts a project. One of our voice talents accepts the project and uploads a finished read. It is then screened for quality and automatically uploaded to SoundCloud and AVC.fm.
We wanted to make it very obvious we did this as a tribute, not to capitalize on his name or work. Yes, we did it to show off our technology, but, we created something of value to him and to the community. We also made it very easy for him to add to his blog if he chose to do so. We included a link asking, “Are You Fred?” that included instructions on how to embed the widget onto his blog.
On his blog, Fred said:
"In any case, I like they way they used a stunt to get my attention. So much more effective than sending me an email saying “I’d like to come talk to you about a new project we are working on”. So I’m going to start auto-embedding the avc.fm voice overs at the end of the posts on AVC (via the SoundCloud embed of course)."
Actually being sent a cease and desist by Fred would have given you an angle to get publicity if things didn't end up the way they did. But I'm actually a little surprised that since you say "The VoiceBunny team is a big fan of Fred Wilson’s work and especially his blog" you should have known that it was highly unlikely he would have done something like that.
Outcome 1: What happened, you got what you wanted
Outcome 2: Cease and desist - if that had happened, may hay with it. Mentioning if anyone else has this outcome.
Outcome 3: Ignore your "hack". The worse outcome. But in that case you have to be more proactive and approach him, several times (once again if you understand the way he rolls you realize he declares email bankruptcy and actually appreciates follow up emails.
Thank you Larry. You are right. If Fred didn't like what we were doing, probably he would have not sent a formal "cease and desist". He is not that kind of guy ;)
