Exactly this!

Fellow CEO here and runner of about 20 contractors with 3 VAs.

1 EA who has come through a referral who happened to have worked under another CEO is the only one I think will work out. I have had two other EAs but realized they are VAs.

Referrals play a big key for an EA. Not worth it otherwise based on experience with UpWork. I am paying upto $20/hour and will convert them to full-time in a bit.

Two questions to ask yourself:

When a negative thought occurs, ask yourself these two questions:

1> Is the thought useful?

2> How does it behave?

I got this from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvtYjdriSpM&t=60s

Having been born in Oman, a country with historically low rates of immigration to the United States, I have never won in years of applications.

Are the odds still good?

How many times did you try? I think the rate is like 2-3% for most countries.

Here are the odds, by country. Rate of legal immigration doesn't seem to be a primary determinate for that country's odds. www.usagreencardlottery.org/green-card-statistics.jsp

Slight nit: you want to add http to that so it gets linkified.

Thanks for posting it. It's super-interesting. I always suspected the chance for my country (Australia) was _reasonably_ good. This bears that out. In fact it might even be higher (5%) than I'd expected.

That being said I tried like 6-8 times and never won. But that's not too surprising even at 1 in 20.

In fact I think I've only ever met one person who had won this. As it happened he was from Russia.

There are quotas by "geographic region" (roughly, continent): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_Immigrant_Visa#Distr...

Oceania (Australia, New Zealand and some other islands) happens to have few applicants relative to its regional quota.

What does "Winning Chances" mean? It is often very different from "Winning % By Country".

I had trouble figuring that out as well. Maybe it's "total wins proportion-out-of-100"? It seems to scale with the absolute count.

If it is that, then it's a terrible name.

5

also, can one apply for Green card lottery while they are on TN visa?

Not a lawyer, eligibility is based upon being born in a country with low immigration to the US. I neither Canada nor Mexico qualify although I can't find the exact list right now.

If one were to want to immigrate as an investor from a country of birth such as Oman but bring funds in from Country of Nationality - such as India, how much would they need to bring in to qualify for the green card via investment?

Through an existing "regional center" company, $500k.

I think you are preparing for the next stage. You want to sell the thing and move on and just be a consultant on hand for the changeover. That way, you have a path forward to do something else?

B1/B2 visas are for business and pleasure - so I could see that working for you at the local interview.

I believe B1 is pleasure and B2 is business or vice-versa.

IANAL but I would recommend having a good source of funding and having an incorporated company and not having taken any kinds of exams such as TOEFL or SAT etc.

I'd be happy to look into trying it out for a retail store of general merchandise, like a local grocery store.

The only issue is some kind of guaranteed connectivity on one hand or just good uptime and is it a real time database or is it using push changes from the client?

Would need 2.

Thanks ottoid, I'll let you know via private message or email as soon as I have a beta setup online, which should be coming in a couple of weeks tops so you can give it a go. It would be tremendously helpful to have someone actually try it out with real data.

The database is real time, and I'm definitely beginning to look into some sort of setup that would allow me to offer near 100% uptime.

David, Good news is I won't be needing a PCI compliant system because I use a separate credit card machine. So let me know if you want to get started sooner.

you can email me @ lrmyotherid followed by the @sign followed by gmail.com - i get enough spam already!

Sure thing ottoid, I'll let you know as soon as we get a beta online which soon be really soon, thank you!

In support of above poster's message:

While the American laws are comparatively flexible and open (compared to a few other countries), it is many of our mistakes we make as people (whether in the system or not) to define ourselves as folks by the law instead of by ourselves, by our own capabilities. With the OP, I can say that if they went to some other developing country, they would still make a good living. It won't be America but that is where the equalization will improve over time, might be long,

MEANWHILE, don't forget yourself as a person, as a person with capability rather than a person with disobedience to the law.

Create the company, if it does not meet the startup visa requirements, no worries, just create it anyway. Supportive people will help you with your issue, your co-workers, your friends. Folks visiting HN support you too!

Once someone immediately related to you becomes a citizen, they can apply for your citizenship regardless of your immigration status. Do checkup on it in detail, I have a very strong hunch about it being correct.

If not that, talk to a better lawyer about asking your local senator to help you in gaining legal status and see if that helps. Or maybe apply for immigration through asylum due to the military requirement in home country?

Now that I read some more responses maybe the under 21 rules do come into play but maybe a senator can help with that? Getting this question answered from another lawyer would help too.

Sometimes, time will have to tell but remember you can succeed on your own just fine and remember to define yourself by your own work rather than the law - just be cautious of the law and live with your purpose that you have lived with. You truly are amazing mate.