u/Hellofromhi2468

I think international founders of a new startup based in the US may qualify for O-1 Visa, however do they sponsor H-1B visa for their international employees as well? I see many tech startups hire young employees to bring them to US.

For a new startup, there would be extra legal and administrative fees to apply for H-1B visa, so why not just hire locally who already has a permanent residence in the USA. I believe H-1B visa is a random lottery, so there is no guarantee to even get the work permit for this international employee. Why take such risk for a startup?

What kind of visa would international MBA graduates apply for if they start a company? Would they apply for O1-visa?

I think international founders of a new startup based in the US may qualify for O-1 Visa, however do they sponsor H-1B visa for their international employees as well? I see many Silicon valley startups hire young employees to bring them to US.

For a new startup, there would be extra legal and administrative fees to apply for H-1B visa, so why not just hire locally who already has a permanent residence in the USA. I believe H-1B visa is a random lottery, so there is no guarantee to even get the work permit for this international employee. Why take such risk for a startup?

I believe it would be more efficient to start a company with full commitment and without the distractions of MBA studies, however there are many MBA students starting companies during their studies. Is not it better to skip MBA totally and focus on building a company full-time?

Is it because MBA programs help MBA students to raise startup capital more conveniently due to their classmates and alumni network?

For the second email, do you just send the new "improved" cold email while ignoring the first cold email? Or you follow up on the same thread for the first email using the new "improved" cold email?

I have heard many iterations of this question and wondered whether there is any truth to this. Can a startup hedge fund develop AI trading algorithm and trade at a high frequency like the bigger quant hedge funds? Has AI made developing sophisticated trading algorithms easier? What other ways are quant funds using AI tools?

"Open profiles" on LinkedIn allow people outside their network to send a message to them without using Inmail credits. Does this mean you want to facilitate "cold messaging" on LinkedIn, so that people outside your network can reach out (similar to cold emailing)?

I am curious to hear how people are using this functionality. Do you check and read all the messages, as allowing this function may result in a high volume of cold messages?

Do you first send a blank connection request and message them about your product after the connection request is accepted, or do you send an Inmail message directly?

Sometimes people who do not have any technical expertise or industry knowledge also are hosting tech events for some reason. For example, there are a lot of events hosted by people in their early twenties who are still in school.

In my experience, these events mostly attracts people pitching their startup ideas or looking for a new job in tech. What has your experience been?

I am wondering how much equity MBA students can realistically get if they join a startup at pre-seed/seed stage.

If someone was to join as Founding GTM or Founding Head of Marketing, how much equity can this person get when the startup is at seed stage (pre-Series A) with a team less than 10 people?

I imagine an early hire as member of technical staff would be reward more equity than a non-technical hire. For instance, how much equity can one get as Founding engineer?

I am curious to hear if you prefer cold emailing or LinkedIn messages for reaching out to potential users in the context of B2B sales. I believe there is a risk of your email ending up in the spam folder, whereas these people are also swarmed by multiple LinkedIn messages every day, so you LinkedIn message might also get lost in the mix.

What have you found to be most effective? Is your approach/message different on LinkedIn compared to a cold email?

What kind of boutique firms are active in these countries for middle market/lower middle market PE? Are these typically small boutique firms with a team of 10 people and managing less than 500million AUM?

There are many countries that require the data representative to be physically located in their respective countries. For EU, they are require a data representative to be physically located in one of the EU countries under GDPR. Post-Brexit, you also need a separate data representative in the UK. I imagine there are other countries that have similar type of requirements.

As a small SaaS startup, how did you deal with these type of data requirements when you launched your product globally? To fulfill the requirements, you would either need to hire staff locally or data representative agency in each of the countries. Is this how it works?

I have heard that a lot of MBA students want to become "Chief of Staff" at tech startups after graduation, however I am not quite sure what the job of Chief of Staff entails.

What sort of skills/prior experiences are needed to become a Chief of Staff? Is MBA even necessary to get this job? I believe there are young people with only 1-2 working experience without MBAs getting the job of Chief of Staff at startups. A startup can also have multiple chiefs of staff, such as one for each executive.

What do you even do as a Chief of Staff? The most common answer I hear is that they get exposure to senior management and observe how strategic decisions are made without actually having any say in these decision. Is this just a glorified "executive assistant" title meant to attract ambitious generalist MBA students? What are also the exit opportunities?

I am trying to understand what the best way to evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of a placement agent for raising capital for a PE fund. What was your experience like working with a placement agent?

From my perspective, a placement agent is potentially representing multiple PE funds concurrently. Allocators are also most likely speaking with multiple placement agents at the same time. How do you know if a placement agent has a clear edge in actually raising capital for your PE fund? Do you just need to trust that they have a closer relationship with their LP base than other placement agent, and that they would recommend your fund over other similar PE funds?

Most placement agents also charge a retainer to cover their operating/travel costs for the initial fundraising period and also take a cut of the revenue generated by the capital they helped to raise.

How do you ensure that the placement agent is not more interested in collecting the guaranteed "retainer fees", not really prioritising the performance-based fees for capital raised? What is the best way to align mutual interests, so that both parties are focussed on raising capital for the PE fund?

I do not really understand why many tech startups are raising huge amounts of capital when the cost of building software products has declined significantly through the introduction of AI coding tools. For example, one software engineer with AI coding tools today could potentially match the level of output as a team of 5 SWEs who did not have AI coding tools available before.

Are startups instead using the extra capital for distribution and marketing of the product, such as buying ads or hiring social media influencers? Since less capital is needed for developing the product, is it a fair assessment to say that more capital is then needed for distribution and attracting new users? Is the end game basically raising VC funding capital to hire as many marketing and sales executives as possible?

I believe most MBA students raise capital for their search fund through their close personal and professional connections, such as friends, family, ex-colleagues, etc.

How plausible is it to raise capital for your search fund outside your own personal network? Are their institutional investors or family offices interested in backing search funds founded by MBA students? Are there other ways to raise capital for search funds besides friends and family?

I am trying to understand what the best way to evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of a placement agent for raising capital for my PE fund. What was your experience like working with a placement agent?

From my perspective, a placement agent is potentially representing multiple PE funds concurrently. Allocators are also most likely speaking with multiple placement agents at the same time. How do you know if a placement agent has a clear edge in actually raising capital for your PE fund? Do you just need to trust that they have a closer relationship with their LP base than other placement agent, and that they would recommend your fund over other similar PE funds?

Most placement agents also charge a retainer to cover their operating/travel costs for the initial fundraising period and also take a cut of the revenue generated by the capital they helped to raise.

How do you ensure that the placement agent is not more interested in collecting the guaranteed "retainer fees", not really prioritising the performance-based fees for capital raised? What is the best way to align mutual interests, so that both parties are focussed on raising capital for the PE fund?