Re:Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted
by anigbrowl on Friday August 08, 2014 @02:56PM
(#8154466)
A corollary to that is that even if you work out the legal obstacles (it's possible to get a tax ID and even start a company without having legal status), it's difficult to accumulate the seed capital if you can't work a regular job.
That'a s bit less of an issue for people in tech startups - if you already have a laptop and internet service, then you may not need any additional physical capital - but it can be a huge barrier in other lines of business where you may need to invest in a fair amount of equipment in order to be basically competitive. Say someone wants to start a photography business, for example, which is pretty lightweight sort of business - you're still looking at maybe $10k of gear and a year of studio/office rental expenses, potentially much more. You don't have to go that route to succeed as a photographer, but absent that starting capital it's going to take considerably longer to get established. And while that's not a huge amount of money, many immigrants don't have access to credit or jobs that pay enough to accumulate savings.
That'a s bit less of an issue for people in tech startups - if you already have a laptop and internet service, then you may not need any additional physical capital - but it can be a huge barrier in other lines of business where you may need to invest in a fair amount of equipment in order to be basically competitive. Say someone wants to start a photography business, for example, which is pretty lightweight sort of business - you're still looking at maybe $10k of gear and a year of studio/office rental expenses, potentially much more. You don't have to go that route to succeed as a photographer, but absent that starting capital it's going to take considerably longer to get established. And while that's not a huge amount of money, many immigrants don't have access to credit or jobs that pay enough to accumulate savings.