Lost the plan in Translation 

September 2017, Jane, my life and business partner and I are entrenched in a small Airbnb room in a Tokyo.  Fun's over, we have an idea of what we want to do and a strategy on how to go about it: 

1. Go to the US
2. Start and operate a business with our own funds
3. Dazzle investors with our brilliant vision and get loads of money to expand

Three steps. Devilishly simple. 

Two years later, (spoiler alert) we still on our way to step two…

But, I am today in the US with a lawfully obtained E2 visa. So let’s talk about that. 


The Devil’s Advocate

Our first step was to seek somebody to help us with the process of getting started in the US. 

So we searched the internet, read review, made some phone calls, put all the preselected names in a hat and pulled a name.  His name was Steven, and we got to call him “Yami Steven” (Yami means dark in Japanese) between us; simply because, due to the time difference, I was always talking to him in the middle of the night.


Visa War

At this point of the story, there’s a fact that you need to know, and this is something that I’m also slowly getting to term with: I am French. 

So because of Trade deals between France and the U.S it gives us access to a specific visa E2 (Here [https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/fees/treaty.html]  is the list of countries that have access to E visas). 

To get an E2 visa, the requirement are a little fuzzy but it comes down to two things: 

1. You need to show that you are investing hard cash in the U.S. economy 
2. And that you are going to create jobs 

Yami Steven broke it down to practical requirements: 

• At least $100,000 investment (best if above $150,000)
• At least one U.S. employee at the moment of the application of the visa
• A business plan that shows significant growth in the next 5 years
• A retail space lease signed

The E2 visa is valid for 5 years and can be renewed indefinitely. It is linked to your company though, if you loose ownership of your company you lose you E2 visa status. And the state of your company will be reviewed at every renewal.  


The Firm

Yami Steven convinced me that creating a Delaware C Corp. was the thing to do and so we did. It was not exactly cheap but surprisingly easy. It was all setup before I even set foot in the States. 

Things I learned since then: 

• There is a Franchise Tax on Delaware companies. Without any kind of profit; I pay around $500 dollar a year including the agent fees. 
• You need to also file your company in the states you are affiliated. (an extra $700 for Texas) before you can do anything in the state (including opening a bank account).
  
  

On top of that, C Corps are considered an entity on their own. If you want to pay yourself you have to pay tax on that money (compared to LLC for example that are pass through entities meaning that your money and the company money are mixed). 

All in all, being a C Corp hasn’t really paid out for us yet. I think it helped with the visa; but I can’t say for sure. So far it has been a lot’s of fees and a lot’s of constraints. 

If I were to do this again I think I would start with a LLC local to the state I start in and then go on from then. One of the argument from the Lawyer was that changing structure can be a very costly thing to do down the line; but again now I tend to see that as a good problem have. Basically if you are extremely successful you might need to change structure and that might cost money. big deal...

I think at the end of the day, why a lot’s of immigration lawyer push to the Delaware C corp. structure is because that’s the one they know, they have all the template ready so it is easier for them to do it that way. 


The Terminal 

Now was the time to get into the States and start things for real. So I get a Business visa (that was fairly easy to get) and we catch the first plane to the U.S.

Before I go any further, let me just say that so far I only had positive experience with Custom Officers; they asked questions, sometimes kept me a fair amount of time. But they were always courteous and willing to work things out. But I heard horror stories from first account so I keep my finger crossed and I hope I am not cursing myself here. 

What I learned so far (also from what other people I told me):

• Obvious rules: Be Patient, Positive and Constructive.
• It has to make sense: The first time I came in. I was a French National coming from Tokyo (with a backpack) starting a company. I went through but I had a lot of more questions than the times I came from my home country. 
• My lawyer advised me to carry with me a file with a letter from him and a bunch of documents. Nobody cared about the stake of paper I waved in front of them. Only a few things mattered: 
  • Proof that you have somewhere to go back if you have to leave the States (Family ties, properties, etc…)
  • Proof that you have money (prints of your’s and your company bank account)
  • A professional Brochure of your company. I think that’s the most important. At the end of the day, you are pitching them your concept and anything that makes you look more professional will have an impact. 
  • Proof that you have U.S. employees. This is increasingly important as there seems to be a growing stigma of people exploiting the E2 visa to just live in the states. 

A business visa (B1) is meant primarily for short business trips. It is not originally meant to stay long period of time in the state. So Custom officers do get more inquisitive the longer your stay. 

Because of many different reasons, I have to stay twice the full length of the consecutive 6 months allowed by the B1 and, yes, I had to do some explaining last time I entered the country.  

I’ll finish by the “Duh!” statement: never, ever, for any reason overextend your stay. This is the ultimate deal breaker; and at this point you becomes an illegal immigrant and it is pretty much game over. 


Catch 22 

The catch happens right at the start: Banks want an address to start a Business Account, Owners want a bank account statement to prove you have money.

Credit Score is very important in the States; to keep it simple, credit score companies keep tracks of credit card spending, your loans, if your late for paying bill, etc… basically how responsible you are with money; They use a magic formula and you get a score.  That score drives a lot of of business in the U.S, from house rental, loan application to car purchase.

When you arrive, you don’t have one. it feels like being a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. What worked for us is to have foreign bank account statement that proved we had money. We were coming from Singapore so the statements were in English.If they are in a foreign language, make sure you have a translation. 

For the company, I used a mailbox provider (Ipostal) to give my company a physical address. Some people would wince at it (it is a bit too close from a P.O. box from some people comfort) but overall it worked wonders. 

Overall, if I learned one thing during that process is that a lot come down to individuals. Some people are used to deal with foreigners and some are not. Some will say no just because they don’t know the process or because it is outside their zone of comfort. So it is about keep trying at different places until you find the person that will have experience with your case. So far I’ve always found people who were ready to make things work. 

The Lease

Finding the retail space for our business was the one single most difficult task of this whole endeavor (and it to this day it keeps on giving...). It took us a full year to sign a deal. It was a small adventure on its own I’ll keep for another tale. 

Following the advice of our lawyer, we threw in four months of advance payment as part of the lease negotiation; as it shows “hard cash investment” in the U.S. 


Business is not guaranteed 

So at that time I had a business plan; but overall I’m not a big fan of long, stuffy documents so my plan was a series of one pagers and a financial projection.  But apparently they like it stuffy at the visa application center; Yami Steven was very insistent that I should use a professional Business plan writing company to have a “standard” looking plan; so I did. It was not cheap and it is definitively one of those things where I wonder if it was really necessary or not. 

In any case, the company he recommended: Journey Business Plan (https://www.joorney.com/) was a paramount of professionalism and I was quite impressed with the result (despite my distaste for that type of documents).

Employee of the Month

As per requirement from our lawyer we needed also at least one employee at the time of the application. We are planning to have employees, our business requires it; but the timing was less than ideal to have somebody on our payroll that early. 

Now, Jane is from the U.S. but apparently we couldn’t count her in because she was romantically compromised. 

So what we did is we looked at what skill we would require down the line for our business that we could kind of invest early in. We went for Narrative/Marketing and got lucky that one of our friends, a writer, accepted to be part of the company for a short while. (We ended keeping him for 3 months). Overall it worked all ok, and I think we managed to spend the money in something that we are still using today. 

Application

So that was it; By end of 2018; we had all the pieces of the puzzle assemble and it was about actually applying for the visual. After a weeks of small fumbles and last minute shuffles, Steven put the file together and I submitted it to the U.S.  French Consulate. ( I could have tried the Canadian one, but I thought that I’d be better to do it from France). 

Once the application is submitted, an interview is scheduled. In my case, it was actually quite fast; 2 or 3 weeks if I recall.

I boarded the plane back to France; and waited nervously for the day.

The Interview

I got lucky to have an interviewer that was very open about the process of the interview.

He explained that a team was dedicated to read through all the applications; they would collect all the notes, warnings and questions that the interviewer would then look at and ask during the face to face interview. 

So in short, however it goes, the process is designed so that there is no reason to argue with the interviewer; he is just the messenger. It seems small issues with the file are fairly common, and people are asked sometimes strange requests. In my case, the interviewer casually dropped that there was a problem in the attribution of the companies stocks and that I was not owning 50% of the company (a requirement for the E2 visa); other that than no problem, everything looks good, have a good day, sir. 

No need to say that I was quite shaken after the interview as it seemed I have been denied for a simple documentation error, but as it happened, I just needed to submit extra documents (our share holder certificates and share holder split) by email and they gave me the green light a few days after. 

Deep breath… (It felt I have not been breathing for a few days). 

I needed to wait another few days for my passport to be sent back to me and here I was! with my new brand visa. 

“Welcome to the States” said the Border Officer on my way back. 

Conclusion 

One year and a half in, and with my freshly stamped visa, the feeling is bitter sweet. On one hand, I got my visa; on the other hand I spent way more effort and money on getting the visa that I expected. 

The main issues I’d say is the visa process forced us to do things out of order; in a way that was definitively not optimized 

The other overall learning, is that Lawyers will have their one routine, their one formula on how to apply for the visa, and that formula is meant to maximize the chance of success.  That is understandable; but at the same time it also make the process very costly. 

So if money is not a concern, it makes senses to go for that; but I cannot shake the feeling that I jumped a few too many loops and at the end of the day; what really matter is the quality of your proposition: Is your business really going to create value in the States? If you have a good plan and show that you are really committed in the States I think you shouldn’t be worried about getting the visa E2. 

My visa journey ended in February, Now I’m on my next Journey: Starting a Business!

​

Fitzcarraldo

A movie where real life insanity transpires in the movie. Reading about the production of the movie felt like... watching the movie... 

Great piece of art, absolutely unique. 

I wish Fitzgerald was not holding a mirror showing a grotesque but very real reflection of my own soul...

The Great Hack

Interesting to watch a documentary that have nothing to show. Because the topic is Data privacy, they end up showing people moving from one place to another.

The topic is an interesting one; when not muddled by the character dramatization those documentaries tend to lean into.  Private Data ownership is mentioned and I think it is really the way forward on this. You can't control data; it is too easy to copy and transmit and once you know something it is impossible to "unknow" it. Data propagation is such an entropic process that there is no "rolling back" and building mini data fort knocks is doomed to fail in my opinion. 

People owning their data is the way forward;  both economically and in term of responsibility. Should everything be shared and propagated on the Internet? I don't think so, but I think we should all be ready that it might happened. 

In that aspect, I really like the story of Jeff Bezos Attempt blackmail. Somebody stole picture of a naked Bezos with his girlfriend and thought that information had great value so he went and blackmailed Bezos. What Mr. Amazon did in response is that he just described the pictures publicly and by doing so remove all the value of the stolen pictures. And everybody went... ok; no big deal.

If we educate ourselves about consumer bias, and marketing technics, our consumer data become less valuable. 
If we learn to accept all the quirks and weirdnesses and come with being part of the human species, our privacy data become less valuable. 
If we keep tabs on the Politics and spend the time to elaborate an opinion, our geopolitical data become less valuable. 

People say in the documentation that the rate of data today is higher than Oil. I think it is overinflated and that it is in our hand fix it. 

And yes, our data should belong to us, and if somebody want to use my data, I want a slice of the pie. 
​ 

A second skin to connect to the digital world. 

https://www.interestingengineering.com/wearable-second-skin-device-could-facilitate-human-to-machine-communication

If you have not be living under a rock for the last few years you have at least heard about Escape Rooms. They typically work as follow: a group of people enters a physical room and they have a limited amount of time to solve puzzles and manage to escape the room. 
    
Escape rooms have traditionally had fairly poor stories, based on a handful of slightly antiquated tropes: Bank Heist, Hoodini, Sherlock Holmes, Haunted Houses, etc… But somehow they have been increasingly popular in the last few years, so the question is why? What makes Escape Rooms so attractive? 

To answer this, we need to ask ourselves: what is the story actually told?  I believe the real story, the one that matters, the one that makes people keep coming back is not the one drafted in the room. It is the narrative that the players are creating together trying to solve the room. 

Let see the difference: 

Here is a typical Escape Room Story (which I think can be found in about a hundred rooms across the States): 

Sherlock Holmes is trapped by Moriarty in a distant, unknown location. He needs you to find a necklace hidden in his office to save the day and also himself while you are at it. He left clues and cryptic instructions in his office for you, his trusted “lieutenants”, to find the necklace.  As you enter the office, you look around and see a locked desk, a bookshelf with 3 books on it and a bizarre looking clock. So you come in, solve the puzzles, find the necklace and save the day. 

Now this is what an inner story of a player would look like:

You solve that clock puzzle quickly, but then there is Steven, your childhood friend. Lovable guy but he is a bit of a bully and as usual he pushes the group to do thing his own way. You hate when he does that, so with Jenny, your girlfriend, you start your own little investigation on the side. Somehow that doesn’t go as planned, the discussion turns sour and you start arguing pretty badly, names are called, old grudges resurface… and when you think your couple is about to end, you hear a click and you realize that you miraculously solved the puzzle by fidgeting with it! Great.  At this point, time is running out though, Steven had made a bit of progress elsewhere but it is not looking good. Then something happens: 5 minutes before the end, Bob, bob the dreamer you call him, who hasn’t spoken a word during this whole time and was just looking around, chimed in and give you the final solution! It’s a miracle. You grab the necklace and sprint out of the room as the clock runs out and save the day!


So you can see that your personal story isn’t really about Sherlock Holmes, it is about you and your friends. It is filled with personal emotions and at the end you learned a little bit more about yourself and the people around you. 

And yes, that inner story is still fairly simple, but what is important is to see the perception shift; how suddenly you are not too concerned on how Sherlock can communicate with you while being held prisoner but more about how to create interesting dynamics between the players. 

Our first reflex when designing an Interactive Experience is to turn toward the storytelling tools we know: Books, Theatre, Movies, etc… but when doing that, the linear structure and projection based storytelling (the fact that I’m telling the story of somebody else for you to project into) are colliding with the core of this new medium which by essence put the players at the center of the experience. 

Instead we should focus on players inner stories:

• How do we create environments that do not force an external story but foster inner ones?
• How do we validate and reward players with bold inner story choices?
• How do we make people learn a bit better about themselves and about the people around them?

By accepting that real-life interactive experiences such as escape rooms are part of a new emerging medium and that by essence that medium creates different stories with a different language then instead of seeing the medium as a limitation one might be able to catch a glimpse at the vast ocean of extraordinary opportunities lying in front of us.  

What happens when a Neural Interface company buys an IP for remote control based on hand movement?

All I can see is myself imagining a vegan banana squirrel flavored ice-cream and having it delivered to my doorstep with a snap of my finger? 

Let's see as CTRL-Labs scooped the Myo Armband IP. 

The Red Room is said to be one of the best escape room in Tokyo, and without spoiler I can say that it probably is. It is short though and I wish SCRAP would avoid the cheap commercial trick of proposing a time extension against an extra charge at the end of the allocated time... They big enough to be above such practice. 
In any case I warmly recommend it!

My Rating: 4/5

We are trying a slightly new twist on the murder mystery party formula. Each player are receiving a notebook with the information of the character before the night so that they can study and prepare the party at their convenience. Each player have secrets in their notebooks, information they don't want to share. But they also have clues which used on the right person, force them to reveal their secret.
We already did 3 run of the first prototype, every time tightening the plot, making the system more understandable and accessible. 
So far we have been receiving some pretty positive reviews! Next objective is to create a storyline that fit better our new system.