Every founder I talk to has the same quiet dream get the company to SF, be in the room and the same quiet dread: the visa maze. O-1 "extraordinary ability" evidence you may or may not have yet, E-2 if you happen to have treaty-country money, the H-1B lottery that's basically a coin flip, and lawyer quotes that make your eyes water.
If you've done it, or you're mid-attempt: what path did you take, what blindsided you, and what do you wish someone had told you before you started?
Most people I know have one immigration story that still makes them wince a consultant who took the money and went quiet, a forum thread that turned out to be flat wrong, a refusal that came out of nowhere after months of waiting.
What's yours? Did someone close to you go through it and what was the moment it went sideways? The bad advice, the missing document, the program that closed the week before they applied?
