After 15 years, I am a resident of the US ????

Today, after over 15 years of dreaming about this moment, I am a permanent resident of the United States ????

I achieved this through the EB1A visa (Green Card) for noncitizens of extraordinary ability, also known as the visa for the top 1% of experts worldwide. This was the 15-year journey that led me here.

The process was quite fast, but the experience and track record I needed to get here took me years.

• Document preparation + recommendations: 7 months
• Approval of the first part of the case (1050-pages file): 8 days
• Time to interview (first priority): 4 months - Countries visited to date: 17+
• Previous residences: ???? Germany and ???? UK
• Farewells from friends every time I Ieft: ∞

Not many know the struggles I faced to get here and the ones I still have by challenging me every day.

Spoiler: it wasn’t by selling courses on TikTok about becoming a millionaire with dropshipping.

I promised myself that if I moved to the USA, it would be through the grand entrance, not just as an employee.

I started programming 15 years ago while in high school. I met Sonia Oster over LinkedIn, the director of the Fulbright Alumni Association and an SV entrepreneur who mentored me early on and introduced me to Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial mindset and customs. She also motivated me to study and pursue a career in the US. Many thanks also to Miguel Angel Saez , who supported my journey on the tech side and allowed me to be part of the Microsoft Community

I got accepted by three US universities, but none offered a full scholarship. Without a cosigner or residency, I couldn’t get a loan. Therefore - I could not attend. ??♂?

At 19, I started my first company, Shovel Apps, "The WordPress for mobile apps", and took my first solo trip abroad to San Francisco. I stayed in a rough part of SF (Tenderloin), ate pizza at events, and negotiated Uber rides off-app to save a few bucks.

We got into an accelerator, and I spent 3 months in San Jose, a nearly empty city in South Silicon Valley. The nearest club was at 30' by car in Santa Clara and closed at 2 am. That was all the partying around ??

In 2015, I was selected for an exclusive program from MIT Bootcamps that would be the first time out of Boston. Out of 4k+ applicants, 70 entrepreneurs from 50+ countries would meet in Seoul, South Korea, for one week as part of a three-month program.

The program was one of the most intense experiences of my life, and I made some of the best friends I have ever made.

In 2016, we had to close my first company - basically, we crashed and burned since we couldn't find PMF.

The hit hurts twice when you believe you are building the next Facebook and disappoint your friends and family.

We had to meet with the investors and tell them they lost 650k, which was never coming back. I got so depressed that I went back to living with my parents for 2 months.

I realised that travelling made me happy, so I buried my credit card and bought a round-the-world trip to Asia.

When in Hong Kong I landed a job as PO consultant for a insurtech company. I was then moving to Austria, where I would start a career in Mechatronics. As you can expect, I never did - dropped before starting cause I suck at being schooled. ??

So I came back to Argentina again ????

Back in Argentina, I was interviewed by Google, Facebook, and AWS. I preferred AWS over the others and was invited to interview in the UK. On my trip there, I felt London was my place on earth. While I did not make the cut for AWS, I did get the UK Entrepreneurship residency time afterwards.

I moved back to the UK in 2021 with Rebill, and entered Y Combinator four months later. I realized running Rebill from the UK was killing me because of the 5-hour time difference, so I returned to Argentina to build up the team.

Now, we are 12 in a kick-ass team, operating the next-to-be Stripe for Latin America.

My move to Miami is part of a bigger vision to connect the US Market with Latin America and vice versa.

Keep tuned; big things coming in the next few months ??