Many of our friends were skeptical about our startup visa idea and did not believe in our success. And after we moved and got our visa cards, they wrote us that they also wanted it and asked for help with the application :) We agreed, helped them with the texts for the application, gave advice on describing the startup and what documents should be attached. A timeline of our friends' application,
- sent the application - end of August 2022;
- end of February 2023.
After our friends, another team came to us asking for help. We were then busy adapting to the country, obtaining documents, and working on our project; there was almost no time for other things. Then the guys offered to pay us for our help. We agreed, how could we refuse.) Then another team came. At the end of the day this led to the fact that 12 projects and 37 people went through us. Of these, 8 projects have already been approved by the government and 28 already have residence permit cards. Another 20 or so teams we turned down because we could not help under any circumstances. The main reasons for rejection were the applicants' unwillingness to comply with the tax laws of the country, the lack of higher education, or simply the failure to pass the "web check". For some reason we do not doubt the success of other teams. After all, when you know this stuff well, then the application is convincing.
Now we have several projects in the works, including employees of a large and well-known Russian IT company. We are setting up legal entities in various countries, and solving questions about payment of services and taxes. And we are also doing an online platform that will connect agents or those with personal experience of moving with those who want help with the migration process.
We know that the approval rate for startup visas has dropped. The demand for this method of legalization is very high, there are a lot of applications. There are a lot of applicants who fill out a form without a clear understanding of what it is and how it works. There are also many who apply through agencies who have no real experience in obtaining a residence permit using this method. They may not be interested in filling out the application correctly at all, as they can get paid anyway. Therefore, the correctness of the applications and our help in this is now especially important. You need to be familiar with the requirements for program participants, you need to know the meaning of all the fields and the information requested, you need to fill out everything correctly and be ready to provide all the necessary information. We are now at a level where we understand how IAPMEI and incubators evaluate projects and decide whether or not to approve them. In fact, our actual experience is illustrative; all those we have helped have been approved by IAPMEI.
Our scheme of work is transparent, simple and reliable for both parties. First we communicate and answer questions about working together. Then the applicants make an advance payment of 2,000 euros. Then the biggest and most important amount of work begins to collect documents, compile the application, and send the applications to the incubators. Once approval is received from the incubators (that is half the success), a second advance payment of €2,000 is made. The application is then sent to IAPMEI for review. If the application is approved, the third payment of €1000 is made, and we do the rest of the work. If the incubators or IAPMEI did not approve it, we change the data and apply again. And at the same time we apply for the same project for a Spanish startup visa, so that we do not lose time. If both countries reject the application (the probability of which is close to zero), we get our money back.