Starting a company on H1b

[pradeep911]

Hi,

I am on my H1 visa and want to start a company (Inc) along with my friend who is a citizen as partner. We are planning to build an app and take it to market. I looked at various blogs to get idea on what my options are on H1b visa only to find confusing comments.

Can anyone tell me what my options are? 

Thank You,

pradeep

[JoeF]

On H1, you can ONLY be a passive investor. That means putting money into a business and otherwise completely staying out of it. You can't do any work for the company, no development, not discussing the app, not even doing administrative work, not even taking the trash out.

Read https://www.murthy.com/2014/01/28/home-based-businesses-inadvertent-unauthorized-employment/

It's really pretty simple: passive investment is allowed, active involvement is not. Think of it like investing in the stock market. You can buy stock of companies like Microsoft, but you don't get to be involved in their business decisions. You don't get keys to their offices nor access to their bank accounts...