The 2-week scout trip, from India
Before you commit to the move, spend fourteen days in San Francisco on a B-1 visitor visa and see what the city does with your pitch. You don’t need a ready-made network for this: build the trip around one event week and the calendar fills itself. Pick your event below, work through the two prep blocks, then fly home and write down, in five answers, whether you’re moving.
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Aim for 4–6 meetings or events a day. Land 2–3 days before your anchor event. The jet lag burns off while your calendar fills up.
What the B-1 covers
Most Indian founders get a combined B-1/B-2 stamp. It covers everything this trip needs. You can meet investors and pitch them, negotiate contracts, attend conferences and demo days, look at offices, and start conversations with lawyers and accountants. The State Department’s own fact sheet lists raising investment and negotiating contracts as allowed.
Border officers have got stricter about the B-1 since 2025. Carry three things: a refundable return ticket, a printed meeting schedule, and papers that show your life is still in India. A lease or property papers, your company’s registration, or a letter from your job all work. None of it is hard to gather, and having it turns a tense conversation into a short one.
Book whichever consulate opens first
The wait for a visa interview in India is the biggest thing deciding when you can go. Some of the waits below look brutal, but you aren’t locked to your home consulate. Book the shortest queue in the country and a nine-month wait becomes one or two.
Pay the visa fee (called the MRV fee) once, then book the earliest slot anywhere in the country. A flight to Chennai beats a nine-month wait in Mumbai. Rescheduling is free, and the portal releases cancelled slots every day, so check daily rather than weekly. If you already hold a valid B1/B2 from an earlier trip, skip all of this and book flights.
Five questions before you fly home
You’re not here to raise money on this trip. You’re here to answer five questions in writing. Fill them in each night while the detail is fresh.
Three or more clear yeses: start the move checklist. Anything less, run the Reality Check before you commit. The trip found you a gap you can fix, and that is what it was for.
The budget
The trip costs real money, and the total at the bottom is the honest version. It is also the cheapest way you will ever answer the biggest question on your list, which is whether to move at all.