Heather received the email below today from a Chinese national who is trying to buy two tickets to TechCrunch20. She’s having some trouble with Google Checkout, which doesn’t offer China as an option, and has to get a visa. Seeing something like this totally re-energizes me after a long week – there are at least two people in China who are willing to spend a tremendous amount of energy to attend the conference, and it really reinforces (to me) what we are trying to do – giving all startups a level playing field to launch their products.
And to the woman who sent this email: no worries. We’ll refund your ticket price if you can’t get that Visa.
—–Original Message—–
From: XXXX
Sent: Sat, July 14, 2007 9:22 am
To: reservations@techcrunch20.com
Subject: TechCrunch20 – Question from XXXXI have just registered and paid for 2 tickets to attend the conference via “Google checkout”. The problem is that on “google Checkout” I could not choose the correct country (China) for my mailing address, I had no choice but to choose Hong Kong as my “country” in order to get through. Does it matter? Do you really mail the hard copy tickets to me or it’s a kind of electronic tickets?
2nd question: I need something (such as the tickets) to show to the US embassy to get our visas.
3rd questions: just in case we (2 of us) can’t get the US visa and therefore can’t enter the States, can we get refund?
Thank you!
Mike – I hope you are also helping them sort out the most critical problem – having proof that they are coming here for a conference.
It’s amazing how difficult we sometimes make it for our technical friends from overseas to enter our country (but if you are willing to pick spinach, you have no problem getting in!).
Rob
Here in little oul Ireland we have to go through fingerprint and interview in Dublin and Shannon by US customs before we are even left on the plane to the USA.
yeah but the Irish can’t be trusted.
I have noticed that there is a bunch of intreest in the SizeMonkey startup from India. It will be interesting to see if they come to the TechCrunch.
And I agree, the Irish can not be trusted!
Erin Go Bragh
Michael Kassing
SizeMonkey, the right size all the time
http://www.sizemonkey.com
I wish them luck. My partner in iJigg based out of Brazil was refused visa after we got into y-combinator. Same reason: not enough proof you’ll return. He would be leaving behind a new born and a wife. A house. A large family. Not sure what more proof is needed.
-Zaid