I am currently in the UK on my start-up visa. I am a software developer from India and is residing in the UK for the past 2 years. With a decade of experience working in the technology industry, I wear multiple hats at the moment.
I am associated with a non-profit organisation in the UK (making £300K+ revenue) as Senior Digital Transformation Manager leading the advancement and growth of the organisation in the supplier diversity industry.
I mentor 16-20 year students through an organisation in the UK on Digital Innovation and building feasible technology ideas
I have launched my own SaaS startup and is trying to gain my early adopters.
I also have another company that provide digital transformation services to businesses in the UK (revenue is <50K a year)
I wanted to know if I will be eligible for the Exceptional Talent for work. The non-profit I am associated with is not a product-led company, the business that I am making less revenue is providing technology services and pro-bono services by building technology products for my clients, my current SaaS business is still not making revenue. I wanted to know what kind of LOR’s will make my application strong?
I am planning to get the recommendation letter from
CEO of the non-profit organisation detailing how my work, product launches and innovations has impacted the non-profit towards digital growth in the supplier diversity industry,
Procurement head from a multi-national corporate who is one of the board members of the non-profit detailing on my technology changes
Serial Entrepreneur (CEO/CTO) who has known me since I came to UK can detail about my entrepreneurial and technological growth
According to your details, first of all, I assume that you have been in the industry for less than 5 years, so you may look at “exceptional promise” as a business applicant instead.
I am associated with a non-profit organisation in the UK (making £300K+ revenue) as Senior Digital Transformation Manager leading the advancement and growth of the organisation in the supplier diversity industry.
This may not fit as an optional criteria 2, but it may be a mandatory criterion, but you need to demonstrate that you are a leader in the “digital technology sector”.
I mentor 16-20 year students through an organisation in the UK on Digital Innovation and building feasible technology ideas
Quoting from TN guide: Mentorship should be on behalf of a structured programme with selection criteria and is inclusive of non-profit charities and social mentorship programmes. You must be able to demonstrate a consistent track record of mentoring and have received recognition for your personal contribution. Mentoring at a university or a single startup is not sufficient. When mentoring alongside other mentors (for example at a top-tier accelerator) you must have been a senior mentor that may be evidenced through a letter of reference from the programme.
I have launched my own SaaS startup and is trying to gain my early adopters.
As it is an early stage, you may need to have evidence to show that your business is innovative.
I also have another company that provides digital transformation services to businesses in the UK (revenue is <50K a year)
Again, I don’t think this may fit in any optional criteria, but it may fall under Mandatory criteria. I suggest you to look into the example in the TN guide and see if you can find any area to support the criteria.
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Let’s see if the other people have other suggestions. Hope it helps.
You can use your experience at a non-profit organisation as a proof for Mandatory Criterion. However, it is important to show to Tech Nation that this organization operates in a digital tech field.
Regarding your mentorship it is hard to say based on the details you gave. It is important to know for how long you have been mentoring, if there is a structured programme, how many students have already gone through the programme.
It would be quite tricky to use an early start-up as an evidence, as you need to prove market traction that you obviously don’t have. However, we don’t know the details. Probably the idea behind the start-up is revolutionary and the start-up is mentioned in media or is recognized in a different way.
The procurement head from a multi-national corporate is definitely not eligible as a Referee. All referees should be from product-led companies. And referees as well as applicants from multi-nationals companies are generally not eligible according to the TN guide.
In general, from the info you provided it is not clear which optional criteria are suitable for you. It is definitely not OC4, this is all that is clear now.
Thank you so much for your response. I have provided explanations to all your questions in detail below.
I have 8 years of experience from India (working as a Software Engineer in couple of MNCs) and close to 2 years of experience in UK (all those explained in my previous post is what I have been involved with in the last 2 years).
To demonstrate my leadership at the non-profit, do you think news articles on their website defining my work impact be sufficient or a letter from the CEO of the company explaining about my work and how it has impacted the industry and contributed to the revenue would be considered an evidence to the Mandatory Criteria. Also, would letters from the Board of Directors explaining about the same would be a better fit (However they are all MNCs and non-technical people, but are c-suite/director level)
Yes, the mentorship is based on a structured programme and is a CIC company that provides this programme. I have so far mentored one cohort of students (close to around 40 people in my cohort). When you have mentioned about recognition for your personal contribution, can be done through reference letters from the Director of the company?
Can you give me some examples of evidences to show about the business being innovative at this early stage? The evidences are the ones I struggle to have a clear idea. Any help would be highly appreciated
The organisation is not operating in digital tech, however the products and the digital transformation that I have brought in, has created a huge impact(increased membership, secured sponsorship for my data project and increased revenue for the company) Do you think this will all help?
I have been doing this mentoring since Oct 2022 and there are over all 120 students in the cohort while I mentored 2 days in the cohort around 40 students) Yes, it is a structured programme to upskill them.
I will try to work on media recognition for my start-up. Is there any type of media articles that you would like to mention as examples?
Does a reference letter from a person (who has mentored me in the UK) who is a serial entrepreneur in the UK (CTO, and CEO titles) be a good fit instead of the procurement person’s reference?
I have 8 years of experience from India (working as a Software Engineer in couple of MNCs) and close to 2 years of experience in UK (all those explained in my previous post is what I have been involved with in the last 2 years).
Ok. Then you are considering in the “Exceptional Talent” route only then.
To demonstrate my leadership at the non-profit, do you think news articles on their website defining my work impact be sufficient or a letter from the CEO of the company explaining about my work and how it has impacted the industry and contributed to the revenue would be considered an evidence to the Mandatory Criteria. Also, would letters from the Board of Directors explaining about the same would be a better fit (However they are all MNCs and non-technical people, but are c-suite/director level)
Are you able to clearly demonstrate that the “organisation” is within “digital technology sector”? You may read the complete detail of Single definition of “Digital technology sector” and “product-led”: on Global Talent Visa | Tech Nation .
Yes, the mentorship is based on a structured programme and is a CIC company that provides this programme. I have so far mentored one cohort of students (close to around 40 people in my cohort). When you have mentioned about recognition for your personal contribution, can be done through reference letters from the Director of the company?
Base on your provided detail. I think Yes, you can use the structured programme and etc as the evidence. It will be a great idea to include reference letter from a senior person in the organization stating your contribution.
Can you give me some examples of evidences to show about the business being innovative at this early stage? The evidences are the ones I struggle to have a clear idea. Any help would be highly appreciated
Innovation is a new technology or new feature that never exists. For example: ChatGPT, a new tool to prevent a cyber security attack, a machine learning for a specific purpose, etc
In which, it is totally different from new content though. For example: an e-commerce platform selling new products, a tool helping people while it is already a well-known tool with the same purpose there. These are not innovative.
