Woman gives up US green card, moves back to India to build startup from scratch

A Green Card is often seen as the finish line for immigrants chasing a life in the US. For nutritionist and entrepreneur Bharathi Ramesh, it became the starting point of a very different decision; giving up the status she had worked hard for and returning to India to build her startup.

Bharathi recently shared her journey on social media, explaining why she chose to leave the US despite securing an EB-1A Green Card, a category for individuals with extraordinary ability in their field.

“Why I gave up my green card to build my company in India,” read the text on the first slide of her post. She also revealed that her Green Card had been approved under the EB-1A category.

Her journey to that point had started in 2020, when she moved to the US to pursue a master’s degree. Her goal was to learn how research could be applied to nutrition practice.

She later pursued EB-2 NIW and EB-1A, partly to gain greater visa flexibility while working towards building her startup. But when she was finally ready to take the leap, life took an unexpected turn.

“I lost a parent,” Bharathi wrote, describing the personal loss as a turning point.

She also opened up about struggling with her health and the pressure of maintaining a demanding career. Despite appearing to have a successful life from the outside, she said she was working mainly to meet her living expenses.

“I was working full-time to pay rent & have health insurance when what I really wanted to do was work on my startup,” she wrote.

After years of pushing herself and pursuing one goal after another, Bharathi said she eventually reached a breaking point.

“As a compulsive high performer, after years of relentlessly chasing my goals, I finally crashed,” she said, adding that it took her eight months to find herself again.

That period eventually led her and her husband to make a difficult decision, leave the US and move back to India so she could focus on her startup without the distractions of her previous life.

See the post: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Bharathi Ramesh | Nutrition & Habit Coaching (@nutritionist.bharathi)

Her journey had already attracted considerable interest among Indian immigrants. Bharathi recalled that more than 1,200 Indian immigrants signed up to listen to her podcast when she spoke about securing her Green Card in under two years.

“My path to becoming a founder was not linear,” she wrote.

After returning to India and taking the entrepreneurial leap, Bharathi Ramesh said she could finally embrace a new identity: “And finally, I’m happy to call myself a founder.”

Her post received a warm response, with social media users calling her journey inspiring and congratulating her as she began this new chapter.- Ends