Minn Kim is the solo founder and CEO of Lighthouse, the talent-infrastructure company helping today's frontier companies hire the best people from anywhere in the world. A few years ago, she'd never been through the work visa process herself.

The sideways journey starts mid-Covid. A close friend was leaving her job to start a company, and described her immigration experience to Minn as: “I basically had to do it myself, and it didn't feel like I had anybody to help me out.” Minn started running Zoom calls at a couple hundred dollars an hour to help friends project-manage their own immigration. Later, someone wrote a six-figure check for the end-to-end product, delivered in half the typical time. That was the moment it stopped being a side thing.

What's striking about Minn's path is how much of it breaks the rules founders are told to follow. She built for customers whose problem she'd never personally had. She sold a service she wasn't credentialed in. And after her first company, which she'd co-founded with a best friend, she went solo on purpose. The premise of Lighthouse was simple: “automate me away.”

Solo, together.

Kieran