From Monk To Startups: One Founder’s Unusual Path To Building Government Software

figure — editor’s note: The following is the latest profile in a series of articles about startup founders from non-technical backgrounds who have launched successful venture-backed companies. Read the previous interviews in the series including with MagicSchool AI founder Adeel Khan here, Trunk Tools founder Sarah Buchner here, Tabs founder Ali Hussain here, Craft founder Ilya Levtov here, GC AI founder Cecilia Ziniti here, Incredible Health co-founder Iman Abuzeid here, and Hilt founder William “Will” Cielen here.

Lilly Chen was 16 and had been repeatedly hospitalized for Graves’ disease when her mother suggested they move to China and become monks. Frustrated with the care her daughter was receiving through Medicaid, she wanted to try something different. Lilly Chen, co-founder and CEO of FSH Technologies. (Courtesy photo) Chen left high school and spent about two years as a monk, ordained in the United States before spending several months at a monastery in China. She meditated, reread the same books, and gradually felt well enough to consider returning to school. She went on to enter Colorado College without a high school diploma, briefly play video games professionally, and become an engineer at Facebook. When she quit that job, she didn’t have a startup idea. She just wanted to find work she believed in. That mission eventually led her to FSH (pronounced “fish) Technologies,” a Philadelphia-based company that’s building software for some of the government’s least glamorous tasks, including administering school food services and managing public records. After her brief stint at a large tech company, Chen realized she wanted to tackle the everyday problems that make people’s lives harder, even if solving them wouldn’t generate much excitement in Silicon Valley. “What does it actually take to solve the really unsexy, boring stuff?” she remembers asking herself. A different route to college Before Chen was thinking about government software, she was trying to get well enough to return to school. At the monastery in China, she meditated, ate food grown on-site or brought by nearby villagers, and lived without internet access. She continued taking thyroid medication and said her health became more manageable during that period. She also read.