Former Monk Transitions to Building Government Tech Startups

Editor’s note: The following is the latest profile in a series of articles about startup founders from non-technical backgrounds who have successfully launched 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 years old and enduring frequent hospitalizations for Graves’ disease when her mother proposed a radical change: moving to China to become Buddhist monks. Frustrated by the inadequate medical care her daughter received through Medicaid, her mother hoped a completely different environment might help.

Chen left her high school behind and spent approximately two years as an ordained monk, starting in the United States before relocating for several months to a monastery in China. She spent her days meditating, repeatedly reading the same small selection of books, and gradually regaining her physical health to the point where she felt ready to rejoin society.

Upon returning, she entered Colorado College without ever earning a high school diploma, spent time as a professional esports player in video games, and eventually took a software engineering role at Facebook. When she chose to resign from that position, she lacked a specific startup concept; she simply wanted to pursue meaningful work.

That search ultimately brought her to FSH (pronounced “fish”) Technologies. Based in Philadelphia, the enterprise develops software targeted at some of the most overlooked functions in the public sector, such as managing public records and overseeing school meal programs.

Following her brief tenure at a major technology corporation, Chen recognized a desire to tackle practical, everyday operational friction that complicates ordinary lives, even if those solutions lack the glamour typically celebrated in Silicon Valley.

“What does it actually take to solve the really unsexy, boring stuff?” she recalls asking herself.

A non-traditional route to higher education

Before Chen set her sights on govtech, her primary hurdle was regaining the health required to resume her formal education.

At the Chinese monastery, she engaged in daily meditation, consumed sustenance grown on-site or provided by nearby residents, and lived entirely offline. While maintaining her thyroid treatment, she noticed her medical condition stabilizing.

She also read extensively. Lacking access to commercial bookstores, she continuously revisited the few volumes she brought with her, finding different peaceful spots around the monastery to sit and study.

Her deep engagement with those texts sparked a conversation with a fellow monk who inquired about her literary interests and why she was not pursuing higher education.

When Chen brought up her past health struggles, her companion pointed out that she appeared perfectly healthy—a realization that resonated with her own physical state.

Consequently, Chen traveled back to the United States, completed an independent homeschool curriculum, and gained admission to Colorado College without a traditional high school diploma. She celebrated her 20th birthday during her freshman year and earned a dual degree in mathematics and economics in 2019.

During her undergraduate years, Chen competed professionally in Dota 2. She even played matches against OpenAI’s experimental gaming bots, providing her with an early exposure to artificial intelligence technology that she would later work with professionally.

After an initial professional role based in Boston, she joined Facebook, where she built underlying infrastructure designated for training machine learning and AI models.

Stepping away without a blueprint

On January 6, 2021, Chen was participating in a remote company-wide meeting while simultaneously monitoring live broadcasts of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Disillusioned by Facebook’s structural role in helping coordinate extremist activities, she questioned whether she could ethically remain at the company.

“I realized that I couldn’t work for Big Tech anymore,” she remembers.

She handed in her resignation shortly afterward.

To determine her next professional chapter, she drew upon the introspective questions she encountered during her time as a monk: What brought her genuine happiness? What issues mattered most? Where did her core competencies lie?

Software engineering remained her most definitive professional tool. She simply needed to discover the right arena for its application.

An introduction via Envision—a student-run accelerator supporting non-traditional founders—connected her with Contrary, a venture capital firm known for backing enterprises like Ramp and Anduril Industries. Contrary issued Chen her initial funding check in 2021 before she had even finalized the business model that would evolve into FSH.

Although she lacked a polished corporate pitch, Chen’s genuine articulation of her core motivations and her commitment to solving consequential problems successfully persuaded investors. That early financial backing provided her with the autonomy to experiment, she noted.

FSH solidified into its current form by 2024. Jason Chen, the initial Contrary investor who championed her vision, transitioned into the role of chief operating officer.

Altogether, the venture has secured $25 million in total funding, highlighted by a recent $20 million Series A round that Chen noted came together in roughly a week. Participants in this financing wave included Lachy Groom, General Catalyst, Ramp, Scribble Ventures, Operator Partners, and Basis Set Ventures, with Contrary leading the initial seed round.

Uncovering the core issues behind bureaucratic red tape

Ultimately, Chen gravitated toward government software because she believed it offered an opportunity to fix major, systemic inefficiencies that routinely failed to capture mainstream venture capital attention.

For instance, delays surrounding permits, licenses, and grant submissions stem from structural bottlenecks far deeper than merely outdated user interfaces, Chen pointed out. Critical data frequently remains siloed across disconnected departments, while website updates often necessitate cross-functional sign-offs from policy groups, communications teams, and IT staff.

Merely overlaying a generic conversational chatbot onto such fragmented systems leaves the foundational structural problems completely unaddressed, Chen argues.

Her tactical approach to modernizing government workflows is heavily informed by a specific lesson she learned while tending to koi fish during her monastery chores.

The head monk would regularly ask her whether she considered herself to be the fish or the pond.

At first, Chen failed to grasp the significance of the inquiry. However, as the question was repeatedly posed, she began reflecting deeply on its meaning. Eventually, she identified a fish that mirrored her personality: one that avoided direct conflict, swam harmoniously with the school, and occasionally explored on its own.

The head monk’s definitive reply was simple: “You’re the pond, not the fish.”

Chen interpreted this exchange as a profound lesson in zooming out to analyze entire ecosystems rather than focusing solely on isolated components. Applied to public sector software, this philosophy requires investigating *why* information remains isolated or why administrative procedures crawl before writing any code.

One of FSH’s initial focus areas has been K-12 food services, where administrators must juggle complex compliance tasks including menu planning, nutritional tracking, and federal reimbursement documentation. Another focal point involves modernizing archive and records management, replacing archaic paper filing systems that frequently force citizens to visit physical municipal offices.

FSH does utilize AI capabilities—such as optical character recognition, automated translation, and natural-language search mechanisms—but Chen emphasizes that these are treated strictly as supportive tools embedded within the software rather than delegating end-to-end workflows to unguided AI agents.

Selling software to government agencies demands immense perseverance. The enterprise brought in under $100,000 in revenue during its first operational year, illustrating the lengthy cycles required to close public sector contracts. At the time of this writing, FSH maintained a lean team of roughly eight or nine employees, alongside additional open job offers.

Thinking deliberately, executing efficiently

Chen’s background as a monk continues to shape her operational management philosophy.

She openly expresses skepticism regarding modern startup cultures that treat sleeping under office desks or logging grueling, excessive hours as badges of honor or markers of professional dedication. Instead, Chen views much of that behavior as performative—particularly when it undermines the cognitive rest she maintains is essential for high-level productivity.

Her preferred organizational mantra, which she regularly shares with her team, is: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”

“We think slowly about a lot of things, and then we do things quickly,” she explains.

Chen maintains that achieving meaningful improvements in public services requires taking the time to fully comprehend the human personnel, institutional departments, and procedural rules driving them before introducing new technology.

Reflecting on her journey, Chen credits her success to discovering institutional partners and backers willing to take a chance on an atypical background. This includes the admissions board that accepted her without standard high school credentials and the venture capitalist who wrote a funding check prior to the finalization of her business concept.

“You definitely end up finding your own way if you just stick to being weird,” she says.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Lilly Chen?

Lilly Chen is the founder and CEO of FSH Technologies, a Philadelphia-based govtech company. She is a former Buddhist monk, professional video game player, and Facebook software engineer who pivoted into building administrative software for government entities.

What is FSH Technologies?

FSH Technologies (pronounced “fish”) is a software startup that builds administrative tools for the public sector, focusing on unglamorous tasks like K-12 school food services and public records management.

How much funding has FSH raised?

FSH has raised a total of $25 million in funding, which includes a $20 million Series A round completed in about a week, as well as an earlier seed round led by Contrary.

Why did Lilly Chen leave Facebook?

Chen left her software engineering job at Facebook after watching coverage of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol during a company meeting, which caused her to question the company’s role in enabling the organization of violence.

How did Chen’s time as a monk influence her company?

Her background as a monk taught her to analyze complex systems holistically—comparing it to understanding the pond rather than just the fish—and instilled a management philosophy centered on deliberate, thoughtful planning rather than toxic “hustle culture.”

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