Ben Fischer has been exceptionally driven from an early age. Having lived on 3 continents by the age of 4, written and published a Sci-fi book before his Bar-Mitzvah, and founding 2 startups by his second year at Stanford – his unprecedented, cold hard work is unparalleled.
Benjamin Fischer was born in Israel to two Jewish-American parents. After living in Jerusalem until he was just able to walk, Ben and his family moved to New York. His father worked nights (in parallel to the Asian stock market), and after realizing that it wouldn’t be a stable, long-term lifestyle, he packed their bags and moved to Hong Kong. Living in three countries by the age of four, and attending the only Jewish Day School in South-East Asia from the age of three to fifteen, Ben was introduced to a wide variety of cultures. This equipped him with an understanding of everyone’s unique identities — something that only continued in his future. His first impressive endeavor was what Ben considers, “what I spent my fifth-grade recesses on” — a 150-page Sci-Fi book called The Heir to the Throne. After getting it published by the end of middle school, it was safe to say Ben had already accomplished more than the average high school graduate.
When Ben did eventually reach high school, his family decided to move back to Israel, where he would quickly become the face of the American International School’s class of 2019: National Honor Society, head of Model UN, Soccer Captain, Valedictorian, you name it. Following high school, Ben was accepted to Stanford, initially hoping to major in Linguistics. And again, Ben rose the ranks. When COVID-19 struck, however, he was dealt with a dilemma. “I wanted to experience Stanford to its true and full potential”, he says. At that moment, he decided to take a gap year following his Freshman year. Not knowing what exactly to do with his time, he, along with a good friend, co-founded an online tutoring company called TreeTutors. TreeTutors offered affordable tutoring sessions by Stanford students for under-resourced and low-income high schoolers across the globe. Ben notes that the biggest challenge, apart from working crazy hours, was “doing it at a young age without any understanding of what to be doing.” What made this more difficult for him was, due to COVID, he had no mentors or in-person supporters who could guide him in a certain direction. So, he instead resorted to asking everyone he knew to “sort of try to get a chain reaction, and hopefully be put in touch with people that were most useful, and that definitely worked.”
After a few months of TreeTutors, Ben became fed up with what was lacking outside of the Stanford campus – spontaneous connection. This led him to found his second venture, Lighthouse, an app, which according to its LinkedIn page, is “a magic button bringing spontaneity back online.” Simply, it notifies friends when you’re free to talk in a unique way – reimagining social interaction. His inspiration came after reading To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, where she writes, “Distance had an extraordinary power; they had been swallowed up in it, she felt, they were gone forever, they had become part of the nature of things.” Ben, reading this during COVID, could not accept that. “It doesn’t have to be that way, that’s ridiculous!”
At the end of the year, Ben returned to Stanford and declared his major, Product Design, after in his time off, “I noticed that I really enjoyed the day-to-day design process and I knew that learning hard skills like Mechanical Engineering or Physics that are major requirements are fundamentally impossible to start on your own.” Currently, Ben is finishing his 3rd year at Stanford, Lighthouse is backed by XFund and the Lyft Co-Founder, and he’s working as a part-time Analyst at Turing.com, a Silicon-Valley based outsourcing company. Some might ask what has motivated this persistent pursuit of success; speaking to Ben, he remarks that “I have lived my life across pretty big distances, and my journey is one of trying to understand where I fit in and how I can reduce those distances for others.” In the short term, Ben looks at finishing his BS at Stanford while advancing his programming skills before he looks at turning Lighthouse into a full-time, self-sustaining business. He also recognizes that, in order to make LightHouse big-time, he has to improve his communication skills. He’s taking action upon this by being Vice President of Stanford’s Mock Trial, one of Stanford’s largest public speaking groups. “I have the opportunity to become more competent speaking in person to large live crowds, and that’s going to be super useful when trying to clearly communicate goals and direction with a team at Lighthouse.”
In his concluding remarks, Ben recognizes the importance of having a community like U22 that prioritizes highlighting those who have “kicked their butt off to get to the place they’re at, at the age they’re at”, and he’s specifically excited to connect with other young founders who he can relate his trials and tribulations with. Lastly, to all young dreamers, Ben has one piece of advice: “Everything you do should be in some ways an expression of your story.”
Get in touch with Ben:
Email: ben@lighthousetheapp.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bentfischer/
Lighthouse: https://www.lighthousetheapp.com/