For a long time, Kathryn Minshew wondered whether a particular position, company, or career would be the right fit for her. “I grew up thinking I wanted to work for the U.S. State Department or the CIA,” says Minshew, who studied political science and international relations. “But I realized while working at the U.S. embassy in Cyprus in 2007 that the idea I had didn’t match the reality.”
Minshew, who has also lived in France and Switzerland, pursued several other career paths, including working at consulting giant McKinsey & Co. and a stint at the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Kigali, Rwanda. Neither proved to be quite the right fit either, and she still wasn’t sure about a career path. She also didn’t know of any tools for helping her figure out which of these jobs were actually a good match for her. And then it dawned on her: “I started dreaming about a place where I could see inside companies, understand the work environment and company culture, get great career advice, and ultimately find a job where I could thrive long term.”
Minshew put together a small team and started building The Muse, which today serves as a career-matching platform that lets prospective employees explore not just job descriptions but provides them details about the people, perks, and values of a particular workplace.
The early days were hard—Minshew says a lot of investors she pitched didn’t seem to understand why this kind of product was even necessary. But she persevered, growing the company to where it’s now used by 70 million people annually. Today, her biggest challenge is managing that growth. Last fall, The Muse acquired an online career community for women called Fairygodboss, and Minshew found herself integrating two teams, two cultures, and two products.
“We took an approach of ‘let the best idea or process win,’ which sometimes meant we went with a Muse way of doing things and sometimes meant we went with a Fairygodboss way of doing things,” says Minshew.
One thing is clear: Minshew eventually found the right fit for her—becoming an entrepreneur.
The Fortune Founders Forum is a community of entrepreneurs chosen by Fortune’s editorial team to participate at the annual Brainstorm Tech conference, which took place in Deer Valley, Utah, in July. Our inaugural cohort was selected based on a variety of factors, including the potential impact of their companies, and reflected a diversity of geographies, sectors, and demographics.
