Portrait No. 001
My Luu
CEO
LifeSpark Labs Inc.
In May 2023, two life-shaping events happened at once: I was laid off for the first time in my career, and I gave birth to my daughter, Madison, after a four-year fertility journey. Losing my job stripped away my professional identity just as I became responsible for shaping someone else’s future, forcing me to question what kind of work was worth returning to. I had lived the consequences of a broken career system before. I graduated into the 2009 recession and chose accounting out of fear, not fit. As the child of Vietnamese refugees, I was raised to prioritize safety and stability, even when it came at the expense of purpose. I have experienced this career system as a job seeker, a hiring leader, and now a parent. And now is the moment: AI finally makes it possible to replace hiring guesswork with real evidence of ability, while a generation is being shut out at scale. I turned down a job offer to build the system I wish had existed, so my daughter’s future can be more equitable than my past. LifeSpark Labs is a game-based career readiness platform that helps early-career talent and employers find better job matches with real skill evidence generated through patent-pending AI-powered work simulations.
In her words
“I turned down a job offer to build the system I wish had existed, so my daughter’s future can be more equitable than my past.”
Chapter I
The toughest challenges you've faced as a founder.
The toughest challenge I’ve faced as a founder has been building through overlapping personal, financial, and leadership strain without losing momentum or conviction. I became a first-time mother after a four-year fertility journey while navigating a founder transition that required difficult conversations and a rapid reset of company direction. Founder breakups often end startups, and stepping into CEO leadership while protecting the mission carried real risk. Within two weeks of stepping into the role, we pivoted the product based on market signal, secured early partners, filed core IP, and began raising capital with discipline. That execution is now translating into traction: we are planning a rollout to approximately 4,000 early-career learners across 14 colleges and workforce programs. We’ve also seen early employer validation, with recruiters initiating interviews directly from our talent network and a 100 percent interview conversion rate on candidates presented. As a woman and mother, I’ve faced the quiet tax of credibility. I’ve pitched while sleep-deprived, fundraised while managing childcare logistics, and made high-stakes decisions knowing the margin for error is thinner. As the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, raised in Cypress, Texas without business-owner role models, choosing entrepreneurship over stability meant pushing against everything I was taught. I don’t quit when things get hard. I build through them.
Chapter II
Your vision.
Five years from now, hiring conversations will look fundamentally different. Candidates will show up with intelligent copilots built on their own demonstrated skills, helping them navigate options and advocate for job fit. Those conversations will be grounded in real proof of how someone actually works, built over time through applied, job-relevant challenges, not resumes, static assessments, or polished stories. I’m obsessed with solving how much potential is lost because we ask people to explain who they are instead of letting them show it. When candidates understand themselves through evidence, and employers decide with confidence, opportunity becomes less dependent on background or access. That shift makes building a meaningful career feel simpler, fairer, and grounded in real ability, not pedigree.
Chapter III
The impact you want to leave behind — for your industry, your community, and the women who come next.
Thirty years from now, I want to know I helped make the beginning of a career less lonely and less opaque. I want young people, especially those without networks or safety nets, to feel seen earlier and trusted sooner. As a mother, my deepest hope is that my daughter grows up in a world where her potential is not guessed at or filtered out, but recognized through what she can actually do. If LifeSpark helps shift opportunity from privilege to proof, that is the legacy I care about.