About Lighthouse

Based in San Francisco, Lighthouse is the fastest immigration solution for the technology industry.

Hundreds of founders, engineers, researchers and more at world-class companies like Cursor, Notion, Replit, and Ramp trust Lighthouse to guide their teams through the immigration journey.

Lighthouse's platform focuses on preparing visa applications with speed and quality. They produce detailed cases: comprehensive, personalized applications that are submitted to USCIS to secure visas for their customers.

System Mapping

Lead-Handling System

Process: An embedded Fillout on Webflow & Luma collect data → Hubspot stores it to track pipelines & automate sequences → Retool lets the team vet and provide fast, custom responses → Automated qualification evaluations give prospects clear, custom guidance

Lead data is captured through an embedded Fillout form on a Webflow-hosted website and Luma. This data is then stored in Hubspot, which is used to manage lead information, track pipeline progression and automate processes such as sequences and status updates using Hubspot’s in-tool workflows.

Off‑the‑shelf CRMs can’t handle that depth, so we helped Lighthouse build their own Retool dashboards to support their proprietary eligibility engine that keeps the process fast and accurate, all the while enabling the Lighthouse team to send tailored feedback on their visa eligibility and next steps.

Customer Onboarding

Process: Customer is onboarded to complete their initial data intake in their Portal → Data lands in Postgres → Lighthouse’s Builder platform assembles the case → Retool tracks progress → Modal and Zapier handle invoices, signatures, tasks, emails, and Slack alerts—saving the team hours of manual busy work.

Once a prospect becomes a Lighthouse customer, they are invited to a secure portal that feeds their case details into a Postgres “single source of truth” database. From their, Lighthouse’s expert legal operations team relies on their platform called "Builder" to review customer data, conduct research, and assemble all case details into draft visa application documents.

Retool tracks this progress in real-time, while a web of Modal/Zapier‑powered automations fires off Stripe invoices, Dropbox Sign requests, Linear work tickets, Resend customer emails, and Slack alerts—all configurable in Retool—so Lighthouse can move every customer’s case from onboarding to submission at speed and scale without extra hands.

Highlights

Impact

Railblocks’ custom operational system let Lighthouse scale like software — in just nine months, the team:

• Booked 7 figures in revenue
• supported more than 300 visa cases
• sustained 150% month‑over‑month growth
• all without adding headcount and zero sales or marketing spend.

The insight was an integrated, minimalist tech stack that keeps every dollar, data point, and workflow in one unified hub, plus layers of progressive automations through Zapier (for fast iteration) and Modal (for hardened jobs) without sacrificing human touch and quality control. Everything is wrapped in intuitive tools in Linear and Retool for instant team adoption, providing true operational leverage.

The system enabled true scale—driven by efficiency, not headcount—using the latest and greatest tech to push the boundaries of what’s feasible as a service-driven company.

Features

The system's greatest strengths include:

• Simplicity: Minimal tools to support rapid growth while managing millions in cash flow across hundreds of clients (both B2C and B2B).
• Integration: Seamless flow of ops and product data through integration with the engineering stack.
• Customization: Tons of custom integrations, custom codes in workflows and custom interfaces to make the OS fit their operations like a glove.
• Centralized Data: Clean, accurate and accessible information in one place.
• Progressive Automation: Avoiding the pitfalls of over-automation that can harm CX by keeping humans in the loop. Instead, iterating quickly with Zapier and stabilizing workflows in Modal when mature.
• Team Adoption: Choosing intuitive and delightful tools like Linear and Front to ensure smooth adoption by the team.