Helping Immigrants Feel at Home—One City at a Time

When Payal Raj moved from Toronto to Chicago, she figured the transition would be simple. Same language. Same continent. Same general culture.

It wasn’t.

"Nothing really carries over," she says. "Credit score, rental history, medical records—none of it transfers. And all the little cultural cues you’ve learned don’t help much either. It’s like starting from scratch."

It wasn’t the first time she’d felt that way. Payal has lived and worked in six countries. She grew up in the Middle East, spent time in India, Singapore, the UK, and Canada, and now lives in the U.S. Along the way, she’s seen just how frustrating—and lonely—the immigration experience can be.

Now she’s building something to fix it. It’s the kind of quiet, focused work a lot of founders inside Thrive are doing too.

Settle Smart is an AI-powered platform designed to help immigrants integrate into their new cities faster. Think of it like a personalized onboarding experience for your new life: tailored guidance, cultural context, and local resources in one place. It’s early days—Payal still works full time while building it on the side—but it’s already gaining traction.

"It started from personal frustration," she says. "We assumed moving from Canada to the U.S. would be seamless. But every small thing—from opening a bank account to understanding local health insurance—came with friction."

Before Settle Smart, Payal spent five years running a healthcare tourism startup in Singapore. That business started organically—helping a friend navigate medical travel logistics—but quickly evolved when she saw a larger opportunity.

"We realized there were people traveling across regions like the Middle East and Africa to India and Southeast Asia for premium medical care," she says. "But the system was messy. Lots of independent agents. No technology. No scale."

The company took off. Partnerships with hospitals followed. So did a more complex set of problems: pricing models, platform scaling, tech development, cold outreach. Like most bootstrapped journeys, the highs were rare but incredible—and the rest was learning through trial and error.

"The first year we thought people would just show up," she says. "Then reality hit. We had to build trust. We had to prove ourselves."

Eventually, the company was acquired. Payal and her husband immigrated to Canada, just as the pandemic hit. The market disappeared. The needs changed. And she went back to working with growth-stage startups—always staying close to the ecosystem.

"Even when I wasn’t founding something," she says, "I was still in the room. Still close to it. Still learning."

Settle Smart came from that next wave of personal experience. This time, she decided to test the idea from day one.

"We ran some ads in Asia," she says. "Just to see if people would even be interested. There was no product. No app. Just the concept. And within a month, we had 48 qualified leads."

That validation was enough to keep building. Payal’s excited about what AI can do to simplify the process of integration—and even more excited about building something real, from the ground up.

"If we can use AI to write emails and generate resumes," she says, "why can’t it help someone understand how to set up a bank account in a new city, or how tipping works, or how to find a doctor who speaks your language?"

Her vision for Settle Smart is bold, but grounded. It’s not about flashy features—it’s about empathy and precision. Helping people figure out the basics faster, so they can get to the good part of building a life.

"When you move somewhere new, you're not just figuring out logistics," she says. "You're dealing with identity. With loneliness. With pressure to figure it all out while pretending you already have."

Payal doesn’t believe founders need to raise money to build something valuable. She’s more interested in building slowly, intentionally, and with people who actually get it. That mindset has drawn her toward communities of bootstrapped founders — the ones who know how hard it is, and still choose to keep going. It’s the same mindset that fuels a lot of bootstrapped founders inside Thrive. She prefers to bootstrap, stay close to the problem, and move at a pace that matches her own priorities. That means keeping her day job, testing things on nights and weekends, and only going full-time when she’s proven the need and the model.

"It’s not about chasing the next round or scaling overnight," she says. "It’s about solving a real problem in a way that’s sustainable."

She’s done it before—and learned from the ups and downs.

"When you’re building for a community that’s underserved, you don’t get shortcuts. You have to build trust. You have to prove that you care. And you have to be okay with doing it slow."

Payal’s approach is methodical, but fueled by urgency. Immigration isn’t just an administrative process. It’s personal. And right now, too many people are doing it without support.

"The goal isn’t to replace human connection," she says. "It’s to make it easier to find."

When asked what advice she’d give to new founders, Payal doesn’t offer a tech stack or a growth hack. Instead, she talks about patience, validation, and staying grounded.

"Be honest about why you want to build something," she says. "Stay close to the problem. Talk to people who’ve lived it. And don’t let the startup hype mess with your pace."

That clarity is what’s guided her through every chapter—from art sales as a kid to bootstrapped launches in Singapore to her latest push in the U.S.

"There’s no right way to do this," she says. "Only your way."

Settle Smart is still in its early chapters. But the mission is clear: help people feel at home, faster. One problem, one city, one immigrant at a time.

If you’re building something real and tired of doing it alone—the kind of slow, intentional work Payal’s story captures so well—apply to Thrive and see if it’s the right fit.