I realized that while non-profits are crucial for addressing certain problems, the most pressing issues in the world were being solved too slowly, which led me to start Watsi.

Chase, who had an idea for a website to connect people to fund healthcare, inspired me to join him in building Watsi, aiming to scale individual connections for a real purpose.

Watsi is the first global crowdfunding platform for healthcare, allowing people to see photos and read stories of patients worldwide who need life-changing healthcare but cannot afford it.

In the early days of Watsi, we decided that 100% of every donation would fund healthcare, we would be the most transparent organization, and we would treat everyone with respect and dignity. On August 23, 2010, we launched Watsi after a year and a half of preparation, and our initial goal was to fund healthcare for 10 patients in the first six months. We achieved that goal within the first couple of hours after launch.

Watsi is a crowdfunding platform for healthcare that allows anyone to donate as little as $5 to fund medical care for people in need.

Since launching Watsi, over 10,000 donors have funded healthcare for 4,000 patients across 20 countries, raising over $3.5 million, all of which has gone directly to those in need.

Watsi connects donors directly with patients, allowing them to see the impact of their contributions and the real stories behind the people they help, like Getu, who received life-saving surgery funded by 13 donors within 24 hours.

Launching Watsi on August 23, 2012, was initially underwhelming, but after posting on Hacker News, we quickly gained traction and funded all our medical treatments in our pipeline within hours.

After launching Watsi, we experienced a surge of interest, with major media outlets like TechCrunch, Huffington Post, and NBC covering us, leading to a rapid increase in donations that outpaced our ability to post new patients.