At Y Combinator, I was inspired by the ambitious mindset of other founders, which contrasted sharply with the skepticism we faced before. It motivated me to fully commit to making Watsi a reality.

The turning point for starting Watsi came when I witnessed a woman on a bus asking for donations for her son's medical treatment, and I thought, "Why isn't there a website to fund medical care for individuals?"

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.

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.

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.

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.

Fundraising can be a slow and demoralizing process, especially when trying to convince the first few investors to back your idea.

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.

I faced rejection from investors at least 50 times while fundraising, and it was tough to determine if my challenges were due to being a brown woman without a higher degree or simply lacking progress.