YC
Chase Adam at Startup School NY 2014
@ Y Combinator
06/20/14
Takeaways
CA
Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Watsi is a crowdfunding platform for healthcare that allows anyone to donate as little as $5 to fund medical care for people in need.
CA
Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Before starting Watsi, I traveled, worked, and studied in over 20 countries, including launching a national health program in Haiti and serving in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
I was surprised to find that many people in San Francisco were working for or starting companies that they truly believed in, contrasting with my experiences abroad where non-profit work felt slow and bureaucratic.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
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.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
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?"
CA
Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
After returning home, I recruited my best friends to help build Watsi, and we spent our last months in the Peace Corps working on the business plan.
CA
Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
We decided that 100% of every donation would directly fund medical care, and we would be completely transparent about our financials and operations.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
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.
CA
Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Despite being featured on TechCrunch, I felt overwhelmed by the reality of our operations, which were chaotic and unstructured, leading me to quit my job to work on Watsi full-time.
CA
Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
I faced significant challenges in fundraising, as I had no connections in Silicon Valley and struggled to secure initial funding for Watsi. No one wants to be the first person to take a gamble and support you.
CA
Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Fundraising as a non-profit is challenging because you often need to approach many individuals to raise smaller amounts, unlike for-profits that can seek larger sums from fewer investors.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
There's no urgency in non-profit fundraising, which leads to being pushed to the bottom of people's to-do lists.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
People are often too nice to say no, which can lead to endless waiting and frustration in fundraising efforts.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
We entered a Huffington Post competition to raise funds, which was incredibly stressful and required us to reach out to everyone we knew for votes.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
We won the Huffington Post competition, which felt like a significant achievement and provided us with $10,000.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
After winning the competition, I received an email from Paul Graham inviting me to meet, which was a pivotal moment for us.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
During our time at Y Combinator, we learned the importance of focusing on one key metric, which for us was average weekly donations.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
We realized that we weren't alone in our struggles; other startups faced similar challenges, and persistence was key to success.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
It's okay to do things manually in the beginning while figuring out what works and what doesn't.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
We decided to set an arbitrary deadline for fundraising, which surprisingly motivated people to make decisions within that timeframe.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
We had 138 meetings across five states in three months and managed to convince 14 people to support our operations.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
We were fortunate to receive donations from some of the best investors and entrepreneurs in the world, which we take seriously.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
We aim to build an organization that can last for 100 years, focusing on the right founding team and culture.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Efficiency is a core value for us; we embrace the challenge of not hiring excessively, which forces creativity and focus on what's important.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
I made many mistakes at Watsi, but I was careful to hire people who are much smarter and better than I am.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Every team member at Watsi raised more than ten times their salary for patients, which I'm very proud of.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
We face challenges with unsustainable growth, balancing short-term spikes from media attention with long-term development.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Working with hospitals in 19 countries has been challenging due to varying internet access and the need for efficient information dissemination.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Managing a marketplace is difficult because we can't promise healthcare that we can't deliver, and costs don't fluctuate with donor interest.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
People often ask us why we do this work, and it's because we believe that every individual matters, regardless of their circumstances.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
In the next decade, nearly everyone will be connected to the internet, marking a significant transition towards a more unified world.
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Chase Adam
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
We don't know what role Watsi will play in the future, but we believe our efforts will be worthwhile when we look back in 50 years.