Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives | Hacker News Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login Thank HN: You helped save 33k lives 58 points by chaseadam17 1 hour ago | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments 13 years ago, we launched Watsi.org with a Show HN [1]. For nearly a year, this community drove so much traffic that we couldn’t list patients fast enough. Then pg saw us on HN, wrote us our first big check, and accepted us as the first YC nonprofit (W13). The next few years were a whirlwind. I was a young, naive founder with just enough experience to know I wanted Watsi to be more efficient, transparent, and innovative than most nonprofits. We spent 24/7 talking to users and coding. We did things that don’t scale. We tried our best to be walking, talking pg essays. Over the years we learned that product/market fit is different for nonprofits. Not many people wake up and think, “I’d love to donate to a nonprofit today” with the same oomph that they think, “I’d love a coffee” or “I’d like to make more money.” No matter how much effort we put into fundraising, donations grew linearly, while requests for care grew exponentially. I felt caught in the middle. After investing everything I had, I eventually burned out and transitioned to the board. I made a classic founder mistake and intertwined my self-worth with Watsi’s success. I believed that if I could somehow help every patient, I was a good person, but if I let down some patients, which became inevitable, I was a bad person. This was exacerbated by seeing our for-profit YC batch mates raise massive rounds. I felt like a failure for not scaling Watsi faster, but eventually we accepted reality and set Watsi on more of a slow, steady, and sustainable trajectory. Now that I have perspective, I’m incredibly proud of what the org has accomplished and grateful to everyone who has done a tour of duty to support us. Watsi donors have donated over $20M to fund 33,241 surgeries, and we have a good shot of helping patients for a long time to come. In a world of fast growth and fast crashes, here’s a huge thank you to the HN users who have stuck by Watsi, or any other important cause, even when it’s not on the front page. I believe it embodies the best of humanity. Thanks HN! [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424081 help aftergibson 15 minutes ago | next [–] You should be unbelievably proud of what you’ve achieved, and it’s lovely to be reminded of the amazing things people can accomplish amongst the backdrop of almost deafeningly negative sentiment going around. Thanks for doing what you do and for sharing your story! reply chaseadam17 10 minutes ago | parent | next [–] Thank you 🙂 Watsi is lucky to have an incredible team and medical partners, who work in some of the most challenging environments to provide care to patients. reply BloondAndDoom 10 minutes ago | prev | next [–] You did a great thing! Thank you. One thing I always thought of converging businesses with helping

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