This is excellent. The funding process is fast and seamless. It took me literally less than 30 seconds to fund a treatment. Kudos for an amazing idea and excellent execution.
Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives
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Re: Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives
#22I'm in love with the idea, but the frequency that payments get bounced via Kickstarter bothers me when the funds are applied directly do medical procedures like this.
Re: Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives
#23Awesome site, congrats on making the world a better place. I would suggest that you integrate directly with reputable organizations - it will place an abstraction between you and potential backlash for scamming. Also allows you to provide aid where you don't have direct reach already. Another idea would be to integrate with hospitals/care givers directly, so you know the money is being spent properly. Hospitals/care…
Totally. This is actually what we are doing. If you look on the patient profiles, you will find information about the Medical Partners (the healthcare providers).
The thing I am most proud of is that our Medical Partners are absolutely unbelievable. We have a Partners in Health Clinic (Paul Farmer's Organization), an amazing doctor in Ethiopia who our team doctor worked directly with (Dr. Rick Hodes), and a great NGO in Guatemala (featured on ABC).
Re: Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives
#24This is excellent. The funding process is fast and seamless. It took me literally less than 30 seconds to fund a treatment. Kudos for an amazing idea and excellent execution.
Adrian, you rock. Thank you so much! If you are ever in San Francisco PM me and I'd love to buy you a beer (or a tea or a juice or whatever)!
Re: Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives
#25[deleted]
Re: Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives
#26Does it get any better than this?
Re: Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives
#27The one thing you need to focus on above all else is transparency and preventing scams. Video of the actual person who needs the treatment would go a long way, as would video updates along the way. I'm thinking an Android app that the locals could use to document the process. If you solve that properly, this will really take off and do a lot of good. Also, you're going to eventually need to take a very small cut of t…
Great points. Transparency is huge, and we have done everything possible to put as much info on our site as we can. We love the app idea, and building an app for the MP's to document the entire process (patient work up, waiver, profile info, provide updates, track recovery, etc.) as easily as possible is one of our next steps. We definitely need to make some money to keep this thing going. But right now we are still…
Your operation could maintain 2 sets of cash flow: one for patient care, and one for administration. Maybe you could qualify for NGO status and get some government to fund some of the administration side.
This would be somewhat similar to Costco's model, where most (all?) of employee wages come from membership card fees, not product revenue. With this model, you could still let people donate 100% of their funds to the patient if they wanted.
You could even make a slider with an animation that displays the percent which goes to each part of your business - so 10% or 15% of the donation could goto administration.
I love your idea, it's tremendous. Good luck!
Re: Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives
#28Bravo
You are doing a great thing, and I applaud you
Re: Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great points. Transparency is huge, and we have done everything possible to put as much info on our site as we can. We love the app idea, and building an app for the MP's to document the entire process (patient work up, waiver, profile info, provide updates, track recovery, etc.) as easily as possible is one of our next steps. We definitely need to make some money to keep this thing going. But right now we are still…
Your operation could maintain 2 sets of cash flow: one for patient care, and one for administration. Maybe you could qualify for NGO status and get some government to fund some of the administration side. This would be somewhat similar to Costco's model, where most (all?) of employee wages come from membership card fees, not product revenue. With this model, you could still let people donate 100% of their funds to th…
Those are awesome suggestions. Thank you! We were actually just approved as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in the states, and that will open us up to a lot of funding opportunities. But we love the Costco Model idea!
Re: Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives
#30Awesome site, congrats on making the world a better place. I would suggest that you integrate directly with reputable organizations - it will place an abstraction between you and potential backlash for scamming. Also allows you to provide aid where you don't have direct reach already. Another idea would be to integrate with hospitals/care givers directly, so you know the money is being spent properly. Hospitals/care…
Also, the feedback cycle you have in place is also very exciting. I don't want to downplay what you are doing by likening it to gamification, but positive feedback is key for repeat donations. From a consumer standpoint, my main qualms when it comes to donations are (1) Control over where my money is spent, and (2) Knowing that my money spent is being put to good use. You guys have the opportunity to knock both those…
Agreed! The update loop is going to be really big for us. We are also considering some other features that would add to the gamification of the site (karma points for donating/sharing, becoming an ambassador for a particular profile, etc.) but those are still all in the brainstorming phase.
Like I said above, transparency is the single most important thing to us, and we spent more than a year establishing our partnerships. If you have any specific questions about transparency and accountability, I am more than happy to field them here. We also have a ton of info on our FAQ: http://watsi.org/faq