November 28, 2016
Like most companies, we could represent 2016 with shiny numbers, like our donation growth and the number of patients we’ve funded.
But you can see those on our transparency document any time. And they portray a linear trendline of progress that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Instead, we’d like to share these numbers that more transparently represent our 2016:
We’re sharing these numbers because, if we’re being transparent, our progress toward making healthcare possible for everyone doesn’t come from glamorous strokes of inspiration or bulletproof plans for success.
Our progress comes from problems that push us forward.
While some of our problems are familiar to any startup, many are unique to global health.
For example, what do we do about people using our website to test stolen credit cards? Is product or marketing ultimately going to drive our donation growth? What tools do we build when we outgrow lightweight project management software? How do we balance supply and demand when our “supply” is people who need healthcare? How do we verify that Watsi patients aren’t being asked to pay extra for healthcare?
Solving these problems was messy, and we didn’t always get it right on the first try, but we never let perfection be the enemy of progress.
Here are the numbers that more accurately represent the progress we made in 2016:
These aren’t the shiniest metrics, but they’re the realest ones. And looking back on 2016, it’s the time we spent solving problems like these that made Watsi’s platform strong enough to transparently deploy millions of dollars in healthcare for patients.