Meet This Husband-Wife Duo, Who Quit Their High-Paying Jobs To Serve Critically Ill Patients

Image Credits: Pixabay, Twitter, Piyush & Khushboo

Meet This Husband-Wife Duo, Who Quit Their High-Paying Jobs To Serve Critically Ill Patients

Piyush and Khushboo Jain left their high-profile jobs in consulting and fashion to help people who cannot afford hospital expenses. In 2014, the couple set up ImpactGuru, which helps patients crowd-source financing for their hospitalisation expenses.

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People often find themselves torn between aspiring for a high paying career and one that adds value to society. The same was the case with husband-wife Piyush and Khushboo Jain, who experienced both worlds' best. They left the glamour, security, and comfort of their high-paying and super successful jobs to start their own social enterprise. They were inches away from reaching the zenith of the corporate ladder when they co-founded ImpactGuru, a digital platform that provides crowdfunding solutions for critically ill patients in need of medical care. It works in collaboration with NGOs and social sector enterprises.

Starting ImpactGuru

Piyush (37) and Khushboo (35) shared the same vision; therefore, they decided to quit their job. The Jains left their high-profile jobs in consulting and fashion to do something more meaningful, to help people who cannot afford hospital expenses. In 2014, the husband-wife duo set up ImpactGuru, which helps patients crowdsource financing for their hospitalisation expenses. Khushboo took up the role of strategy, technology, and operations at the organisation and is proud to be the first women-led co-founder of a crowdsourcing platform in India. At ImpactGuru, over 40% of their strong workforce are women.

"As a teenager, I visited an orphanage which deeply made me think that I am fortunate enough to have a home and loving parents. That visit had an everlasting impact that led me to promise myself that I will use my skill sets to make a difference in people's lives in need," co-founder and CEO of ImpactGuru, Piyush Jain, told The Logical Indian.

"Having held that thought for over a decade, I finally returned to India after a career overseas in investment banking to start ImpactGuru. My intention was to make giving a habit and empower individuals to support their favourite cause by engaging their family and friends," he added.

According to Khushboo, when Piyush shared his idea and vision of ImpactGuru, she knew this would be a fitting idea to use her skill set. Both of them were keen on a business model that would let them add value and meaning to their community which was aligned with setting up an online donation crowdfunding platform.

However, the couple has had their own set of challenges.

"Crowdfunding is still at its nascent stage in India and six years ago, it was a foreign concept to people. Firstly, convincing non-profits, doctors and patients, donors that the donation crowdfunding concept would work was a huge challenge," Khushboo said.

India's Leading Medical Crowdfunding Platform

ImpactGuru has fundamentally changed the established practice of how critical illnesses are financed. It is not through loans, insurance, or selling assets, but healthcare crowdfunding. The platform makes it easy for people to share their funding requirements, heartbreaking stories and struggles with various medical emergencies with the entire world. The organisation provides dedicated fundraising support via a personal crowdfunding coach, online technology tools, and smartphone apps. Not only in the healthcare sector, but it is also a productive platform to raise funds for social and personal needs. It has helped over 25,000 patients, and impacted five lakh lives, with its global partners for varied causes with donations from over 165 countries.

After starting ImpactGuru, the couple realised the abundance of generosity that existed in the world.

"We witness 4-5 donations per minute on our platform. We have come across some extraordinary stories of grit and perseverance of patients and family members who have raised USD 2 million or INR 16 crores (approximately) for the most expensive gene therapy to treat SMA disease, which we could not even imagine," the couple shared.

The husband-wife duo said that the first thing they have learned is to have gratitude, as many people are struggling with critical illnesses, cancer, transplants, organ failure, etc. Having good health is itself something that they have learned to appreciate and as a consequence of that realisation, they try to take out time to focus on health and fitness, keeping it as their priority.

In addition, they believe that co-founding a business is very difficult. In this journey, both have evolved and developed a deeper understanding of each other's strengths, weaknesses and how to face adverse situations together.

Today, ImpactGuru has established itself as India's leading medical crowdfunding platform. As Piyush and Khushboo look deeper into the options that patients use to fund their hospital and medical bills, they realise that having an integrated holistic healthcare finance solution has become extremely important.

"Having a solution that is above and beyond crowdfunding by combining many other services to help our patients through every single channel that they find apt for funding their bills will be our next step toward the future," the duo shared.

With their aim to help one million people in the next decade, they are scaling their crowdfunding platform to eventually come across a day where it can witness the impact of one donation per second.

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