Meet TheGlitz ‘Super Woman’ Khushboo Jain, the co-founder and COO of ImpactGuru who left the glamour, security, and comfort of her high-paying and super-successful job to start her social enterprise. She was inches away from reaching the zenith of the corporate ladder when she co-founded ImpactGuru.com, India’s leading medical crowd-funding platform with her husband Piyush Jain. With a passion for making a difference and solving community-based problems, Khushboo used her marketing and creative skills to help critically ill patients in need of medical care by providing crowd-funding solutions in collaboration with NGOs and social sector enterprises.
Khushboo was listed amongst the Top 15 women entrepreneurs at NITI Aayog & United Nations, 2019 Women Transforming India Awards and received recognition for her contributions in the Social Impact sector by the Government Of India, National Commission For Minorities. Khushboo has also been featured in the Fortune 40 under 40 lists in India and was amongst the 2021 Leading Women in Business list by The Economic Times and Femina India. Indeed, the strong passion to make a difference and save lives inspired TheGlitz ‘Super Woman’ Khushboo to start ImpactGuru.com a fintech company focused on making healthcare affordable in India.
Could you tell us about your life-changing journey that has moulded you to be what you are today?
The strong passion to make a difference in the lives of people and save more lives inspired Piyush Jain, Co-founder and CEO of ImpactGuru.com and me to start a fintech company focused on making healthcare more affordable in India. We thus co-founded ImpactGuru.com, eight years ago, with a mission to help critically ill patients through donation crowd-funding solutions. There came a point where we realized that we wanted to be social entrepreneurs and were keen to set up a venture that would be mission-driven but ultimately blend profit with purpose.
Could you list 3 of your major achievements?
I believe that my achievements resonate with my organization’s success in helping patients access affordable healthcare. Here are three of my major achievements:
- Raised INR 1,000 cr+ through crowd-funding and helped 30,000+ patients fundraise for their medical treatments including but not limited to cancer, rare diseases, critical illnesses, and organ transplant procedures.
- Pioneered the Give Every Month (GEM) plan that led to 20,000+ donors joining the community and donating towards medical treatment every month.
- Launched #IndiaFightsSMA initiative and helped raise INR 16 crore each for three children – Teera Kamat, Dhairyaraj Sinh, and Ayaansh Gupta diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). Baby Teera’s was India’s first successful fundraiser by a crowd-funding platform for SMA.
What are the setbacks you have faced? How did you tackle these setbacks or challenges? And what lesson have you learned from it?
Until a few years ago, crowd-funding was a foreign concept to many people in India. The awareness level of healthcare crowd-funding among patients, hospitals, and doctors was relatively low. The path from education to persuasion has been a challenging but satisfying one. Executing a start-up comes with very different obstacles like growth, scalability, cost efficiency, and profitability, but at the same time, it is also full of learning. We learned from our share of highs and lows. Things that have kept me going and getting stronger each day have been our perseverance, grit, and ability to innovate in the face of adversity. The strong passion to make a difference in people’s lives and persistence to achieve Impact Guru’s mission of saving the lives of one million patients in the coming decade keep us motivated.
When you look back, what are the three qualities in you that have helped you become what you are today?
- Perseverance: The ability to keep going despite challenges, setbacks, and failures is crucial for achieving success. Perseverance helped me to stay focused on my goals and to develop resilience in the face of adversity.
- Curiosity: A willingness to learn and explore new ideas, perspectives and experiences can lead to new insights, opportunities, and personal growth. Staying curious lets me stay open-minded and embrace change.
- Adaptability: The ability to adapt to new situations, challenges and environments is a key quality for success in a rapidly changing world. Adaptability helped me to stay flexible, to learn quickly, and to respond effectively to new challenges and opportunities.
Who are the people who have been the wind behind your wings?
My father is my role model and most definitely, the most hard-working person I know. To this day he works 70-80 hour weeks. My mother is very perceptive and very high on emotional quotient. Over the last 3 decades, she has helmed various non-profit organizations and done some great work on many humanitarian projects. Watching them work relentlessly towards their goal and passion has definitely had a huge impact on my mental endurance, grit and most importantly, bring out the best in people.
Lastly, if there was a quote to define you, what would it be?
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs
