Transforming Dentistry: Integrity, Values, and Making a Difference with Dr. Kareem Osman

Shawn Zajas  00:00 

At the start, because there’s a sound that’s coming through, almost like a crunching on my end. Yeah, it was just a moment before where it almost felt like you were crunching something. Is there anything you’re doing with your hand? That what was that? Like a, like a cup you’re holding or something? 

 

Kareem Osman  00:23 

I was I was I had this I was playing around with it on the table. So maybe that’s what it is. 

 

Shawn Zajas  00:27 

Okay. Yeah. So that’s coming through? No worries. Okay, ready? Hey, guys. So I am here, with the one and only Dr. Kareem Osman. And, again, I am such a big fan of you, Kareem, not just because of what you’re doing in dentistry, as a clinician, but the way in which you are, you are the definition of an innovator. And here you are at Casper headquarters in front of a legendary. I mean, I mean, behind us this legendary figure with this unbelievable quote, we have to start off by talking about why this quote, what’s behind you. But what does this mean to you? Awesome. Well, first of all, please call me Kareem. And that just goes for anyone. I don’t need any fancy titles. But you know, Sean, thank you so much for having me here today, it really is an honor and a privilege not just to be on your podcast, but to know you, as somebody that I really consider as a real friend. And when I say a real friend is someone that I don’t need anything from you, you don’t need anything from me, but I know I can call you up at any time, hey, Shawn, I need help with this, or I need your advice on that. And I know you’re always gonna be there for me. And I hope you know that the feelings are reciprocal and mutual. And you know, I’m there for you, man. And you just it’s, you know, the definition for me of this quote. So just kind of in context where I am right now, I wanted to take this 

 

Kareem Osman  02:07 

talk today from the basement of my dental office, because that’s where Casper was born. And I know we hear about all of these startup stories where you know, in Silicon Valley where they tell you like, you know, Apple was built out of a garage, and all these companies are built out of basements. And you sometimes read about these things and you just laugh or you you know, you chuckle and that’s where Casper was born. My dental practices upstairs. This is the basement. I finished it after we started Casper because I want it to kind of live that whole startup, you know, story that one day, we can say, hey, Casper, the original Casper team, operated and started this really big idea out of the basement of their dental office. And it’s significant. Because everything that we’re trying to do for dentistry, we want people to know that we’re not just talking out of our butt, we operate an extremely successful practice upstairs, we’re very fortunate to have that. And the reason why our practice is successful is because we have core principles and philosophies that we believe in, treat your patients with respect. Always do the right thing, no matter what, you know, money is not the motive, or the directive or the goal. Money is just a byproduct of success. And if you value the things that matter, which is doing right by people, always being honest, having integrity, you know, and being committed to doing those things, even though sometimes those things are hard to do. You know, it’s not easy to say I want to be a good person. No, sometimes things come on our way. And they really test those things that were saying, Are you really going to do the right thing. You know, when you have that big student loan payment at the end of the month in your startup loan at the end of the month, and you know, this patient, well, you can do a feeling and you can do a crown, it’s leaning more towards a feeling but you decide to do the crown because you want to pay off your bills that’s not doing the right thing. Right. And it’s it’s building that discipline, building that character having that integrity. It really boils down all into this quote is that you have to be crazy to do what we’re doing opening up a dental practice you got to be a crazy person starting your own business you got to be a crazy person deciding to change your life and go to the gym because I want to look like Sean and be jacked and ripped. I gotta be a crazy person. Right because it’s edit it’s it’s a change in in going from what we’re comfortable to doing. It’s uncomfortable being an associate, get my daily guarantee. I show up to work my patients are there right? But I’m not happy that my bosses always like creeping over my you know, my back and tell me what I need to do or treatment planning for me or you know what, I’m not really happy with the way the office sterilizes things I’m not really happy with the way the office treats the patients. I’m not really happy with the way we buy our supplies and our materials, we’re not using the best things. We’re not doing the best practices, you know. So I have this dream, I have this vision that I want to open up my own practice. And I want to be bold, and I want to take on that risk. But we’re going into a financial crisis, we’re going into a recession, the Feds just announced that the US is headed obvious. I mean, it’s it’s not rocket science, but that we’re headed into a very serious recession by the end of fall. So how do I manage all these things? How do I become crazy and believe in myself, believe in my dream, make that financial, and conscious commitment that you know what I really believe in what I’m about to do, I really think that this can change the world that I can have an impact on my life, on my profession, on my family, on my goals, and I’m going to have the courage to pursue it. And if I succeed, that’s awesome. But I’m also not afraid of failure, because failure is not permanent. That’s, that’s what I’ve come to learn throughout my, you know, very short entrepreneurial career is that, who cares? If I failed, you know, I, if I didn’t try, if I wasn’t brave enough to pursue my dreams, I’ve already failed. So if, if I’m going to fail anyway, then at least let me try. At least let me go out and give it my all, you know. So I don’t know, I don’t know if I went off a tangent or not. But you know, my, my, my biggest thing is, I always want to inspire people and tell them that, you know, you can do anything that you want to do doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, doesn’t mean you’re not going to fail, doesn’t mean that you’re not going to need to pivot or change your direction or your original plan. But don’t be afraid of believing in yourself, and taking a risk and betting on yourself. And if you have the right intentions, the right people are going to come into your life and things will just play out the way they should. 

 

Shawn Zajas  06:51 

Okay, so a you threw so much at us there that was just like beautiful, profound, and absolutely inspiring, but also 100% authentic, really, to who you are. So Kareem, I will call you cream. I have to also say yes, thank you so much. You have been such an amazing friend. I mean, you have stories of being in the trenches where after the show was over, or after the show ours were over there we are on a laptop, shoulder shoulder, like how do we, you know, peeling back the curtain of our own businesses. And like, Man, this is where we’re struggling. This is where we’re needing to overcome. And I’ve always valued your perspective. But more than that, I’ve valued your friendship. And I met you April 21. And right off the bat, you carry just such a presence. You’re a natural leader, simply because of this energy that you have. And I think it comes from the fact that yeah, you aren’t, you’re crazy. I mean, Kareem is crazy. You are a crazy person that does believe you have this utter belief. In not, I wouldn’t just say you knew you believe the best and other people. And I saw that there you were, you’re the emcee of smiles at see at that event. And you’re calling out other people to just rise up, be the best who they are highlighting. Not to mention, you just have this charisma about you. Thank you. So so just to say like, it has been an honor knowing you, I’m so thankful that we met the way that we did and instantly, I was like, Man, I got to know this guy, because it’s just rare for me to see someone that that didn’t mind dancing with risk the way you did, didn’t mind believing and stepping out and betting on yourself. What I find is a struggle for dentists is these opposing mindsets. They seem opposing of this, like clinical excellence. You want to limit liability, you want to limit risk, because you don’t want to experiment and explore in someone’s mouth. Right? Like there’s a very little margin for error. You want to seek excellence and perfection. But then the business side of things, if you don’t embrace risk, if you don’t embrace innovation, if you don’t just fail forward and fail fast. You’re not gonna learn anything. You can’t play it safe. And yet, this is what you embody, like, I don’t know, like when did just take a step back? When did you realize you wanted to step up and not just be a dentist, like being a dentist is enough. Every dentists out there that is operating a practice, whether you’re an associate partner, you own your own practice, you’re part of DSO that is enough like you making that contribution to the world is enough but for you, there was something else like Did you always know you’re gonna start your own business? 

 

Kareem Osman  09:45 

So I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and my parents they immigrated here from Egypt 40 years ago now. And my my my mother, her grandfather, My I’m sorry, my mother, her father, my grandfather. In Egypt, there is president. And there is Secretary of the President, the Secretary of the president kind of is dubbed the vice president. So there isn’t really a vice president role. There’s a president and then there’s his secretary plays that Vice President role. So my grandfather was the secretary of the President. So my mother grows up in this extremely influential, very well off, you know, upbringing childhood, my grandfather, when he passed away, he didn’t know how to drive a car, you know, why? Because he had a show for his whole life. So, you know, so that’s where my mom comes from. My father comes from an extremely poor upbringing, comes from a part of Egypt, extremely poor. And when he met my mother, of course, my grandfather disapproved of that, because he wanted my mom to marry this, you know, military general, or somebody who’s very high ranking in the government. And that just the way it is in these countries, and it is, you know, it is what it is, you know, and when, when my mother insisted on marrying my father, there was a big clash, and they ended up moving to America together, and she left everything behind. So you’re growing up, in this very comfortable posh lifestyle, my dad is already used to being, you know, poor, so it’s not really anything new for him. They come to America, and they’re living in this one bedroom apartment, in Jersey City, New Jersey, my mom was living with rats, they would eat bread, because that’s all they could afford to get. So it’s this upside down shift. And growing up when they came here, and they struggled so much, especially for my mom, because it was just something crazy. You know, my mom told me, told me, my sister growing up, education is everything. You get your degree, you know, and a lot of like, you know, I would say Middle Eastern culture, you that when you’re growing up, you kind of only have a couple of options for your profession, they tell you, you can be a doctor or you can be a doctor, they don’t really give you much options when it comes to picking, you know, so Exactly. So I’ve always wanted to be a doctor, quote, unquote, actually wanted to be a medical doctor, originally, like when I was growing up, I met my buddy in college, and he was doing the dental route. He was shadowing at a dental office, he told me he’s making some money on the side, he’s like, Listen, why don’t you just come, you’ll make some extra money. It’ll go on your resume anyway, when you apply to med school. So I ended up working with him. This was like our sophomore year of college. I, you know, the guy was paying us we were being assistants, we were doing things that we weren’t supposed to be doing. He would like, let us take x rays and like Polish people’s teeth. And it was just, it was just crazy, you know, but we learned so much. I was like, You know what I actually really enjoy working with my hands actually really enjoy the interaction that you have with patients. You know, I’m actually going to really look into this whole dental thing. So I ended up taking the DTS, I ended up getting into dental school. And, you know, before I committed to NYU, I went to NYU, I had an opportunity to go work in a really big company in Dubai, my mom knows some friends, childhood friends growing up, very successful, doing big business in Dubai, kind of like, you know, working for like a Deloitte or an Accenture are like, you know, one of those big firms here in America. So I had an opportunity like that I told my mom, I want to go and take it, screw Dental, school, why would I go work? And you know, why would I take all these loans and do all that when I can go make six figures right now at the age of 22, high six figures. And my mom told me the same thing. She’s always been telling me all her life, or my father, which is your education is the most important thing, go get your degree. Because when you have that nobody can take that away from you to what you were saying, Shawn, like, that’s enough to be a dentist, right? It’s enough to have a really high degree. And she’s like, after that you can go be whatever you want. If you want to be a bum, if you don’t want to work, if you want to be homeless, I don’t care, you have your degree, like my responsibility, my commitment to you is over, then you can go do whatever you want with your life. So they kind of like pushed me into like, pursuing because I had a really good opportunity. So anyway, I go to dental school. While I was in dental school, I was like crap. You know, NYU at that time was about $125,000, including room and board. And I was like, You know what, I graduated from school and webby and a half a million dollars of debt. And the interest rate, they had just changed it. So before you used to accrue interest when you graduated, the Feds had taken that back and you started accruing interest as soon as you take out the loan. So before, you know, interest would only start accruing when you’re done and graduated the year that I entered dental school, they they took that out and then they said as soon as you take out the loan, your interest starts to accrue. So I was like, alright, you know, I was looking at some of my friends on Facebook, they were like flipping houses doing real estate and I again, I’m always I always have that entrepreneurial spirit. So I was like, you know, I’m gonna start flipping houses. And I took a course me and my buddies and we’re like, let’s go and you know, these guys are making six figures $100,000 profits in six months when they’re flipping the house, we took a course we thought we were real estate gurus, we actually raised $400,000 from an investor. And again, this is a story for a different day. But it was my first experience with, you know, you doing everything right, we took the course, we learned as much as we could we convince an investor, I’m 22 years old, I convinced an investor to give me $400,000 Cash Money, I have zero experience flipping houses, right. But the way I set up the proposal and the contract with him was I told him, everything’s in your name. And like this is we did our due diligence, this is the house, the sound, which we’re going to fix a for these are the comparable prices that are of houses selling in the area, this what we think we’ll be able to do, and everything is in your name. So you have like, if we screw up at all, or we do anything, if anything, we don’t get paid, because everything is in your name. And that’s a really important lesson that I just want to pause and share with some people that, you know, sometimes whenever we want to do something we always set up ourselves up to when we don’t really care about the other person or the other party that’s at stake. And when you become vulnerable for a second, you know, and you say, You know what, I believe so much in myself, and I know I’m going to work really hard, Mr. Investor, or whoever, Mr. Doctor, whoever you’re trying to sell something or pick, we’re always selling something, we’re always pitching something we’re pitching ourselves. I’m willing to put my gains on the line to win your trust. Because I know if I win your trust is gonna open up a lot of a lot more doors for me. You know, so anyway, house didn’t go as planned contractor school. Hold on. To our listeners story. Yeah. 

 

Shawn Zajas  16:40 

So that was free guys, I just want you to know, like, we didn’t, we didn’t charge you for that one. Kareem is just dropping some nuggets here. That one, that one was free gone. 

 

Kareem Osman  16:52 

You know, and again, we can really have another podcast about all of the different things that I’ve been through, you know, dealing with people and hardships, and just again, showing up no matter what, believing that. If I keep showing up enough times, I know that one day I’m gonna win. And I’m okay. Internally, I’ve already internalized it that I might show up my entire life. And I might not win, I might keep showing up. But the commitment and the promise that I’ve made to myself, as I will always keep showing up. Okay, so I can’t guarantee I can’t guarantee that I’m going to make it shine, I can’t, nobody can guarantee it. If you told me that zonna is going to be guaranteed to be a billion dollar company, I’ll tell you, I don’t know I believe in you. And Shawn, I really think you have everything that it takes to do it. But no one can guarantee anything for you in this life. 

 

Shawn Zajas  17:41 

But I think that is so profound, I’m going 

 

Kareem Osman  17:43 

to keep showing up when it keeps showing up. 

 

Shawn Zajas  17:48 

So So one of the ways that I’ve I’ve struggled with that cream is that I in an immature way have focused on outcome, which I can’t control instead of focusing on output, which I can’t control. And I feel like that’s where all of a sudden, I started realizing, showing up is output, I can control whether I show up every day, every week, every month every year, and I keep going at a pace that I respect. But I can’t control whether the marketplace rewards me and I achieve some outcome. And I think that’s what you just brilliantly distilled, you’re going to show up regardless of whether you win, right? Because it’s not a guarantee. But you’re going to at least have that self respect of knowing. Look, I gave it my all I lived but purposely with intention with passion that I poured myself out. And that’s, I don’t know, I feel like that’s who you are, like, again, crazy Kareem like, 

 

Kareem Osman  18:45 

I’m gonna bring it full circle back for you. I’m gonna bring all this back full circle. In the reason I’m telling you this, you know, I really like I have goosebumps even sharing this with us because it’s like, I’m thinking about what I’ve been through and where I want to go. My intention I just told you was I want to pay off my loans as fast as possible because now I’m in this $500,000 of debt that you know, in my head, I’m like, it doesn’t make sense. Let me just go start making six figures now why? Like why, you know, I don’t need to go and take out this loan to make six figures that have this opportunity and up. So anyway, we did three projects with that investor. Every single project did not go well. When I say did not go well is that we were hoping to make 150 $200,000 We found the deal. We source the money contractors was always contractors screwing us over lying to us tricking us doing things that were not right. And that’s what disappointed me the most it was never me failing. It was the people that you know, that were around me that were failing and as a result of that I failed. But being a leader, being a business owner, you have to take ultimate responsibility. You have to say had I made a better decision. That would not have been the outcome because I had the quotes from the more expensive contractors, the profit margin would have been much less, but it would have been a more of a home run guaranteed. But I chose to like, Okay, let me try it out with this guy who’s a little bit cheaper, so that the margins can be right so that the investors can be happy so that we can make money so everything can work. And there’s no right answer. That’s, that’s just the nature of business that sometimes you’re gonna make the wrong decision. And that’s okay. It’s pivoting and changing and being better. So anyway, three projects. We don’t make 250,000 we end up making 20,000. So what do I do? I go back to the investor, my agreement with the investor was 5050. And I talked to my two partners at the time, I was like, listen, I this was the first house, we ended up we were supposed to make $150,000. In six months, we ended up making like $23,000.15 months later, there were so many things that were wrong with the house, the location, again, for another podcast, right? We ended up making $23,000. So I sit down with my friends, I’m like, Listen, you know, we’ve sacrificed a lot, we haven’t gotten paid a single penny, gas, time, energy, right. But this was on the first house. But you know, if we go to the investor, we tell him, Hey, you’re going to take all the 23,000 It’s all yours. Thank you for the opportunity for trusting us with your money for taking a bet on us. This guy is like a bank. I was like, This guy’s a bank, you know, whenever we go to him in the future. If we win his trust, even if he does want to invest in us, and again, if we just want his trust, he can maybe recommend to somebody else he can know that we tried, he saw that we gave it our all. And that’s what we did. I convinced them, even though they didn’t want to do it, I convinced them I was like, Listen, guys, don’t be short sighted, it’s not about making money, this 23,000 When we split it 5050 Each of us is gonna get what $3,000 It’s not worth 3000 if even if that number was 30,000, if I did not meet what I have told the investor, I take a deep sense of, you know, ownership, when I tell somebody something, I really want to, to my best of my ability, fulfill it and follow through with it. So anyway, we give the guy the money that I couldn’t believe it. He was so kind and courteous and generous, where he said, Just because of this gesture, first of all, I’m never gonna let you three hard work, just go to waste, you’re gonna take your 50% Cut of it. But now that we went through this first, you know, experienced together, let’s try to make sure that we don’t make the same mistakes again, on the next project. So I was like, wait, what you’re, you’re saying that you’re willing to invest with us in a second project. He’s like, Yeah, and things will be better, we’re going to learn and we’re going to end. And to me, this was such a profound moment in my life, because this was a man who was in he’s a doctor, by profession. And he saw these 22 year old guys that want to do something, you know, that want to make something out of themselves. And he’s financially okay. And because we structured in a way where there is no really risks, and he knows it’s real estate, like the worst that can happen is these idiots screw it up, I still have the house in my name, I can go and remediate it, like, and he did the comps, he’s not an idiot, he saw that there’s an opportunity there. The worst case that can happen for him is that he just has to go and roll up his sleeves with himself and breakeven. And if he loses, he might lose a little bit of money. Right. But the fact that somebody believed in me was was so big for him. And it was just I couldn’t, I couldn’t just swallow or it’s like about me winning. And that’s it. And because of being selfless like that, he ended up investing in two more deals with us. And guess what, Shawn, they both work the same exact thing, other mistakes, other things, we didn’t end up making the money that we were supposed to make. And so that was dental school. I tried to pay off my loans. I couldn’t, we kept showing up. Just so you know, that was three houses, we ended up flipping eight houses, we started actually getting better. Towards the end, we figure things out. And we figured out eventually, but I never paid off my loans from doing the real estate, like the amount of money that we made, honestly was like less than 50k was like negligible, because again, so many things went wrong. Every single project was something else going wrong, different mistakes, different people screwing you over different people tricking you. Sometimes when people see that you’re nice. They take advantage of that. And they see you as you know, as somebody that’s like, well, this is an easy idiot to take money from anyway, for another podcast. I graduate school. I work as a DSO, I work at a DSO for one year. And my friends call me and they’re like, Listen, man, crypto is really hot right now. Bitcoin is really high. It’s you should really invest in it. This was when Bitcoin was around $200 I was like, Listen, man, you know, let me just just finish school. You know, I’ll keep an eye on I never paid attention to them. Three months later, a theory was 20 bucks at that time, three months later, he’s like, by the way, remember a theory and when I told you to buy it three months ago, it’s at $120 today and Bitcoin when I told you to buy it at 200 It’s like at 800 something dollars or $1,000 today, and I was like, that’s crazy man. He’s like, if you would have put some money, you would have five extra money in three months. And then I started looking into and I see these coins like Neo like 3,000x And like, you know, people put $1,000 A month 4567 $800,000 in a month. It was it was the wild wild west in crypto at that time. And I was like, so where’s this going? He’s like bitcoins going to be $10,000 Within the next 12 months. So I, I sat there and I’m like, Okay, so I’m working, I was making 120k at this job was getting $500 a day, entry level job. I didn’t do a residency. So I was happy was like working for a DSO. I was the same office that I used to volunteer and when I was in dental school, so I had to connect there. That’s how I got in right out of dental school. And I was like, I know this sounds crazy. But what if I had $20,000 in savings? From that first year of working? I was like, what if I take off a year from dentistry, I invested in this crazy crypto thing that people are talking about was on Reddit, Twitter, like seeing all these people make the stupid money like the Wild Wild West, right? And if I win, so if things go right, I pay off my loans in the year. If things go wrong, I lose 20,000, I lost a year of work. And instead of paying my loans back in 15 years, it’s now 16 years. And I was like, you know, I was living with my parents at that time. So they were pretty much taking care of like all my expenses anyway. I was like, You know what, I’m gonna take this risk, I’m gonna I’m going to take off a year from dental school, because if I do, I have to do it, right. There’s no such thing as like, I’m going to be in the office, I’m gonna be day trading on my phone, the amount of due diligence that I did in that short timespan showed me that this is a 24 hour mark. It’s not like a traditional stock market that closes at five o’clock at night, you know, at eight, nine o’clock at night, when you’re about to go to sleep, China’s waking up so they can be trading and you can lose your money. So you pretty much have to be up in alert all day on like I told my parents, they absolutely went crazy that I’m going to leave dentistry after graduating and after paying off that money to go to crypto. And then before that they saw my previous experience in real estate where things were not going as planned. And they’re like, what’s wrong with you? Like, there actually has to be like something wrong with you, because you’re not like a normal person doesn’t do what you’re doing? Why do you need to go and play with dirt and be doing construction and like working that job when, you know, you can go and have like a decent life, you know, see patients they respect you, you’re not dealing with blue collar individuals, you know, you’re dealing with nice people that you know. So anyway, I told him, Listen, I’m gonna, you told me once I have my degree, I can do whatever I want, right? I’m gonna take this risk. So anyway, long story short, lots of ups, lots of downs in crypto, I ended up making over seven figures in crypto from that $20,000 investment, I ended up paying off my loans. I ended up opening up my own practice in 2019. And for me, again, another like, pivotal moment in my life, just, you know, that’s how I’m gonna bring it back full circle was, sometimes you go down a road, my intention was I want to pay off my loans. And I thought I was gonna pay off my loans by flipping houses, because I took this class with this real estate guru and this and that. And things didn’t work out. Not once, not twice, three times, they didn’t work out, we ended up flipping eight houses kept showing up. But I still didn’t get the outcome that I wanted. And then this new opportunity comes in front of me that I never planned than ever expected that I never knew anything about. And it required more risk. You know, so I could have flunked out of dental school because I was busy preoccupied doing other things. I wasn’t focused, I wasn’t there. You know, I wasn’t laser focused on my, on my schoolwork. And now I graduate. And it seems like I’m doing this irrational thing by taking off a year from, you know, work, and risking all of my savings. And it’s the wild wild west and there’s no regulation and it’s you know, people were saying it’s really like you know, it’s a scam. Everybody says bitcoins a big bubble, it’s a scam. It’s a this and we’re not here to talk about Bitcoin. But that risk that I took, whether it was smart, whether it was calculated, whether it was silly, whether it was foolish, everybody’s gonna have their own opinion on it, it allowed me to pay off that loan. It gave me that financial freedom, where now I can open up my own practice debt free. And when I took myself when I when I had that financial burden removed from me, money no longer became and money’s always been like that. For me. It’s something nice to have. But I don’t do it for the money. By the way, I want to be a billionaire. I want to have fu money, I want to be able to because I want to do good. I want to do good things in the world. I want to be that same guy that can go to a 22 year old kid that has a dream. And tell him tell me your dream, and teach him from my life experiences and be like, You know what, I want to help you the same way that guy helped me when I was 22. You know, and pass it forward and be able to make an impact. So of course, I want to have a lot of money, but I don’t do things for the money. I think money is going to come and if it doesn’t come like I said, I’m okay with at the end of all of this. Somebody can say that guy is such an idiot, because he had something so good going for him. You know, it’s so hard to get into dental school. He had a great office. He could have opened up more offices. He could have built this beautiful DSO and sell For 15, multiple, he could have done all these things because this is my youth man, right now I’m in my 30s, I’m grinding really hard. And I’ve put a timeline for myself to a certain age where, if I’m not where I want to be, I have to kind of put the brakes on and be like, Okay, now I got to focus on my family, I got to be a dentist, I have to be responsible, because I want to have kids and I want to have a family and I want to be able to, like, they don’t they can’t put up with somebody who’s crazy. Like that was always living on the edge. But if when I do decide to do that, if I ever have to decide to do that, and I don’t believe I ever will, is that I’ve lost my youth, I lost my grinding years my like, you know, the 20s in the 30s, where you can just freakin be an animal, you can be a monster, you know, if those are gone. Yeah, I’m not saying when you’re a 40 year old, but you can’t grind, you can’t hustle the way you can when you’re in your 20s in your 30s. But it’s even though there’s no guarantee that you’ll succeed. I have this sincere faith in God, that when people show up, and when people try their best, God will reward you for your efforts, you know, in ways that you might see in ways that you don’t see, maybe there was going to be a catastrophe that was gonna happen, your life will take it away. Like, we don’t understand his wisdom. But, you know, if you do good, if you show up, if you keep working, things will work out. And I’m a big believer in that, you know, and, and that’s really just like, it’s the same story with every single successful person. You know, you’ve all read about Steve Jobs. You read about Jeff Bezos you read about Elon Musk, read about anybody that’s, that’s anybody. People always doubted them. People always didn’t believe in them. But they kept showing up. They kept trying. And guess what, there’s a lot of stories of people that kept showing up and kept trying and they didn’t make it. But if if you’re on the right track, and you’re in a good opportunity, and you’re in a good profession, like dentistry, Dentistry has so much opportunity, there’s so much that can change in dentistry, you know, if you keep showing up, I really think you’re gonna win as long as you have something that people need and people want and there’s value to it. 

 

Shawn Zajas  32:10 

So how did this lead to Casper? I’m curious. So when When did Casper get birthed in this crazy journey? Okay, so before we go there, let me just for a moment, say, you as a 22 year old, stepping out doing the real estate thing. This is where that mindset of innovation and entrepreneurship is so strong in you. Because take three failures, take eight failures, whatever you want to call it, there are so many lessons you learned. And this is one of the things that I try to drive home to dentists is that like, true learning doesn’t happen in a boardroom. It doesn’t happen in that realm of theory, where you’re just researching and learning, researching and learning is great. But oftentimes, it gives you this wrong idea of, of like, somehow you’re you’re learning something, it’s like, well, you’re not actually learning until you launch something until you interact with the marketplace. And you had a lot of I’m sure you were prepared, you’re studied, like you put everything into it. And yet, the lessons that you learned through interacting with vendors, contractors, oh my gosh, like, so by the time you got out of dental school, you had learned so much more than a dentist that was just learning clinical dentistry. Because of that experience in real estate, like you’re already years ahead of everybody else, with the entrepreneurial understanding of the marketplace of how to manage risk of how to get people to trust you, of just understanding how to work with other people to be successful, like cream that is unbelievable, I just want to honor that for a moment. Because that oh my gosh, like those moments where you could have given up on dental school because of what you were doing, you could have given up on real estate halfway through that very first thing, because once you started realizing, oh my gosh, this might make me look bad. Or it’s not gonna be the 150 it’s only gonna be the 20. Like, at any given time, you could have given up but you didn’t. And that is just like, wow, like, I don’t know, I’m just so inspired by you. 

 

Kareem Osman  34:12 

And there’s no shame in coming on and saying things that it worked the way I expected. There’s there’s really no shame in that. You know, and just to kind of put things for perspective, companies like Google, I have my friend who works at Google, you know, Google, I saw this really cool tablet at his house. I was there a couple of weeks ago, and his daughter was playing with house like, I’ve never seen that tablet before. It’s like this huge like, looks like a TV. And it said Google on it. And I was like dude, like, where did you get that from? I’ve never seen that before. He’s like, Oh, this was something that Google was saying like four years ago. We launched it into a specific market. It didn’t do well. And we pulled it off. So Google just gave it away to have like, he’s like an executive there. He’s like, they just pass them past all the ones that they give to like their executives and their families. And Google makes mistakes. Go Google spends hundreds of millions of dollars on a product, r&d, development, sales marketing, and the market didn’t want it. You know, does Google go and weep and say all Whoo, feel bad for me? I’m gonna quit. I’m gonna stop being Google. No, you know, Chad GPT came out and it’s like putting Google to shame. Is Google gonna say no, okay, we give up or no, they’re gonna put up a fight, they’re gonna keep going, they’re gonna, they’re gonna compete. They’re gonna say, You know what, we took an L, it is a setback, our stock went down, we tried to put an ad with Bard, and we just lost $100 billion. Because it made a mistake, right? We look stupid, and we look silly. But the funny thing is, Shawn, and I heard this from someone and I don’t remember who I heard it from, but it’s it’s stuck with me ever since is that failure and mistakes, even though they sting a lot, and they hurt a lot in the moment that they happen. Your customer is forgiving. If you treat them with integrity and with honesty, and you tell them I made a mistake, you might lose their business, they might come and say, Shawn, I’m not going to work with you anymore, man. Like, you know, you, you, you sold me. This, you sold me this iPhone, and you told me that you’re the best iPhone producer in the world. And it sucks. You know, I’m gonna go buy an iPhone from Alex. Right? But Shawn didn’t give up, Shawn kept perfecting it. Shawn took that feedback, Sean said, I’m gonna go back to the drawing board, I’m gonna try to reiterate and redesign that iPhone, I’m gonna keep going. And two, three years down the road, he comes out with version 2.0 that people are raving about. But you know what, I used to be Shawn’s ex customer. And I remember he was graceful. When I left him, he was very professional. I saw nothing. But if I really saw that he tried his best. You know what I’m gonna give Shawn a second chance. And that’s something that we forget about is that, you know, failure is not final man. It really isn’t. If even if things don’t go, right. Even if I can’t make a client or a patient or a customer happy on round one. It doesn’t mean that I should just okay screw I don’t care about the customer anymore. They’re leaving anyway, let me just get no, no, no, no, no, no, no, the same way that I was treating them with grace and with compassion, trying to get them to believe in to buy into whatever I’m trying to sell them the same way I’m going to part ways with them. And I’m going to tell them, thank you for the opportunity. I know that, you know, I’m disappointed that I couldn’t deliver on everything that I promised you today, but I’m not gonna give up and maybe one day our paths will cross again. And, and it’s just it goes back to those same things. And I don’t know, maybe cuz I grew up with my parents, you know, immigrating here, it was really tough. We were grew up, you know, we grew up, we didn’t have money, like my friends would buy really nice shoes. I never had like a pair of Nikes or any like brand name shoes. I would like, you know, I didn’t have these things. My friends would. You know, they would go on vacations, there was no vacation, like you will go you will go to Egypt every few years. But that just as a family, you know. And it just my parents really at a young age, I used to work in a pizzeria when I was seven years old. They really instilled in me the fact that you know, hard work. Always do right by the customer. You know, I used to work in a pizzeria that we have customers, you know, pizzas cold, 45 minutes late on the delivery, they’re like, give it to them for free. I’m like, why? Like, we’re busy, whatever. Would you rather lose the $10? Pizza? Or would you rather lose the customer? You know, and even though the customer was upset, giving them the pizza for free and heating it up and tell him we’re so sorry, it’s on us tonight. Maybe it didn’t make it right. But it didn’t write a second wrong. And that’s really important, you know, didn’t fix the first wrong, but I don’t know have two wrongs with the customer only have one wrong, plus a half like a half. Alright, that half Alright, with some people can see you will give them a second chance. The fact that they acknowledge that they were wrong, they acknowledge that they effed up, are they messed up? You know, and they, you know, things happen, people are forgiving, and that’s entrepreneurship, that’s that I think, like, those are the things that people don’t talk about is that, you know, it takes so much to be successful. It’s not enough to have a good product, you know, in me and you were chatting offline before we came on live, it’s like, you know, your reputation, your name? What do you stand for? What are your values? There’s so much that goes into it, you know, and there are no right answers. Men just gotta keep trying, keep working. And you know, if obstacles come in, they will come you have to figure out a way to solve them. 

 

Shawn Zajas  39:36 

So I don’t mean to throw other dentists under the bus cream, but I don’t know how you felt like you fit in in the dental space because in my experience, the majority of dentists are not natural entrepreneurs. You know, if you look at the DISC profile, they’re not the drivers. They’re the see the conscientious they’re really conscientious about details. They’re much Iquitos they care about almost more of like perfectionism. And that that’s not always the entrepreneur at all right? Like, like, again, everything you’ve just said about embracing risk, and not being afraid to be like, Oh, I fell short in this area that just flies in the face of, of the way that I see most dentists are wired. And yet, I feel like that’s why you belong in dentistry. So that you can, I don’t know, lead pioneer and maybe even mentor, this next gen of dentists that need to be more entrepreneurial that need to think more outside of the box for dentistry to continue to be great in the next decade. It needs leaders like you to keep doing what you’re doing. I know you’re you’re changing the game with Casper. But But like you said about being a billionaire, like, this is one thing you’re doing right now in this this section of time, you know, but it’s like, you’re not great, because you’re doing Casper Casper is great because they have you. And who knows where Kareem is going to go over the next 510 years? But I don’t know. I’m, I’m so inspired by you. 1,000% we need to do another podcast. I feel like you could be a regular contributor. But I don’t know what what do you feel like? Sorry, I never even let you answer the question about how this led to Casper? Like where did where did that come out? 

 

Kareem Osman  41:19 

Cool. So I’ll answer both of your questions. So I opened up my office in 2019. I used to use weave, I had nothing but great things to say about we’ve they were the only thing you know, that was a little for made me a little cautious was they were on the more expensive side. But I was an I am always somebody that values, quality over everything. I’m willing to spend more money on something that makes me more secure. Er makes me feel a certain way, or gives me a specific lifestyle that I want. I want my patients to have a really nice experience in my practice. So I’m willing to spend $600 a month on my phone, you know, so I made that investment. I was also using a company called DRP for paperless forms. It wasn’t the most high tech, but it got the job done. And there was a lot of good reviews about online again, nothing bad to say about Yup, I never had a bad experience with them. But you know, it’s like there’s we’ve there’s yappy we want to have online scheduling at that time, local med was a big that was before Dental, Intel bought local med. Analytics, there was Dental, Intel, they were just doing analytics at that time. I’m like, you know, every one of these companies, it’s anywhere between like 200 to 500 to $600 a month. And they’re all separate platforms that your team has to manage. So you know, my buddy and I we would joke are like, Why isn’t there an all in one, maybe one day, we’ll build an all in one. It was just like a passing thought our practice were super, super, super, you know, blessed. We have a very successful practice. We were super busy at the practice, you know, and then COVID hits. And then I’m sitting at home, we shut down and like within the second day, I’m like going crazy at homes I called my partner I’m like, Dude, you know, like, what are we going to do? Like, you know, we’re I’m actually going crazy sitting at home and doing nothing, you know. And then I was jokingly just joking around with him. I was like, you know, remember that software, we’re always talking about why don’t we go and build that he was like, You’re crazy, man. Just go and enjoy your time off and this and that. And I hung up the phone. I’m like, you know, this sounds pretty crazy. And I love crazy. Let me look into like what it takes to opening up a software company. And I did my homework, I did my research. And again, from my previous experiences of hiring contractors, hiring people, I, you know, I was like, You know what, it might make sense to hire an agency. And, you know, I contracted an agency in New York City, we were paying a lot of money for the platform, kind of just to get us to an MVP, we have to pay about a million bucks. Which is crazy. Because when you look into like a startup world, people don’t spend that much money for an MVP, right? They really quickly because 

 

Shawn Zajas  43:59 

not everyone knows what an MVP is. So just explain 

 

Kareem Osman  44:03 

a minimum viable product, something that you can come to the market with, and get a proof of concept. You know, this is something else about me. You know, you could call me cocky, you could call me arrogant, I don’t know. But I genuinely believe that things that I want to pursue are really good ideas. And that if I pursue them in the way that I envisioned them, it’s not going to fail. So you’ve been to my practice before. You know, we spent 50 of the art. Oh, thank you. But we spent 50 grand on just the class in the consultation room and somebody can be like you spent $50,000 on the glass that surrounds your career, you must be an idiot because you can go and get, you know, but for me, when a patient walks into my practice in that first three seconds, I want them to smell something specific. I want them to see something specific. I want it to feel in a specific way where I know in that first three seconds of them walking in there like I’m happy that I’m here. You know, and to me that’s worth $50,000 To spend it to get that, look, as soon as they walk in, and they see that dramatic entrance of the way our office looks in the front way, the way it looks, you know? So anyway, I had this belief that, yeah, I can build a paperless forms or I can build another online scheduling and make it really cheap and just try to get like, built the cost per name. And, you know, in that time, Casper wasn’t even named, but I was like, You know what, the industry needs an online platform. But more important than that, you know, Casper is mission statement is the industry needs help in helping doctors automate, the way they run and manage their business, you know, and the name Casper we came up with it, because it means like the one that you entrust with your most prized possession, the one that overseas takes care of something that’s extremely valuable and dear to you. And I was like, that’s the perfect name because we want Casper to be that overseer that Guardian that oversees that protects that takes care of your practice for you, I want you as a dentist, to know that we’re going to help you manage the business and the front, we’re gonna help you manage that beast of, you know, of a responsibility called the front desk. And you know, the leadership and the management. Very, very difficult for dentists, including myself. I haven’t even mastered I don’t think anybody can say they’ve mastered DSOs haven’t mastered nobody’s mastered it, right? No, no. And that’s really the vision for Casper is like, hey, online forms and paperless forms online. So all those things are cute. But it gives me tremendous pain seriously, and I’m being serious with you. And I’m not gonna say any names of any companies. But there’s companies that have raised $100 million. There’s a company recently in dentistry that raised $100 million. And I see all of their ads, and every single one of their ad is online scheduling. And the reason that bothers me is because online scheduling was so 20 years ago, we’re still selling dentists, what we were selling them is that how low they’ve put us on our like intelligence is that they’re still telling us that, hey, you need to get online scheduling is that how far back our profession is that online scheduling local Med, introduce it like 15 years ago, and we’re in a company is all they’re trying to get the dentists out there. Like they’re putting all these like, you know, beautiful ads, or all these things online schedule. And I’m like, It’s not shame on the company. It’s kind of like shame on us as dentists that we’re not expecting more from these software companies. We haven’t raised the bar to a level where if somebody comes to me is trying to sell me online scheduling, I’m like, so you raised $100 million. And instead of utilizing that money to solve a real problem that I have, you’re coming to sell me online scheduling. So again, is it shame on the company is it shame on me as a clinician, I don’t know. And that really bothers me, because it goes back to your second point of I’ve come to the conclusion over the past few years, and through the different experiences in my life, where I’m okay with saying certain things that don’t necessarily vibe with specific types of people. And I’m okay, because I don’t want those people in my circle, I want to have winners in my circle. So I want to go to 200,000 dentists, they’re all in an auditorium. And I want to tell them, maybe only 2% of you here have a winner mentality. Maybe only 2000 of you are winners, they have that winning mentality, they want to provide the absolute best care for their patients. They want their team to be respected and treated with respect, and have work life balance, and that their colleagues, their assistants, their hygienist, their office managers know that that doctor cares about them, the doctor doesn’t only care about his or her pockets, I care about my team the same way I care about my family, you know, and if that message only resonates with 2% of the people, so be it. I don’t care if I lose the other 98% of people in the noise. Because you don’t need to have you know, 10,000 offices on your platform, if we have 2000 3000 offices, but they’re so driven. They’re the top 1% performers, they value our core values, they value that patient experience, they value, differentiating themselves from the rest of the noise. That’s what’s helped us be extremely successful in my office. There’s seven or eight offices within a two minute drive of me, right. But the things that we value, the things that we do for our patients, I’ll give you a very, very quick example. And I know this was kind of like a tangent, but patient comes in, we do a crown on them a year ago to the breaks for whatever reason, right? I have in the patients like you know, I you know, we’re like well, you know, Mr. Smith, you know, the tooth wasn’t in the best state to begin with. We were kind of just doing this Let’s see what we can get here. But I don’t remember you guys having that coverage. Well, it is documented here in the notes, but it’s okay. Mr. Smith, you know what? How about this, you need an implant, you need a bone graft. I know, it’s a lot of money, I know you weren’t expecting it. But because we stand behind our quality of work, and we stand behind when I do something, I want you to know that we stand behind that work. Any money that you paid towards that crowd last year, I’m gonna put it towards your you know, and I’m gonna take that hit. Because I, again, it’s not about money, Sean, it’s about doing what’s right for the patient, and that patient had an objection, maybe somebody else doesn’t have an exemption, you don’t have to do that. But as an owner, understanding and realizing that, if I’m, again, goes back to always my core values, you have to sit down, write your core values, what you believe in, you know, sometimes people will take advantage, it is what it is, you know, I’m not doing it for those people. You know, like, sometimes I’m talking to a dentist, and they’re, they’re never going to connect with what you and I are saying, because they’re so overwhelmed. Like, when you’re trying to sell them zonna And you’re telling, trying to tell them that, hey, I’m not You’re not selling the toothbrush, if they think that they’re just selling a toothbrush, then they missed the whole point. Right, here’s, you know, you know, and I’m telling you, 98% of dentists, it will fly over their head, they think that you’re trying to convince them to buy a toothbrush so that they can buy a toothbrush. What you’re trying to sell them is that we’re building loyalty with your patients. And the mindset if that if the dentist cannot comprehend that mindset change that I’m not investing in a toothbrush, I’m investing in a loyalty program so that my patients know that I invested in them, that the other guy down the street, didn’t take that extra time and effort and commitment to go above and beyond. For me, this doctor did that. Because this doctor cares about me. Those are the types of patients that I want anyway, those are the types of patients that are gonna accept my treatment. Those are the types of patients that are going to refer their family, they’re going to bring me other like minded people that value exceptional care, value a clinician that, you know, provides those things. And, you know, that’s really where I would love to be able to. And I think I’m really hopeful with like a lot of the younger dentists because I think a lot of them are willing to embrace that change, and they’re willing to embrace. You know, investing in themselves, we just have to figure out ways to make it, you know, less as a barrier of entry, because, you know, some people need more hand holding to get them to where you want them to be. 

 

Shawn Zajas  52:39 

Yeah. Okay, so we are getting pressed on time, which means I’m going to interview you again, because there are so much I didn’t even get to in my curiosity, I want to highlight and I wanted to highlight so I have a question for you. And then I want to bring attention to one thing that you’re doing. So the question, is this. Your job just about to go into dental school? You’re 22 years old. Right? Is that when you started dental school? Okay, so Kareem of today has 10 seconds. 20 seconds to say one thing to Kareem 22 year old cream? What is it that you tell him? 

 

Kareem Osman  53:21 

You know, it’s a good question. I never really thought about it. 

 

Shawn Zajas  53:28 

So knowing what you know, now, whether that’s the adversity, whether it’s the triumphs. So I one thing you like leaving 

 

Kareem Osman  53:33 

one of one of my core beliefs that I feel like, the reason why I’m so blessed in my life, the way I am, is that sometimes, you know, we have opportunities to help other people. And those opportunities will unlock every single door for you in your entire life. And I’ll end with this quick story, you know, kinda took to make you understand. When I was applying to dental school had like a 3.5 GPA. It’s not the greatest GPA, my science GPA was around 3.2. My DHTs were like a 22. They weren’t good. Nothing great, right? Good. Above Average, my friend 3.98 GPA 2060 80s 98th percentile, but he used to help me in dental school all the time, all the time used to help me I’m sorry, in college, he’s helping college all the time. Calm the night before physics test. Hey, man, I need you to teach me everything. I’m so scared. I’m gonna fail tomorrow, you know, and he would always be there for me. And when I was applying to dental school, I would email the deans of admissions and all the admission committees and I’d be like, you know, please, like, consider me this what I’m doing but when I kept emailing them, not like accept me of things I was doing to show them why I’ll be a good fit for their school. So I get interviews to interviews and while you UMDNJ he doesn’t get any interviews. Right. I go to UMDNJ I do the interview. And, and this is now late in the, in the cycle, and I’m going to NYU interview who still hasn’t had an interview, he has a 3.98 GPA. He has like 27 DTS. So I told him Listen, man, when I went to NYU, the dean of admissions, she was doing a tour of the facility. And she said, anybody that is interested in hanging out or have has any questions after the day at NYU, you can come up to my office, I’ll be doing like little office hours to answer any questions that you might have, because they’re also trying to sell you to come to their school. So anyway, I tell my Biden, look, listen, and this is a great opportunity, I’m gonna try to slip in your name to her somehow, I don’t know how the heck I’m gonna do it. But I’m going to try to do it for you. Just send me all your information. I’m going to text you at a certain time, I’m going to tell you, hey, you know, I’m about to enter an office send me a text, I’ll make believe I’m looking at my phone. So anyway, I go into our office, I went last in line, I go into office I’m talking to I’m telling her about my mom and my family and kind of the story that I told you I and where I, you know, where I’ve come from. And, you know, I really want to come to NYU, and I’m like, this might come off the wrong way. Because cuz I texted me, my phone turned on, I told them to text me, I’m like, this might come off the wrong way. And I was like, looking at my phone. It’s very rude of me. I’m sitting with the dean of admissions, you know. And I’m like, my friend, who’s helped me all through college. He’s more qualified than me. He has better grades than me. He has better d t scores than me. He’s didn’t get an interview at the school. And I’m not telling you how to do your job. But this is somebody who is very dear to me. And in my personal statement, I wrote that I want to help people and I want to go out and I want to do good things in the world. And I really, I It’s one of my genuine things I really want to do. I really love helping other people, you know? And I told her, you know, I would just love to give you his name. Just please look into his application. The lady, I’m not even joking, Shawn. I swear to you, man. Her face was like on the floor. She’s like, is this kid for like an idiot? You know, it’s so hard to get into dental school, you have 1000s of Africans, there’s only 400 seats. You know, you got like 20,000 applicants, you already have less than a 3% chance to get in. And like you saw me about his friend. So anyway, I leave my mom and my uncle were picking me up. I tell them what happened. They flipped out on me. They went absolutely bananas. They were like You idiot when you get into dental school. Then you go and tell her about your friend who has better grades than you not before. I was like, Listen, if you love for other people, what you love for yourself. Nobody can take away what was written for me. If this is written for me, this has my name on if this blessing is meant for me. No, I have that belief. No one is going to take it. This is mine. It’s right. It’s already written. It’s pre predestined. It’s mine. No one on the face of this planet can take it from me. And if it’s not mine, nobody can give it to me. Not you. Not him, not her nobody. Right? Oh my god, they went crazy. They went absolutely crazy. So anyway, December 1 comes. He gets an interview that night. So he gets an interview at NYU that night. December 1 comes, I get waitlisted he gets in that’s insane. Right. And anyway, fast forward. I, I reached out to the admissions team. They told me like, Listen, you know, I had gotten like A B and like a lit class or whatever. And they’re like, you know, and my score on the DTS for reading was like an 18. It was like, average, like, you know, minimally accepted, you know, so they’re like, listen, dental school requires a lot of reading a lot of comprehension. Like, I know how to read and write English, I swear to you guys, I promise. But we want to see, maybe take some upper level courses and your last semester of college and submit your grades, you’re on the waitlist you didn’t get rejected, then we’ll read discuss it in March. So anyway, I take the classes, I’m updating them every month with my grades, how things are going my midterm scores. And I get a call, really literally like a month or whatever, you don’t have to finish the semester and I get a call from from Dean of Admissions. And she tells me, you’re in. You know, so I got in, I went to visit her in that incoming semester. Just to thank her for the opportunity. You’re about to change my life. Like my parents like the way they grew up poor. You know, like, they when they came to America, they’re like, nothing, you know, I’m like, This is life changing. For me. It’s life changing for my family, this life changing for, you know, for everybody that I care about. And she told me, she’s like, I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I have brothers and sisters. They’ll be interviewed on the same day and I asked them, I have husband and wife. I have family. And I literally sometimes bring them in the same room like why should I choose you over him? Or why should I choose you over her? And they’ll give me an answer. siblings, friends. She’s like, I’ve Never had somebody in 30 years differ. Tell me about a friend. She’s like when I read your personal statement, and I set and I saw that you said you want to help people, you, I believe that you’re going to do those things. Because if somebody’s willing to do that for their friend, then somebody is going to go out and do that for other people. So, you know, even though that decision at that time was very hard, and I’m not gonna lie to you in December 1 came in I was weightless. I was like, Oh, crap, maybe my parents were right, maybe I should have, you know, kept my mouth shut. Right. But no, it’s when you believe in these things. When all goes back to the same thing, is that when you have these core philosophies, where do you have these core beliefs when you have these guiding principles, always stick to them no matter what. Because at the end, things will always work. And as long as you’re alive, you have a chance for it to work. 

 

Shawn Zajas  1:00:53 

Okay, so someone is interested to learn more about what is you do with Casper? Where do they find out? How do they how do they reach you, 

 

Kareem Osman  1:01:00 

they can go to meet casper.com It’s really not about Casper, Shawn. And I think you know that by now. It’s it’s about what we want to do for the profession. The relationship for me is more important than anything. You know, and I think that’s whenever I want 

 

Shawn Zajas  1:01:16 

dentistry, I want dentistry to find out about what you’re doing. Because I believe leaders and pioneers like you, I want you to have resources, because with resources comes the ability to have greater impact. Absolutely. And this is just the start of the way that you are transforming Dental, I am so excited a that I know you. As much as I would love to honor the brilliance of your mind, you have an uncommon heart, Kareem. And that’s what makes you just special. So I’m, again, I feel I feel so blessed that I have you in my corner as a friend, that I can just call and say, Hey, man, I need help with this. And the fact that you know that. That’s my heart for you, too. You’re just a blessing. I appreciate you. Thank you so much for letting me interview you today. And I also look forward to being able to share the next interview we do with dentistry as well. 

 

Kareem Osman  1:02:09 

Absolutely. Thank you, Shawn, for everything. And, you know, I really, we didn’t even talk about zonna or Casper or anything. And my final remark is, you know, people invest in you, your patients, your nice office, your $50,000, glass, all of those things are nice. They’re in cool. But ultimately, when the patient is sitting with the clinician, that those words that come out of your mouth, the way you make them feel, forget I’m sorry, not coming out of your mouth, those words that come out of your heart, they’re not coming out of the heart, you’re not going to sell the treatment plan. They’re only coming out of your mouth, or they’re only coming out of your pocket or they’re only coming out because you want to make your loan payment on your range rover. Your true acceptance case is not going to go up. You know, but when you’re making decisions, and they’re coming out of your heart, because you genuinely care and you genuinely want to do the right thing. Your case, acceptance is gonna go up, right? So there’s a lot there’s a lot that goes into entrepreneurship and innovation and stuff like that. It really was my absolute honor and pleasure sitting with you here today, man. I’m really excited about dentistry, really excited about the future of dentistry, I really think there’s going to be colleagues that share the same, you know, core principles and beliefs and they want to do good and they will do good. And if we can just be a little blip or a part of their success story. That will be you know, one of the greatest things that I’ve personally ever been able to accomplish. And I love art. I love my profession. I love my colleagues. I love meeting people like you. There’s so much good that we can do in the world. There’s so much opportunity, you know, and it’s just keep showing up. That’s it. 

 

Shawn Zajas  1:03:54 

Hey, man, hey. Well, Chris, thank you so much again. I appreciate you, man. My brother take care of it.