The Moment I Realized Dental Care Was Broken Three weeks of pain, dozens of phone calls, and an out-of-network referral. The breaking point that became a company. Long enough that it stops being sharp and urgent and be- comes Constant. something else. I was living in Manhattan at the time, working as an Al engineer.
I had every reason to believe I should be able to ac- cess care without much difficulty. But when I was Tobi Bosede *Founder & CEO told I needed a dental crown, the first quote I re- ceived was close to four thousand dollars. That was the moment things stopped making sense. Not be- cause care is expensive.
But be- cause I could not clearly understand why. I could not compare options. I could not get a straight an- swer on pricing without calling multiple offices. And every conversation seemed to lead to more un- certainty, not less.
THE MOMENT | REALIZED DENTAL CARE WAS BROKEN So I did what most patients end up doing. I started searching. I spent days moving from website to website, trying to piece together information that should have been easy to find. Pricing was rarely listed.
Reviews told only part of the story. Phone calls became the only way to get basic answers, and even then, clarity was inconsistent. All of this while I was in pain. Eventually, I found a provider out of network at a teaching hospital.
It took another two weeks before I could be seen. That is how long it took to get care in a system that, on paper, was supposed to work for me. That experience did not just frustrate me. At the time, I was building AI tools designed to help consumers avoid unexpected credit card charges.
My work was centered around trans- parency. Helping people understand what they were paying for, and why. It made me start asking a different kind of question. If we could make finan- cial systems more transparent, why could we not do the same in healthcare?
Why were patients still be- ing caught off guard by costs, especially in some- thing as essential as dental care? The more I looked, the clearer the pattern be- came. The problem was not just cost. It was the time it takes to get answers.
The lack of transparency. The disconnect between what pa- tients need and how the system is designed to oper- ate. Simple things felt unnecessarily difficult. Comparing providers.
Understanding _ pricing. Finding care quickly when it actually mattered. These are problems we have already solved in other parts of our lives. We can order food, book travel, and compare products in minutes.
But when it comes to healthcare, we are still navigating a sys- tem that feels fragmented and opaque. That gap is what led me to start building DentalFynd. Not to change dentistry itself, but to change how people experience it. Give pa- tients a clearer, more direct way to find care.
Help them understand pricing. Reduce the time it takes to make a decision when they are already dealing with something stressful. Building something like this, especially as a first- time founder, has been a process of learning in real time. One of the most important lessons has been understanding how much you do not know at the beginning.
Feedback has become essential. It does not always come in a way that is easy to hear. And you do not always act on every piece of it. But learn- ing how to listen, especially when it is uncomfort- able, has shaped how I build and how I lead.
It has helped me better understand users. It has exposed gaps I would have otherwise missed. It has made the product stronger. Entrepreneurship can also be isolating.
That is why community has mattered so much in my jour- ney. Being around other founders, having access to mentorship, and learning from people who have navigated similar challenges has made a meaning- ful difference. It has changed not just how I build, but how I think. “Three weeks. That is how long it took to get care ina system that, on paper, was supposed to work for me.” TOBI BOSEDE For me, this work is not just about building a com- pany.
It is about solving a problem I experienced firsthand. Because what stayed with me from that experience was not just the cost. It was the uncer- tainty. The time spent searching while in pain.
The feeling of not knowing if I was making the right de- THE MOMENT | REALIZED DENTAL CARE WAS BROKEN cision. The realization that even with resources, ac- cess was not straightforward. That is what should not be normal. And yet, for many patients, it still is.
I am building because I believe it can be different, and because I know what it feels like when it is not. Tobi Bosede Tobi Bosede is the founder and CEO of DentalFynd, an AI payment platform that enables dentists to fill chairs and avoid no-shows. She is also President of People of Color in Dental, a nonprofit professional association that empowers racial minorities to thrive in their dental careers alongside allies through education and relationship building. She has an Al and software engineering background, having built billion-dollar systems for corporations, which she has translated to dentistry to connect dentists directly to patients.
She holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, and the Wharton School.