What would you do if you stopped waiting, and just started?

At 18, Vishar Yaghoubian didn’t have a roadmap, a network, or all the answers, just a question she couldn’t ignore.

So she started.

Hundreds of cold emails. Conversations with experts across North America. Learning everything she could about a problem most people overlook every day.

That curiosity turned into Toothpod, the 1st research-backed re-mineralizing dental gum now used in over 400 dental clinics in the US. Its designed for the moments when brushing isn’t possible.

But this conversation isn’t about the product.

It’s about what it really takes to build something from nothing—before anyone believes in it, before it looks “real,” and long before it works.

Because sometimes the difference between an idea and a compan ...