Launchpad
Living the American Dream and Launching OrthoNu with Dr. Sima Yakoby Epstein Luke Shapiro, DDS
D
r. Sima Yakoby Epstein is a first-generation American. Her family is from Georgia, a country located in Eastern Europe and West Asia. She grew up in a very disciplined, traditional, and loving home and was raised on ethics, hard work, and living the American dream. Her dad was a taxi driver who grew his own fleet to over 60 medallions. She completed dental school at UPenn, and after practicing cosmetic dentistry for a couple of years, returned to UPenn to become an orthodontist. She practiced in New York City for about 8 years with Lemchen Salzer Orthodontics. WHEN DID YOU CREATE ORTHONU? The concept for OrthoNu started to evolve in November 2020. As an orthodontist, I felt a real disconnect between doctors and patients after they left the office. There was really nothing in that goodie bag that was helping patients sustain their health and well-being throughout those two to three years of treatment. When COVID hit, orthodontists were faced with managing a lot of stress and anxiety, as well as fielding emergencies from
26 Fall 2023 Dental Entrepreneur
friends and even people we didn’t know. It was frustrating that we didn’t have a proper tool to give our patients in the event of an orthodontic issue. Our best solution for orthodontic emergencies was to use a dirty toenail clipper or a plier that could cause more problems than solutions. I wanted a better choice, so in my basement, I started devising what would become Tweakz. I would look over at my husband, who is also an orthodontist, and ask, “What else do we need?” And I just kept adding tools to this little tool that resembled a Swiss army knife. After creating one for braces, we also realized the need for one for aligner patients. So far, I have created 18 products in the OrthoNu pipeline. HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE NAME ORTHONU? Growing up in Georgian culture, there’s a slang word that everyone always uses at the end of a conversation - “nu.”I also thought that if you look at the letters N and U together in a creative way, it looks like an infinity sign. DentalEntrepreneur.com
