Quitting dentistry for our startup Klara. Here is my story.

Hello everyone,

My name is Ömer (co-founder of Klara) and I am a 34-year-old father of two. About 5 years ago, I wanted to quit my dentistry career and go into the computer field, which has been my dream since I was a child. I used to do something anyway, but now I wanted to make it more professional and completely quit dentistry and change my profession.

First, I learned Java, then Kotlin, and of course, I worked on data structures and algorithms. I attended Harvard's free CS50x course. I learned C, Python, JavaScript at the basic level. I developed 2 applications with Kotlin, and one of them was downloaded more than 10 thousand times. I worked on a project at a Singapore-based company for a short time. And I have been working on an application called Klara for about a year. If everything goes well, we are thinking of incorporating a company.

I am still practicing dentistry, albeit partially, but if the upcoming period goes well, I think I will complete my professional transition process soon. Even if not, I have really gained great experiences.

And if anyone is thinking of doing something like this, I can tell them this, you really have to want it incredibly. Because it will not be an easy process. Especially if you are thinking of doing this at an older age. That is, when you are married, have 2 children and have a job like me.

Because everything that is ready will come easier, the difficulties of building something new will constantly try to make you give up. Maybe the people around you will not want it as much as you do and you will not get enough support. You will have sleepless nights because you are juggling several jobs, and sometimes there will be times when your money is not enough.

In order to be ready for all of these and maybe more, you must really want that profession or career that you want to change. That is the only reason I have been able to continue for so long. I did not want to be a dentist, I wanted to work with computers. Now I am closer to my dream than ever.

Thanks for reading.