Episode Transcript
[00:00:06:00 - 00:00:29:51] Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Evolution of Dental podcast, brought to you by Evolution Dental Science. I'm your host, Rob Norton. Today we're joined by someone who has solved an immensely huge problem in the lab world. So we love to talk about scanners and 3D printers and milling machines and all the really cool tech. Frankly, the reason I got into this industry, however, none of that matters if we can't juggle all these things.
[00:00:29:56 - 00:00:40:00] Speaker 1: And so our guest today had a brilliant solution to pull all of this data together into one intelligent place. Seth Smith, welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:40:04 - 00:00:47:08] Speaker 2: Thank you so much. That is a nice intro. Wow, that intro sounds very prepared, fair play to you.
[00:00:47:13 - 00:01:09:21] Speaker 1: I've been excited to talk to you about this because it's one of those things that, well, as I was saying, everyone loves to talk about scanners and printers and all the cool CAD stuff. I mean, exocad is my native language. But at the end of the day, none of that really matters if we can't pull all the data in to work with it and give it to the technicians and bill people for it, because, I mean, I love to work, but, you know, I gotta get paid.
[00:01:09:21 - 00:01:16:10] Speaker 1: Everyone's got to get paid! And you got to get to know what you're being paid for. So yeah, how, or what inspired you to jump into this?
[00:01:16:15 - 00:01:33:52] Speaker 2: You know, the story began with, I would say about 7 or 8 years ago. We went into direct consumer clear aligners. In doing so, the biggest thing we developed was actually our in-house software. We were, of course, doing something similar as you would have seen companies like Smile Direct Club and those things direct to consumer.
[00:01:33:57 - 00:01:51:19] Speaker 2: And given the fact that I come from, you know, always just a family correlation and my mother's a dentist, so I couldn't stay away from dentistry, of course, because that's like not allowed, right. And, in a nutshell, I just ended up, we went from being a provider of aligners direct to patients, and then we did provide them to dentists.
[00:01:51:19 - 00:02:14:58] Speaker 2: Dentists liked using our software that we had provided, that we had created. And then we've sort of transitioned into a full service lab. Then what we did was, we recognized actually, dentist probably preferred our software than our products because we actually cared much more about the software, like much, much more. And [we] probably had a stupidly high remake rates because we were just so focused on software at the time.
[00:02:15:03 - 00:02:32:22] Speaker 2: And. Yeah. And just. Yeah, in a nutshell, like, we had different labs approached us asking like, you know, "Is this available to buy?". Things like that, and it was an internal system at the time. We actually always thought it would be the dentists that would want to pay for the software that we provide.
[00:02:32:22 - 00:02:55:07] Speaker 2: And, it didn't actually end up being that story in the end. But when we went in because we were just sort of, not even looking at anyone else in the industry, we had no idea how many pain points the labs had to deal with every day. So really, it was just an evolution of, an element of us being obsessed with problems, obsessed with workflows, and an element of luck that nobody else was willing to help these labs.
[00:02:55:12 - 00:03:17:20] Speaker 1: Yeah. Because everybody loves all the new scanners and stuff. And it's awesome that people like Medit and Trios and iTero all have their own little portals, but it's not like every doctor uses the same scanner. And so labs are juggling all these different platforms. Oh, I gotta check to make sure I got my cases from Trios, and I gotta check to make sure I went to my Medit Link, and then so on and so forth.
[00:03:18:06 - 00:03:31:57] Speaker 1: I've seen the other end of your software. Just full disclosure, Evolution uses GreatLab, and it's great, pardon the pun. And I was when I first looked at it, it was incredibly impressive because I've looked at, not to throw anyone else under the bus.
[00:03:31:57 - 00:03:52:51] Speaker 1: We'll leave them out of the conversation. But I've used other lab management software before, and GreatLab was just on another level, just seeing how all the components from several different sources come together into a clean, uniform outcome for the lab to work through one process to the next, from one department to the next.
[00:03:52:51 - 00:03:55:30] Speaker 1: So I suppose what my question to you is, is
[00:03:55:36 - 00:04:00:04] Speaker 1: how did you jump into pulling all these components together?
[00:04:00:09 - 00:04:15:31] Speaker 2: Thanks. Firstly I'll also say thank you so much. That's a very nice thing to say. Thank you. I look forward to sharing that with the team and the team seeing that, because, I have an unbelievable team with me. You know, it's not just me. There's members of our management team. There's a team of 15 developers, and they all, they're
[00:04:15:32 - 00:04:35:22] Speaker 2: the ones that do the magic more than me. So, your question was, how did we effectively decide to create the partnerships with the scanning companies, right? Yeah. Like we did have, scraping options, like, very long time ago, but we recognized the stability of it is never is, it's incomparable to an API connection. So it's just not stable.
[00:04:35:26 - 00:04:53:10] Speaker 2: And, I can tell you right now that I, thanks to, actually, Andy at Evolution. He was the reason why we managed to get connected to iTero. That was a huge one because, you know, they're a big company. And, he did really, really help make that integration happen. So, actually credit where credit's due and, Andy actually made that happen
[00:04:53:10 - 00:05:12:04] Speaker 2: at the end of it. Now, we did engage with iTero for like a year and a half before, like I'm there. I really loved working with them. They're fantastic partners. But yeah, sometimes you need someone who has great connections to just help you, speak to the correct people at any big company. Right. You know, so that was it.
[00:05:12:17 - 00:05:27:02] Speaker 2: But ultimately our decision was made to not do a scrape and be direct. It was just based on stability, which we believe the labs need. They need stability and they need, reliability. So yeah, that's all I have to say about it. And tell me, with the software you have, how long have you been using it
[00:05:27:02 - 00:05:29:02] Speaker 2: actually, Robert?
[00:05:29:07 - 00:05:48:28] Speaker 1: I've been using it kind of intermittently for a couple of months now. I know I do some of the lab work with Evolution. I obviously do the podcast. I do a lot of teaching and training. It was my primary wheelhouse, mostly centered around exocad and other digital dental applications. 3D printing, milling, all that kind of good stuff.
[00:05:48:33 - 00:06:03:56] Speaker 1: I was troubleshooting some exocad stuff ten minutes before we got on here. Actually. So that's mostly how I interact with it. So seeing, like, as I said before, I've worked with, you know, not to throw anyone else onto the bus. And so I'll leave the names out. But I've worked with a few different lab platforms.
[00:06:04:09 - 00:06:30:48] Speaker 1: My background is that I had my own, technology center, dental laboratory for about ten years before I started working with Andy and the team at Evolution, and we had we were using QuickBooks, believe it or not, to manage our lab. And I see you laughing. And that's the appropriate response. And we started using another lab software and went back to QuickBooks, because at the end of the day, it was like, this is not really actually that helpful.
[00:06:30:53 - 00:06:51:59] Speaker 1: And it was it was actually more effective to have a couple of staff members juggling the prescriptions coming in from all the different sources than it was to try and work through the other software. So when I saw, recently how GreatLab handled this kind of stuff, I was just blown away, especially seeing how how customizable it is.
[00:06:52:04 - 00:06:59:14] Speaker 1: In fact why don't you, if you don't mind, speak a little bit to the customizability of your platform, which is all web based?
[00:06:59:19 - 00:06:59:54] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[00:06:59:59 - 00:07:03:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't require any local software, which is also pretty awesome!
[00:07:03:28 - 00:07:20:48] Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, like the only thing that you need locally is STL files most of the time. Right. And we have a way to do that. But that's probably another bigger conversation. But yeah, it's a 100% cloud based system. If systems are local they just, you know, and there's actually nothing wrong with the way people have built those systems.
[00:07:20:48 - 00:07:38:19] Speaker 2: It's just not to do an over-the-air update. It's not instant. You know, we can push three updates in a week, you know, like we can. And we're literally like developing hundreds of features. So and by the way, sometimes a feature is actually removing something, you know, that could be nobody's using this feature and so be it.
[00:07:38:21 - 00:07:44:05] Speaker 2: We've wasted a lot of money on it. And and nobody likes. But for that that's the nature of that's the nature of warranty, right?
[00:07:44:10 - 00:07:46:58] Speaker 1: Sometimes learning what not to do is the lesson.
[00:07:47:03 - 00:07:50:58] Speaker 2: Yeah. Saying no is a strategy. Saying yes is an impulse.
[00:07:51:00 - 00:07:53:00] Speaker 1: I like that!
[00:07:53:01 - 00:08:11:02] Speaker 2: Yeah and look because, like, you know, a lot of the industry has consisted of, people making these wonderful products for the dentists' experience. They make the scanner work, and it's like, bing, bing, bing, send the case to my lab, and everything after is just chaos, right?
[00:08:11:03 - 00:08:13:36] Speaker 2: A little bit right?
[00:08:13:36 - 00:08:24:05] Speaker 1: Yeah! Because when the doctor scans after that or, let's be honest, most of the time the assistant scans, it just goes off into a black box. The lab handles, magic happens. And then the case comes back. Right?
[00:08:24:10 - 00:08:40:40] Speaker 2: No you're spot on. You're spot on. I'm sure you know it. Like it's just and a lot of these companies have... And I get it like some are cloud based and some are local. And there is a way to connect to those environments, but a lot of them just really didn't think about the previous guy, and to the next guy.
[00:08:40:52 - 00:08:57:53] Speaker 2: Right. That's just been the industry and just, you'd just be surprised because I like, you know, I went to the German show IDS. When we went around to a lot of the booths, it was just like nobody really was thinking about the next person or, like, you know, the formatting of the file, you know.
[00:08:57:53 - 00:09:16:55] Speaker 2: Oh, but how do I deal with that? Because actually, that shade. I need the shade on the file name, or I need to know the shade from the previous thing, and, you know, I need. Oh, now you got translucency with zirconia discs and, like, just like granular things that are so important and and that's kind of what we try to do is to separate ourselves is we really, really obsess about the details.
[00:09:16:59 - 00:09:30:01] Speaker 2: And to us it's like it's either we can really solve the issue which is or like, you know, we try to get 80, 70-80% there. But I find a lot of other companies think that they're there when they're at 30-40%, if that makes sense?
[00:09:30:02 - 00:09:31:01] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely!
[00:09:31:02 - 00:09:42:41] Speaker 2: You know, the problem is not solved. And I don't think the problem ever will be solved 100%. But the goal is to see how quickly can we get to 80%. Right. That's the main thing that we focus on every feature we do.
[00:09:42:46 - 00:10:09:14] Speaker 1: Absolutely. The thing that we... we talk to a lot of doctors here and some developers as well, like yourself. And one of the things that you come to find is that every lab, every doctor, every practice, moreover, is a cult of personality centered around whoever the central doctor is or doctors, and then whoever the lab founder is, generally. And of course, whatever way they're doing it is the right way, and it's the only way that anyone should ever do it.
[00:10:09:19 - 00:10:35:14] Speaker 1: Yeah. It doesn't happen to be the same from one doctor to the next, or one lab to the next. And so the way that you can customize, GreatLab down to, some of the nth degrees, to incorporate all of the very specific niche use case scenarios with like, as you were saying, like we need the file names to feature this shade.
[00:10:35:26 - 00:10:51:32] Speaker 1: We need them to be in this order or that order or have the doctor or not have the doctor name, or we're back to doing this, like, oh, we use pre-shaded materials. So it has to do this way. Or we stain everything by hand because only you know, Curmudgeons would do that. Yeah. All these different specifics to it.
[00:10:51:37 - 00:11:09:41] Speaker 1: And so what was that journey like going from just okay now we've got a platform. How do we take it from just a one-size-fits-all to a hyper customizable, like there's so many things I notice that can be optimized and customized specifically with GreatLab.
[00:11:09:46 - 00:11:26:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, again, thank you very much for that nice compliment again. We have obsessed about customization, given the fact that the company was effectively founded in the United Kingdom. We immediately from day one decided we would be a global company, meaning that we would build things for the USA, a buildings for even Australia as well.
[00:11:26:55 - 00:12:00:37] Speaker 2: So we've from day one had universal charts built in. And, you know, complexity is unavoidable in dentistry. So your job as a solutions provider is to manage it and make it simple for the user. Obviously, in our back end, that doesn't matter. It's all about your experience being simple. So you're dead right... and probably the biggest eye opener I had was I would say with tasks like, do you know, tasks? This is a little bit of time ago, two years ago let's say, and when we had like, you know, we're dealing with some, there's some lab I can't remember.
[00:12:00:37 - 00:12:18:39] Speaker 2: I won't mention them here, but because I don't know if they want me to, but, like, they had the craziest requirements for, like, workflows of tasks. And, they were like, if it's that, do this, if it's "pour the stone", whatever it was. But it was like a series of rules of rules, of rules, of rules.
[00:12:18:44 - 00:12:37:19] Speaker 2: And then it was even like, oh, with that technician, don't do that task. And, you know, so but it started to open up and it's good because, you don't kind of rise by adding more. You rise by removing what doesn't matter. So in doing so, we were really, really obsessed with how do we put in the rules and let the labs have control over these things?
[00:12:37:23 - 00:12:56:40] Speaker 2: I've seen first hand, if a lab feels comfortable using a piece of software and they know the rules are there, they will work, they will tinker with it. The problem is, I've seen, like, you know, labs have forever had to create these crazy workflows. So I went to one lab recently, and, you know, he created a keyboard shortcut that auto deletes STL files via an FTP.
[00:12:56:44 - 00:13:03:25] Speaker 2: And he's like, look how easy this is. I just press Ctrl, shift A9KL, and it does it! And I was like, oh.
[00:13:03:29 - 00:13:04:13] Speaker 1: I was like, how?
[00:13:04:20 - 00:13:19:15] Speaker 2: What? You know, he literally thought it was like, yeah. And in fairness to him, like it actually was a really good solution for the problem we had. But it had gone so to that point that we've, I started working with him, which has been a wonderful journey but he's gone in and he's created so many rules, right.
[00:13:19:20 - 00:13:34:58] Speaker 2: And the rules are really important. And that's very important. And understanding that from the get go and to be perfectly honest with you, it's still evolving. It's still more being it. There's still more being added. I'm sure you even experienced it. Like, I assume you do. So you do a lot of exocad teaching, correct?
[00:13:35:03 - 00:13:35:52] Speaker 1: Absolutely.
[00:13:35:57 - 00:13:52:45] Speaker 2: Yeah. Right. Okay, so exocad has just had to evolve and evolve and evolve out of those things, but at the same time, like, exocad might not necessarily have the data variables, from a different provider, such as 3Shape or Medit. And therefore when you bring files across it it doesn't work as perfect as if they had done it.
[00:13:52:45 - 00:14:13:11] Speaker 2: Right. Right. What we try to do is, because we're kind of like the, let's call it the river connecting the 2 or 3 of them, whatever it is. We have to factor in everyone's preferred methodology and try and make it the best we can for you guys. Like that's it. And at the end of the day, we don't focus on anyone except the labs to make it so that we can create those workflows.
[00:14:13:16 - 00:14:22:38] Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's been a wonderful, wonderful... Complex, yes, yet sophisticated journey. Yeah. It has been. Yeah.
[00:14:22:43 - 00:14:37:58] Speaker 1: My experience with it is less like a river and more like a funnel. And, I think that that's actually where a lot of the value comes from is because you take all these diff- it's like a reverse delta, you know, goes from all these different variables coming from- So I was, working with a doctor yesterday, as a matter of fact.
[00:14:37:58 - 00:15:04:45] Speaker 1: And he was frustrated by the situation where his, new Shining scanner was saving files and they wouldn't show up in exocad with the opposing arch. So I said, why would that be? And so we backtracked, and it goes back to something that you mentioned earlier. It turns out his assistant who enters the cases into the Shining, before he does the scanning, they did scan an opposing, but they didn't enter that
[00:15:04:45 - 00:15:23:29] Speaker 1: there was an opposing. So when it left Shining and got to exocad, there was no data for it. I mean, obviously the STL, the opposing STL was there, but there was no data for exocad to pull into the database saying that there is an opposing. So when you hit Design on the case, it didn't, you know, where did it go?
[00:15:23:33 - 00:15:46:52] Speaker 1: Simple solution is "oh yeah, here you go" from either end. And to see that with something like GreatLab where you have all these different variables from all these different scanning companies and all the different techniques for entry pulled into something that can be customized for an individual lab with, as you said, their own wild and very unique workflows that they've developed.
[00:15:46:52 - 00:16:10:29] Speaker 1: A lot of times, I find that the lab owners, they have these crazy workflows and they work. They do work for them, but they forget why they developed them, they forget what problem initiated this workflow, but they're so far down the pipeline that they can't go back and change gears. So it's like all they can do is continue to push forward and then be able to say, okay, instead of, hey, Mr. Lab Owner, you have to rethink your entire workflow.
[00:16:10:29 - 00:16:26:36] Speaker 1: It's actually we can adapt and shift to that, pull these things together into a way that each step, each stage has a uniform point of origin. That I think is very, very valuable.
[00:16:26:41 - 00:16:32:05] Speaker 2: It was interesting actually, the way you mentioned there about labs' workflows. Right. I was thinking a lot about that point.
[00:16:32:05 - 00:16:50:12] Speaker 2: you said. With the lab workflows... You'd be surprised how many labs we go into and when we ask, why is it done that way? And they say, it's just the way we always did it right. I got to tell you, if anyone's listening to this right now in your lab, you need to write down the reason behind it.
[00:16:50:12 - 00:17:14:56] Speaker 2: Because the standard operating procedure, or SOPs is a great move for your lab to try and, one, make it easier to train your team, train your staff. But also like, you'd be surprised at, like, how more valuable your business actually becomes if you, if you systemize things and you standardize things and you make it more simple and training is lower and labor costs are easier to manage because people coming in, you also have an expectation of how long it takes for them to understand something.
[00:17:14:56 - 00:17:21:36] Speaker 2: So, Yeah. So, sorry I've gone on a tangent here, but to your question, it's a combination of everything, right?
[00:17:21:41 - 00:17:37:28] Speaker 1: I think that speaks a lot to what you mentioned earlier about growing. And I thought this was a very interesting little snippet and maybe could make for, like, a little clip because the point you made about it, we grow by removing processes that are unnecessary. The way you put it was a lot more succinct.
[00:17:37:34 - 00:17:46:17] Speaker 2: Yeah I know I'm on a quote master session right now right hehe. No no honestly, I just had very wise people say them to me.
[00:17:46:22 - 00:17:53:36] Speaker 1: Do you have any plans or thoughts about expanding this kind of technology or this technique into other industries?
[00:17:53:41 - 00:18:13:52] Speaker 2: You know, the straight up answer that is a solid no. No. Absolutely not. Because, you know, you got to make the main thing the main thing, right? The main thing is the main thing, and we are only obsessed in this vertical of dentistry. Like, maybe one day we will have an ability to make it better for the labs' dentists to book
[00:18:13:52 - 00:18:35:09] Speaker 2: in the case, I don't know, but what I do know is the fact that we are, obsessed with, we're just very, very obsessed with, the dental industry alone. Now, look, obviously, I can't... well actually, no I will say. I speak for the entire business when I say the next few years are just obsessed with one vertical, solving one big problem, which is effectively, the workflow of a dental order.
[00:18:35:23 - 00:18:36:52] Speaker 2: That's it.
[00:18:36:57 - 00:18:58:33] Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of success stories based on exactly that, where, or failure stories based on the opposite of that, where you have a company, I can think of a couple again, not going to throw anybody under the bus, but I did have a couple in the scanning industry specifically where they're like, we're going to be scanners, but we're also going to be CAD software, and we're also going to be management, and we're also going to be out of business.
[00:18:58:38 - 00:19:05:55] Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot to be said for just focusing on what you're good at, having a single, unified vision and target in mind for that.
[00:19:06:07 - 00:19:12:47] Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos has this really interesting talk. He does it at a Y Combinator and he talks about he's like, does it make the beer taste better?
[00:19:12:47 - 00:19:31:52] Speaker 2: Okay. And it's based on the whole concept of, beer factories used to have to make their own electricity. Okay. So they have to literally have an electricity plant next to their factory because you couldn't just buy electricity off the grid. Didn't exist. Okay. And the question is, did you having electricity factory make your beer taste better?
[00:19:31:52 - 00:19:53:05] Speaker 2: And the answer was no, right. So does it make the product better? And if it doesn't, most of the time, should you invest your time and your effort into it? No, because you have a limited amount of focus every single day. You have a limited amount of decisions, you can make a limited amount of resources you have, and therefore you need to expend them on the most important problem you're trying to solve.
[00:19:53:10 - 00:20:07:28] Speaker 2: You know, it's funny, when I was 13 years old, I was watching Steve Jobs do keynotes and, it was because I just thought his simplicity was so, revolutionary. Right? Even though I was 13, I was just a very big nerd. I didn't have enough friends to go out, so I'd watch that. Right.
[00:20:07:32 - 00:20:25:04] Speaker 2: But, when it came back to that, Jeff Bezos thing is like, that's why, for example, we use AWS, like, we know how we could go into a server farm and have our own servers and things like that. But we use AWS because it's the most secure platform and it's the most reliable platform, and it's, the most redundancy possible.
[00:20:25:04 - 00:20:46:00] Speaker 2: So. And it doesn't, it makes no difference to our users if we have our server like our physical servers, we buy them and we put them in a data warehouse. Or if it's AWS makes no difference and one over the other has much more management, time, risk, multiple other negatives to it. So you have to make a decision to focus your main thing on the main thing.
[00:20:46:01 - 00:20:53:25] Speaker 1: That makes perfect sense, especially with data management. I mean, if it's good enough for the NSA, it's probably good enough for GreatLab, right?
[00:20:53:30 - 00:21:05:46] Speaker 2: Actually, yeah. That's actually funny! Yeah, biggest thing we tried it with our customer. I think AWS must have got them for free or something because that was like. That's like the number one thing, right? It's like, if it works for the government, it's going to work for you, right? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:05:50 - 00:21:22:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, they have plenty, plenty of data to manage. So, on that thought though, what were some of the challenges in getting into this? Obviously, data management was a big question out of the gate. What were some of the other big challenges that you encountered along the way?
[00:21:22:43 - 00:21:38:59] Speaker 2: Yeah. I would say like, the biggest challenges we've had is like always migration. Yeah. Like, and we work really, really hard on that. Because as much as you can show up with a new car and it looks really, really good, you need to be able to get into it, it needs to still work and
[00:21:38:59 - 00:21:57:22] Speaker 2: connect to your iPhone. It still needs to be able to do the things that the other one could somewhat. So one of the big things we try to do is like, we try to help labs when we can, come out of probably sometimes we call them "bad practices", like, you know, it's like, there's some "bad practices" in the industry, I'm sure, you know, like, it could be.
[00:21:57:35 - 00:22:14:03] Speaker 2: It could be the fact that, you know, a prescription from the practice, we don't know the dentist, and we just send it out. But you really should have the dentist's information because if you don't, you have no data or recording element on how much, or which one of these doctors from this practice is actually giving us all the money, or whatever that might be.
[00:22:14:03 - 00:22:18:40] Speaker 2: So we think that like, you know, exercising good data practices is very important.
[00:22:18:52 - 00:22:40:58] Speaker 2: And with all that said, though, I would say that the bigger challenges we see is just, you know, it's such a change. It's a big change. Like, you know, every- Change is like to me personally, I love change, but that's [because] I'm always excited by software that's going to help me more. And I'm very, very forward thinking, but, you know, at the end of the day, it's like we need to make sure, sometimes labs can be nervous of the stability.
[00:22:41:09 - 00:22:56:05] Speaker 2: They can be nervous of those things. So it's our job to ensure that we provide those things. So that's why, you know, we've a huge redundancy plan. Like if something happened to me, technically there's like 3 or 4 layers of, like, redundancy built into our system, built into our business itself. So, like, don't be. Yeah. That's why, like be careful
[00:22:56:05 - 00:23:08:48] Speaker 2: if you're working with a software provider with one man or two people. They could be on a plane crash, and your business is gone effectively, in terms of your software. So just be very careful of those things. But, yeah. So I hope, sorry I'm going on a tangent here...
[00:23:08:49 - 00:23:37:45] Speaker 1: No, no, it's a good tangent! It's a good tangent. There's a lot of value in that. Especially the one man thing. I've had a very personal story relating to that. Like, I have a, $30,000 machine that's effectively a boat anchor! And the reason for that is mainly because there is one guy who was running the maintenance department at the manufacturer who will go unnamed and they've hired and fired a whole bunch of people since then, and none of them seem to be able to figure out. It's not a not a complicated problem, it's a software problem.
[00:23:37:45 - 00:23:42:37] Speaker 1: But if you only have one guy over it, that's the biggest failure point you could possibly have.
[00:23:42:42 - 00:24:02:33] Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it's, Look, I can understand it. When we were a smaller company, people would be much more nervous. But since we made a decision that we're going to go enterprise and that's our focus is to be an enterprise solution. Now, look, the lab doesn't have to be an enterprise lab or a massive lab to work with us, but they have to want to have that quality of product.
[00:24:02:37 - 00:24:09:30] Speaker 2: I'm sure, you know, if you hand out peanuts, you'll get monkeys, right?
[00:24:09:35 - 00:24:11:25] Speaker 1: If you have enough peanuts, you'll get monkeys.
[00:24:11:37 - 00:24:23:45] Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. And tell me so. So that was interesting! So you have a particular product or sorry, a particular piece of software, and now you effectively are stuck because of that?
[00:24:23:50 - 00:24:54:51] Speaker 1: Right, right. The bottom line there was we weren't sure if it was an issue with the software or the machine's hardware, and ultimately it's a little bit of both. And I was able to fix the physical problems with the machine, regardless of whether the technicians on their end were. But at the end of it, the technician that had been with them, they had left and gone on to a different industry because he's just fed up with dentistry, just effectively decided he went to aerospace and we talked. We connected later on.
[00:24:54:51 - 00:25:14:41] Speaker 1: He's like, yeah man, I can't really help you, but he was their main connection between their company, the manufacturer and a couple of different cam software out there. The, DentMILL and GO2cam, and one of the others, and they didn't have a way basically to get back in touch and get the handshake on those agreements again.
[00:25:14:41 - 00:25:31:40] Speaker 1: And so they just decided to abandon them and move on to using a completely different software platform, which I don't have a license for and I don't really want to pay for, frankly, hehe, at the end of the day. Yeah. You know, and it's like, oh, well, all I have to do is buy a whole new software, even though you had a perpetual license for something else.
[00:25:31:40 - 00:26:00:28] Speaker 1: And that all comes down to a single point of failure, and just relying on having one guy over the whole thing, and in charge of the maintenance, and the contracts, and the knowledge database there, and not being able to train anybody else. So having several layers, whether it's, you know, with GreatLab or whether it's in your own laboratory, cross-training people having different layers of failsafe so that, God forbid, you get hit by a bus tomorrow, the show can go on is incredibly important.
[00:26:00:33 - 00:26:17:02] Speaker 1: And I think that it goes back to what you were talking about, writing down the SOP's and having a good record of how all those processes and why those processes are in place. And, what was it you said earlier about the taxation, and efficiencies?
[00:26:17:07 - 00:26:18:28] Speaker 2: Complication is the tax you pay.
[00:26:18:28 - 00:26:21:35] Speaker 1: Complication is the tax you pay!
[00:26:21:37 - 00:26:23:43] Speaker 2: That's the problem. Yeah.
[00:26:23:48 - 00:26:51:46] Speaker 1: Then documenting those SOPs and working through why you're doing stuff can often suss out and reveal, I feel like, some of those unnecessary complications. And the process of transferring from your previous situation to a new service like GreatLab or any other for that matter, but having to translate over your processes, it seems like a good way to also, find some of those complications that may or may not actually be necessary, wouldn't you say?
[00:26:51:51 - 00:27:12:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's so funny how you talked, about like, let's say, like the situations. It was just before your point of complexity, it was just about the fact that, you need to ensure, like, redundancy and backups and all that stuff is extremely important. And actually I have an interesting story to share.
[00:27:12:35 - 00:27:30:12] Speaker 2: We have a lab, who we've worked with for quite a while. Big fans of them. Big shout out and I can actually say their names they're called Denture Crafters, lovely team. Highly recommend them, great products. Now they unfortunately had a really, really unfortunate situation, which is it can happen, is where their lab unfortunately got burned down.
[00:27:30:13 - 00:27:31:00] Speaker 1: Oh, God.
[00:27:31:02 - 00:27:50:43] Speaker 2: Right. Yeah I know right. But fortunately, I'm not saying like, we saved the day. We did not save the day in any capacity. We did not have fire people or fire brigade guys being there. That didn't happen, but they were able to proceed with business the following day, which was actually the big thing. So they were still able to accept orders, see the orders, they kept their files in the orders, which is great.
[00:27:50:57 - 00:28:06:37] Speaker 2: So that was a big thing. So everything was in the cloud. So that's a great situation. And you know, if you have a local system, if your lab goes on fire, you're in trouble. So yeah, you need to be very careful. So especially for like record keeping in particular. So like if you have an LMS, it's just local based.
[00:28:06:42 - 00:28:21:56] Speaker 2: You know, I think you got it right. So if it goes up in flames, it's fine. Now I appreciate your designs is going to be fine because you can always recreate the design quickly. But if you don't even know the prescription on the order, that's a problem. Like, you know, you can recover lots of things, but you need to be really, really careful about that.
[00:28:21:56 - 00:28:25:18] Speaker 2: But anyway, sorry I butted in with that story because it came to my mind there.
[00:28:25:18 - 00:28:46:51] Speaker 1: No it's a great story! It's a relevant story. It's a great story. It's a perfect demonstration of why a cloud based software is one of the most powerful things that you can implement in really any business these days. Yeah, because your records are the business bottom line and everything else is just tools, tools and people and, no to make people sound replaceable,
[00:28:46:52 - 00:28:52:58] Speaker 1: but you can hire new employees, you can buy new equipment, but you cannot dig those records back up once they lost.
[00:28:53:03 - 00:29:03:48] Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it's a tough like. Yeah. It's tough to get a dentist to tell you what shade it is, let alone like we send the file. Right. But like, you know, like that's a challenging thing.
[00:29:03:53 - 00:29:29:36] Speaker 1: One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever gotten, was, it was on my, my second visit to the Chicago Dental Society meeting. I was talking to some old guy, old doctor, prosthodontist at the bar, and he leaned in, and I was like, well, what's your secret to success? And he goes, well, Robert, what you need to do is find something everyone hates doing and then get really good at it.
[00:29:29:41 - 00:29:44:59] Speaker 1: And that's actually exactly what I did! And I dove headfirst into that, not to make it about me, but I dove headfirst into all the cad and digital stuff and really got good at all the things that nobody wanted to deal with, especially surrounding implant work.
[00:29:45:04 - 00:29:49:17] Speaker 2: How many years ago, did you have that conversation?
[00:29:49:22 - 00:29:55:15] Speaker 1: Which one? The first CAD/CAM conversation? I started having that conversation, like 14 years ago.
[00:29:55:20 - 00:29:56:25] Speaker 2: With the guy. The dentist?
[00:29:56:32 - 00:30:15:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. When I was, first getting into this, I started my first lab when I was 23. It was the tech that really brought me into this. My parents were in the dental industry, and the supply business, and, frankly, I had no interest in dentistry at that point because, you know, my parents are selling, you know, boxes of powder and burs and wax.
[00:30:15:55 - 00:30:34:20] Speaker 1: I'm like, what is this? Yeah, yeah, I'm going to go into a different industry. And then I've always been a huge nerd, though, and I've always loved tech. And then so as the CAD/CAM stuff started to creep into dentistry and I got to gain access to it. And being in the South, dentistry has not been the first to adopt any technology.
[00:30:34:20 - 00:30:43:59] Speaker 1: We usually stay about 5-10 years behind up until fairly recently. And I mean, I if you disagree, I'd love to hear your perspective on it. But that's been my experience.
[00:30:44:00 - 00:30:48:10] Speaker 2: Is Florida in the South? I mean you consider Florida part of the south, right?
[00:30:48:15 - 00:30:56:18] Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean sort of yeah. Yeah, hehe. Florida is like an adopted cousin of the South. Once you get down below Georgia and Alabama, it's like. Yeah, I mean, they're down there.
[00:30:56:23 - 00:31:10:35] Speaker 2: Okay. Okay. Well, yeah, it just depends where I look. But I think you said it right. And. Okay, so it happened 14 years ago, and then I guess you've, I mean, it sounds like you really dove into the problem.
[00:31:10:40 - 00:31:32:30] Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And as this started to come out, I've always had a big fascination with 3D manufacturing. And it's like, well, wait a minute. I could be the expert in this field?! And while there's plenty of experts in that field when it comes to aerospace and automotive and every other corner of manufacturing, it's that dentistry, especially in the South, was far behind that.
[00:31:32:30 - 00:31:49:14] Speaker 1: And that, "them things is scary". And, you know, the South is not the first to adopt anything when it comes to technology. So it gave me an in and that's when I dove headfirst into it. It's been well, I mean, now I work with evolve and I love it and everyone that I get to work with.
[00:31:49:14 - 00:32:06:15] Speaker 1: I get to work with some of the most talented people in the industry every day, and it's incredible. And that's all due to, well, as I said, the labs are not to go on my own rant, but the labs are all kind of a cult of personality. Right. And the cult of personality here, a lot of that surrounds Andy Jakson.
[00:32:06:15 - 00:32:25:36] Speaker 1: And he has always been big into tech and a very innovative thinker. And it shows in all the processes that are involved here at evolve and, Evolution Dental Science, the embrace of this technology embrace of things like GreatLab and the the latest trends and technology with the manufacturing and it's and they're not always winners. Let's be honest.
[00:32:25:36 - 00:32:46:46] Speaker 1: Some of these things seem very promising out of the gate. And then it's like, oh well there's a there's another $30,000 boat anchor, but you have to try and, it is helpful to try and stay on the leading edge and not the "bleeding" edge, which is another little quote that I found a while back, but, you know, sometimes you get cut staying on that leading edge, and that's okay, just as long as you keep going.
[00:32:46:50 - 00:32:53:18] Speaker 1: Because if you're chasing it as opposed to leading it, you got a whole other, whole other challenge on your hands, right?
[00:32:53:23 - 00:33:00:05] Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm like, you know, so. So if we talk about like, 10-14 years ago, like, you have been like, one of the only ones, right?
[00:33:00:10 - 00:33:24:19] Speaker 1: Yeah I was one of the one of the earlier ones in it for absolute sure. Yeah. I first was introduced to exocad, while I was in Hong Kong working to try and get one of the machines that I had bought on bad advice, to actually work and using a, software called Delcam, which no one remembers and few people ever.
[00:33:24:19 - 00:33:44:07] Speaker 1: It was a UK software. They were bought out by Autodesk and shut down. And I was over there trying to find like a better solution. And, I met a gentleman named, John Higgins, who was at the time over in the "everywhere else" sales part of exocad. He was in China handling that, distribution thing, and he showed me
[00:33:44:07 - 00:34:01:52] Speaker 1: exocad. He was balancing his laptop on his knee at a bar, showing me it because the guy who I was there talking to originally, for the machine stuff, had no interest in it, but I was like, John, I want to see this. He goes, we'll meet me at whatever bar later. And we did. And, you know, there's all this stuff, chaos happening around. I don't know if
[00:34:01:52 - 00:34:03:11] Speaker 1: you've ever been to Hong Kong, but it's nuts.
[00:34:03:12 - 00:34:04:00] Speaker 2: Actually I have. Yeah.
[00:34:04:01 - 00:34:08:59] Speaker 1: And yeah, several years ago. Just mental!
[00:34:09:00 - 00:34:14:59] Speaker 2: When you compare the United States, it's like in a McDonald's, you have about three centimeters of space, like. Sorry.
[00:34:15:01 - 00:34:44:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So just people everywhere, all kind of chaos. And he's just balancing his laptop like, "This is exocad!". I was like "I have to have this". You know the nerd in me with the business mindset, I was like I have to have this. And so he introduced me to, Larry Bodony. So when I got back stateside, and then Larry opened a bunch of doors for me, introduced me to... I had a Medit scanner, but it was white labeled my Delcam, as their own thing.
[00:34:44:01 - 00:35:10:56] Speaker 1: And he introduced me to, the gentleman at the time who was overseeing the US distribution of Medit scanners and got me hooked up as a dealer for those as well. And, yeah, it was a huge game. I'm eternally grateful to Larry and and and John Higgins for introducing me and opening me up to these opportunities because that really opened the door for me to be where I am now, to have a conversation like I'm having with you right now.
[00:35:11:01 - 00:35:35:41] Speaker 1: And, the opportunity to really embrace a lot of this tech in the deadly industry. It's been a fantastic journey, especially to see how it's evolved from then to now. Some of the things that everyone thought were going to be crucially important that have kind of slipped to the wayside and things that have come up out of nowhere that people didn't see coming.
[00:35:35:46 - 00:35:55:20] Speaker 1: Like, I don't think that 3D printing was as... I don't think it was as important or relevant to people then as it is now, for sure. I think it was like, oh, that's a great idea if it ever works. And now the dental industry is the biggest growth segment for 3D printing, period, all over the world, which is insane
[00:35:55:25 - 00:36:21:01] Speaker 1: but also super exciting. You know, if you're a tech person to be on the cusp of what is clearly the most Star Trek form of manufacturing that's ever been conceived of, and this is the biggest growth segment of it. Because what we do with dentistry is we make parts that have never been made before in the history of mankind, like completely unique parts, accurate to say, 15-20 microns that have never been conceived of before.
[00:36:21:13 - 00:36:41:36] Speaker 1: Every single one is unique, never been manufactured ever in the history of mankind. And, in the same way that each of these order forms coming through from the doctors is completely unique and like, yeah, they have commonalities. And then, to have something like GreatLab that is able to take that data and pull it together so that every technician can have a predictable and reliable workflow
[00:36:41:41 - 00:36:52:24] Speaker 1: to do this is, is a huge leap forward. So what, what would you say is next on the horizon for you and GreatLab? Like, what's your next big challenge that you're trying to dive into?
[00:36:52:29 - 00:36:55:05] Speaker 1: If you can tell, if you can speak to it!
[00:36:55:06 - 00:37:14:05] Speaker 2: I can speak, I can speak to it. Well, we speak very openly with all our clients, and, we speak often to our clients. Often, I insist on us being very, very engaged. So some big problems we will be, solving this year. Well obviously,
[00:37:14:10 - 00:37:37:38] Speaker 2: a lot of it's just continuing on what we're trying to solve, you know, like that's actually had, like, we of course want to, you know, repaint the house and all those things, make it easier and make it simpler and simpler and simpler. There's actually a really, there's a really great, if we can load up an image in the video for this later there's a beautiful image that's in the Apple headquarters where it's like "simplify" and it crosses out and it says "simplify", and it crosses it out again and "simplify".
[00:37:37:38 - 00:37:57:29] Speaker 2: And it was like a famous thing that was like a Steve Jobs office, because he was like, you think it's simple. And then you can simplify more. You can remove one more word, you can remove one more thing. So, we're we're probably, very, very obsessed over having, a more simple, simplified, UX. And at the same time seeing how we can actually speed up, our speed of production, too.
[00:37:57:44 - 00:38:13:38] Speaker 2: So how we work as a team, as your team gets bigger, as you know, it's very difficult to keep it at the same speed as it was when I was two of you. Right. It does feel like that. So we obsess over, like, people think you have to add more people to fix those problems. And that's actually sometimes that's counterproductive.
[00:38:13:43 - 00:38:38:08] Speaker 2: So our big focuses for this year are, one improve the whole user experience and speed of our application. Number two is to roll out a bunch of new modules like benefits and features, more integrations, of course. And probably number three is to actually make that even a further unified workflow. That could be the fact that, you know, we currently have like, let's say, for example, we have HeyGears that integrates.
[00:38:38:08 - 00:38:54:40] Speaker 2: Right, or, or any other company. Right. It's to make it easier for the lab to even just activate that functionality. That can be one thing. Just even activation is a huge, huge part because I can't tell you how many calls I get on with labs. And they're like, if you had this feature, it would be great, who've been using us for like a year.
[00:38:54:49 - 00:39:09:02] Speaker 2: And I'm like, we did do that, we did that like three months ago! And that's that's our problem. Even though we do announce and we do put it in, but it's just like there's so many things happening. Right. And you have to again, it comes down to what is the main thing? Make the main thing, the main thing.
[00:39:09:02 - 00:39:29:17] Speaker 2: So as long as we keep improving the quality of orders being created, improve the experience for the order management and also even improving the experience for the finance teams. All those things that all carry weight in this kind of way. We have, segmented teams that deal with all these things. We have some exciting things launching around, like plugging into some local networks, things, which is really cool.
[00:39:29:17 - 00:39:44:57] Speaker 2: But, I'll go into that and I'll do that in the follow up for a few months from now. You can tell me how it's working for you. Okay. But also we are just really excited to meet more and more people in the industry. You know, we actually feel so blessed that we've come, and
[00:39:45:06 - 00:40:03:28] Speaker 2: we've come to this, well, we didn't come. We were already in it, but we've gone to a bunch of clients who actually want the problem solved. Like, it's really refreshing. Because I've provided software before where, you know, marketing software, for example. You know, it's like it's just surface level stuff, like, it's like, you know, it's marketing stuff.
[00:40:03:28 - 00:40:04:41] Speaker 2: There's so much marketing software.
[00:40:04:49 - 00:40:18:05] Speaker 2: It was actually interesting... Just before you asked me that question you were talking about, how you were shown that exocad demo when you were sitting in a bar in Hong Kong.
[00:40:18:05 - 00:40:34:54] Speaker 2: Right. and I will tell you that, like, you know, if there's anything I can say, is that, like, even when we go to trade shows, the best meetings we have are like the meetings in between the meetings. Yes, meetings between the meetings. Right. Because I don't know why that is, like, you know, you go into a real formal meeting and you're like, wow
[00:40:34:54 - 00:40:42:06] Speaker 2: I'm going to get so much value. And you do, but then it's the guy who you meet in the bathroom, right? He starts telling you about the problem he's after.
[00:40:42:06 - 00:40:43:42] Speaker 1: It's the banter you have outside of the formal meeting about it.
[00:40:43:54 - 00:41:03:43] Speaker 2: It's. Yeah. And and, that's why, like, we try, we want to be as, more and more present and, like, you know, big thing for this year, of course, is that we are expanding our US team. So we have, we're increasing our US support. And that's a very, very big part. So we have a few members joining us who are on the ground or in Pacific/Central/Eastern Time Zone, which is great, and increasing that support quality.
[00:41:03:48 - 00:41:16:29] Speaker 2: But other than that, like, you know, we're just keeping going forward and listening to the clients. We don't really listen to the rest of the market outside of it because, I'm a big believer that if you focus on your competitors, you can only be you can only ever be a second best of them. Right? So we focus on our clients.
[00:41:16:29 - 00:41:34:26] Speaker 2: We focus on the right, and people, we, we know fundamentally that, people will focus on competitors. I think people who focus on competitors, end up losing, because, again, only make something at twice, to be a second as opposed to being first. Right. And I'm sure, as you know, as a great famous, Ricky Bobby said,
[00:41:34:26 - 00:41:41:44] Speaker 2: "If you ain't first, you're last". Right. I don't want to do with a southern accent, I don't want to insult anyone, hehe. You can do it there, right?
[00:41:41:49 - 00:41:44:38] Speaker 1: Will Ferrell's not southern anyway, but I get what you say.
[00:41:44:48 - 00:41:45:59] Speaker 2: He wasn't? He wasn't Southern?
[00:41:46:09 - 00:41:49:03] Speaker 1: No, no. Will Ferrell, he's an actor.
[00:41:49:08 - 00:41:51:59] Speaker 2: I see that but the character, he wasn't?
[00:41:52:00 - 00:41:56:04] Speaker 1: No, no the character for sure. Yeah. Okay. Right. Yeah. Talladega Nights? Yeah.
[00:41:56:09 - 00:42:11:54] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Classic. Right. But but yeah. So, I think ultimately, I mean for this year what are you guys really, really focused on? What are you guys going to try and, grow into or do you have any big plans for the year ahead?
[00:42:11:59 - 00:42:33:38] Speaker 1: Well, conversations like this are part of our growth plan, right here. So we're expanding our outreach, just generally to the whole industry and trying to democratize more of the knowledge. We're doubling down on a lot of our educational outreach, and, we've expanded into a whole new facility. We have a big building that we recently purchased also in Buffalo.
[00:42:33:42 - 00:42:54:19] Speaker 1: Construction is still underway. Trying to bring it up to speed and move everybody into it. But there's a huge, groundbreaking thing involved with expanding our own production capability there. We have invested in a whole bunch of new metal 3D printers. Very exciting, especially for a nerd like me. Metal 3D printing is the absolute coolest thing that you can think of.
[00:42:54:28 - 00:43:28:53] Speaker 1: And it's such a weird combination of different technologies that came together to make that happen. So that's that's a big part of our growth plan. As we kind of bring this to a head, what are some final thoughts you have for labs that are still doing stuff the hard way, still doing stuff by hand when it comes to paperwork and the apprehensions of getting into this. What's some advice or recommendations you have for either migrating to GreatLab or at least just consolidating their workflows so that they can add that value that you're talking about and cut away the unnecessary
[00:43:28:53 - 00:43:30:45] Speaker 1: complications.
[00:43:30:50 - 00:43:50:16] Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, it all kind of ties back to that, how focused are we on on what our strategy is and how are we going to make sure that this business is sustainable. And in doing so, I would personally recommend that whatever the lab is doing, that one of the big things they need to make sure that they have a system or a way to be connected to whatever that next thing is.
[00:43:50:28 - 00:44:14:57] Speaker 2: So I would say ensuring that it's easy for you to integrate that into your workflow, that doesn't consist of you piling on more humans to solve, to achieve what you want to achieve. And I'd also say like, don't be afraid of it. Like, you know, there's a beautiful line that Joaquin Phoenix said when he went on stage when he won his Oscar and it was, run to the rescue with love and peace will follow.
[00:44:15:02 - 00:44:16:25] Speaker 2: And maybe I'll leave it with that.
[00:44:16:30 - 00:44:24:15] Speaker 1: I love that, I love that. Seth, this has been amazing. Where can people find you online, where can people find GreatLab?
[00:44:24:20 - 00:44:41:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, sure. It's just GreatLab.io, other big things is that we will be at all the pretty much every US trade show thingamabob going, all the associations. I'm sure we're going to be at all of them. And I would say, like I said, it's just GreatLab.io but ultimately, like, you can find me on LinkedIn.
[00:44:41:10 - 00:44:58:48] Speaker 2: I'm Sam Smith, I have no social medias personally. Because it's a distraction from me talking to clients, actually, that's it. So it's actually a huge distraction. So I stay away from all of it, and I just focus on trying to make our product better every single day. But by all means, anyone who would like to reach out and connect with us, we're always open to having a conversation.
[00:44:58:48 - 00:45:19:01] Speaker 2: There is one last, I wonder if I should mention. There's one last thing I'd say is that, which I hope I can invite you on. There is an interesting, I don't want to say podcast, but show. It's called Great Lab Tips. We've got an audience there with it, but it's going to be, we're probably going to be called the Great Dental Podcast and and similar to yourself.
[00:45:19:01 - 00:45:34:21] Speaker 2: Yeah. We just, I think there's a lot of conversations in the industry. I think it's fun. And I think people should be having these chats. Right. Because I think that this is forever changing, forever changing. And there's nonstop, fun things to happen, right? So anyway, long winded answer. GreatLab.io. Thank you so much.
[00:45:34:32 - 00:45:35:08] Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
[00:45:35:08 - 00:45:52:43] Speaker 1: Thank you for being a part of this. Absolutely. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Evolution of Dental Podcast, brought to you by Evolution Dental Science. Please look for us on all the major podcast platforms. Remember to like, subscribe and share this with all your dental professional friends. We look forward to seeing you on the next one.
[00:45:52:50 - 00:46:00:24] Speaker 1: Thank you.
