How to Disrupt the Multi-Billion Dollar Orthodontic Market with Khamzat Asabaev of SoftSmile: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01John Lee Dumas:Light that spark fire nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by HighLevel, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. And on today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how to disrupt the multi-billion dollar orthopedic markets. And to drop these value bombs, I brought Hamzat into EO Fire Studios. Hamzat is the founder and CEO of SoftSmile. And today we talk about how no one becomes successful alone, how to start by finding your problem to solve. Customers will come to you if you solve it better than others. Don't give up. Obstacles and opportunities will come and people will help you along the way and owe so much more.

0:30John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to our sponsors. Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer and need more quality leads, Nexus Install is designed for you. We'll book you 8 to 20 qualified calls each month, then train you to run the system yourself. Email my team at john at eofire.com to learn more and see if Nexus is the right fit for you. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support.

1:04John Lee Dumas:Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Hamzat, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with? Hi, everyone. And John Lee, thanks for having me here. Really exciting. So regarding your question, I think no one can become successful on her own. I believe that no matter how cool or successful you are, there is always someone who helps you along the way. And we all are standing on someone's shoulders. I love that phrase, is that we're all standing upon the shoulders of giants.

1:52John Lee Dumas:I mean, it's so true. And that's in every way, shape, and form, Fire Nation. I mean, like I look at authors of books that I've read who have been dead for hundreds and hundreds, sometimes in the case, thousands of years, and I'm learning directly from them. I'm standing on their shoulders. So I love giving credit where credit is due. That's a great point, Hamzat. I love it. And today, Fire Nation, we're talking about disrupting, specifically disrupting the$50 billion orthodontic market with software as the focus. So why, Hamzat, would somebody want to disrupt a market in the first place? What's the incentive to do so?

2:30Just imagine you or your friends or someone from your family going to an orthodontist and you want this perfect smile. So this doctor shall take scans of your jaw and your teeth. And then she will send old pictures to some service company, which will prepare a treatment plan. It takes weeks. And then, most importantly, you will have to pay a crazy amount of money, thousands of dollars, just to get those small pieces of plastic, which eventually will help you to perfect your smile. So I think, and there are many people who agree with me, that this market requires disruption because aligners are too expensive.

3:21And in the United States alone, you have over 100 million people who need orthodontic treatment and only 2 % who can afford it. So basically, it's something we all shall try to achieve, make healthcare affordable. and I believe with technology, with software, it is possible.

3:40John Lee Dumas:Well, I will say Hamzat that I am one of those unfortunate many that you're talking about that went through that exact same experience. I'm in month two of my Invisalign treatment, which might be evil words to you. But in my defense, I just didn't know that Soft Smile existed and what you're doing actually existed. So hey, good on you for coming on this show to spread the word and to get the word out and to really make sure that you are disrupting an industry that, by the way, really needs disruption. So you identified that specifically the aligners market needed to be disrupted. How did you make that identification?

4:19John Lee Dumas:I mean, you talked about it briefly, but let's really go into what you saw as the real opportunity here and how you went about doing it. Sure. But first to your comment, Invisalign is really great product. and definitely I don't consider them as an evil company. The problem is that there are just a few companies like Invisalign which can provide high-quality treatment to patients. And if we look into why it's happening, it's because the technology is pretty complex and companies like Invisalign, mainly Invisalign technology, they have a pretty robust patent portfolio. But they also use this patent portfolio to sue others who are trying to create some competition.

5:09So the challenge for anyone on this market is to create something new from scratch and be sure that your technology is unique. And I believe having amazing IP portfolio, patents portfolio on our own, we manage to do so. And we build software which will help doctors, let's say, be less dependent on companies like Invisalign or others and not be dictated by their pricing or by their timing.

5:42John Lee Dumas:Now, let's put yourself, Hamzat, into the shoes of Fire Nation. They're listening and they're probably inspired by what you've done and how you're looking to disrupt the orthodontic markets in a really big way with software. what would you recommend for their first step if they had an idea to disrupt the market in a similar industry where there was big competition, where there was a lot of marketing budget, where there was a lot of patents going on and things along those lines? What would our listeners do? Step one. Step one may sound obvious, but it's always find the problem. when you find the pain of the problem no matter how big are your competitors if they cannot solve it and you solve it you will always find customers regardless of the marketing budget because what Softsmile did we just went to doctors and we asked them what if we give you something to make the treatment more affordable and we were no one and they were happy to start working with us because we prove that there is a technology and we can help them to get more affordable treatment to their patients.

6:56John Lee Dumas:What would the next couple steps be? Like you identify that there is a problem and that there is actually a market that needs it. That's important. And I love how you do that. And I'm gonna get into this more in a second, but I first wanna really identify our listeners now have taken that step. They've identified that they are really solving a real problem in this world. What are the next couple steps when it comes to the area that you're talking about and that you're dealing with, with big competition, patents, technology, software, etc.? The next one is team. I believe we are extremely lucky to have bright engineers and doctors working on this problem.

7:37So when you or your listeners look into some problem, some big market, and when you identify the problem, the next question, who will help me to solve this problem? And in our case, you need not only doctors, but also software developers. And it's funny, but game developers as well, because we are using a lot from gaming technology, I mean, video gaming technology, to make our software intuitive and beautiful.

8:08John Lee Dumas:At what stage in the process are you doing a patent search? Are you bringing in lawyers and a legal team or professionals to actually help you identify that area? Yeah, that's the area where you definitely need lawyers and need money to spend on the lawyers. So you cannot do it without resources. But it's very important to protect your IP. And there are amazing lawyers on the market who can help you to define your technology and get your patents granted. Now, Hamzad, about a year ago, I published my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to One Common Success. And one thing that I wrote in there over and over again, because I'm such a believer in it, is that if you're the number one solution to a real problem in this world, you will win at some level.

8:59John Lee Dumas:You will win. So answer me this question. How is Soft Smile the number one solution to a real problem? First of all, I bought this book, John Lee. I haven't yet read it, but definitely will start reading. You'll be impressed. You'll be like, wait, I think the same thing. I agree with this. Because when you were saying those words, I was like, has he read my book? So a lot of cool things. I hope you read it, brother. Thank you. So getting back to your question, why we're in number one solution? Because we consider a complex approach. You see, on this market, there are various doctors and manufacturers and companies.

9:34and all of them have various problems. One need automated manufacturing. Others need more complex solutions for their patients. What we try to do, and I hope we mention this, we just got all solutions for any problems into this one platform that we built. So that's why we're working with global manufacturers, with doctors, with small practices, because all of them can find in SoftSmile something they actually need.

10:10John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, we have so much to talk about. We're talking M &A lawyers. We're talking disrupting and innovating. We're talking about really important topics all around this when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. sure? That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more. Everything you need to succeed all under one roof.

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12:10John Lee Dumas:Simple, focused, and built for predictable long-term quality lead flow. So Hamzat, we're back. And one thing I actually found really interesting about you is that you're a former M &A lawyer, which is mergers and acquisitions. And that's a pretty far leap from orthodontics. How did you end up being the CEO of a dental software company? What is that story? Yes, I used to be an M &A lawyer and I believe had really amazing career working with many public companies, international companies. But I started Soft Smile because I was inspired by my friend who is an orthodontist. And this guy started making aligners in-house just in his practice.

12:58And he started offering aligners to his patients for just a few hundreds of dollars. So when he told me about his practice, I decided, why not? Maybe together we can build something interesting. And we combined my knowledge of business and his knowledge of orthodontics and of software. And we got, again, amazing people with us, amazing engineers who were helping. And that's how I, let's say, dived into orthodontics. But you're right. Many people who hear about the CEO being a former lawyer and leading a dental software company, they are a bit puzzled. But again, just was inspired by my friend who is a doctor, who is an orthodontist.

13:45John Lee Dumas:So it's one thing to have a good idea. And it's another thing to really identify a problem that needs to be solved. And it's another thing even to go and talk to the individuals like you did with dentists and doctors, etc. And identify that, yes, this actually is something that is needed in the marketplace. But it's another thing to continue to disrupt and to continue to innovate. How do you plan on doing those things with SoftSmile? This entire orthodontic sector, and actually the entire healthcare sector, really needs some tech injection, let's say. And there's so much we can do with software, with new technologies, with new materials, not only for aligners, but for implants, for veneers, for other fields.

14:33And we believe that we already built an amazing platform for aligners. But on top of that, we can continue disrupting braces markets and then other fields of orthodontics. but our advancement will be not only in the software field we also want to disrupt the business model we want to go closer to patients that's why we will manufacture liners and braces on our own and that's the next big step for soft smile to compete let's say with invisalign directly so right now we're just offering the software but next step when you visit your doctor and orthodontists, I hope there will be a few solutions for you, not only Invisalign.

15:17John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about the end result. I mean, if everything you plan is achieved, how will doctors and patients be affected? What is the end goal here? I'm always thinking about this young lady in some rural area who cannot afford aligners or who doesn't have an orthodontist nearby. So with our software and if everything that SoftSmile is building can be achieved that particular lady and many other boys and girls and kids all around the world will be able to afford aligners and just visit a doctor or dentist who practices nearby they will not need to you know travel to some large cities or pay thousands and thousands of dollars.

16:07So that's what we're trying to achieve, make aligners affordable to the majority of people.

16:13John Lee Dumas:See Hamzat, what you did there is you revealed to us that you have an avatar. You have one specific individual in mind who you know you're going to serve at an amazing level, who's your perfect customer, your perfect client. And whenever you have a question about, should I go left or should I go right in my business? That individual is going to guide you because is it best for that woman, Sally, in that rural area that doesn't have the funds in today's world to make it happen for, but might if SoftSmile accomplishes what it accomplishes. So Fire Nation, I turn it back to you. Do you have your avatar like Hamzat does?

16:48John Lee Dumas:Do you have that perfect customer and client that's your guiding light, that's your North Star? Is that person guiding you? And by the way, that's chapter three in the common path to uncommon success. So Hamzat, make sure to bookmark that chapter and read it because you're doing a lot of things right. You might be doing some things wrong. I just don't know. But at the very least, you'll hopefully learn a thing or two in that avatar section. And what I want you to do, Hamzad, is give us one key takeaway, one value bond that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from everything that we talked about here today.

17:23Do not give up. There are always some obstacles. There are always some problems. and my previous company failed before SoftSmile and we just started again. So don't ever give up. There always will be some new opportunities. There will always be people who will help you and that's the only lesson I can give you which I believe will help you in any occasion.

17:51John Lee Dumas:Hamzat, how can we connect with you, with your company, any call to action you have for our listeners and then we'll say goodbye. Please track Soft Smile, follow our social media pages because what we're doing is important for everyone. We're trying to disrupt the health care and I hope you, your friends, your relatives will get a lot of benefits with our progress. We will make orthodontics affordable, that's for sure. Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with KA and JLD today, so keep up that heat. head over to eofire.com and type Hamzat into the search bar.

18:32John Lee Dumas:That's K-H-A-M-Z-A-T into the search bar. And you'll get the show notes page popping right up with all the details that we talked about here today and so much more. Hamzat, thank you, brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you very much, John Lee. It was a pleasure being here. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Hamzat, who sponsored this episode. Fire Nation, over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3 ,500 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment.

19:11John Lee Dumas:I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to order your copy today, and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Fire Nation, if you have a high-ticket offer and need more quality leads, Nexus Install is designed for you. We'll book you 8 to 20 qualified calls each month, then train you to run the system yourself. Email my team at john at eofire.com to learn more and see if Nexus is the right fit for you.

19:53John Lee Dumas:If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Thank you.