[00:00:00] Impacts obviously important to you.

[00:00:03] If I can take impact and dive deep into that word. For me, it’s contribution to society or contribution to a community or contribution or play my role. Play my role in this world. Really? And what have I contributed to? If you know, at the end of the day, like, what were you part of? Everybody needs someone to stack the shelves as you need for society to run. Unless a computer or a machine is going to do it. Someone needs to do it. Someone needs to. You will always need nurses. You’ll always need people to contribute their role in society, and you can find passion and purpose in any of those roles.

[00:00:43] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

[00:01:01] It’s my great pleasure to welcome the love of Janice Warren onto the podcast website onto the podcast. Love is a partner at Sunninghill Dental. I’ve known him for a while since he started his enlightened journey years ago, but also one of the founders of Cheer Side, which is a cheer side sort of tool to explain different treatment options to patients. And he’s going through the whole founder experience at a tech company now. Let me have you, buddy. How are you doing?

[00:01:32] Oh, I’m really well. Thanks, Payman. Thanks, Prav. It’s actually super exciting. I’ve never been invited to a podcast before, so I’ve been super pumped to do this and really grateful for the opportunity.

[00:01:42] Well, you know, you said you listen to this podcast, and so we usually we start with childhood and all that, but I want to kind of take it in a different direction this time, if that’s okay with you or I want to start with the latest thing you’re doing with chair side and.

[00:01:57] Okay, cool. Yeah.

[00:01:59] Let’s start with when did that come into your head as a direction you might be going into and why? Why?

[00:02:07] That’s a really interesting, really good question. Why? Okay. I was four years into my into clinical dentistry post-grad and I found I was also an PhD trainer at the time and I found that I was having these consistent problems that were coming through that I was experiencing. There were shared experiences with, with, with the PhDs. And it stems it all stemmed down to communication. It really all just stem down to communication. It was like a lot of the the PhDs were like kind of kind of afraid of this litigious space that was emerging. And there was a lot of fear being placed, you know, upon graduation or, you know, you need to do things a certain way. And I find that the main focus at that point is also on clinical dentistry, and communication sometimes takes a bit of a backseat. So for me, I’m a visual learner. I always have been. I’ve been, you know, when I was even at uni or even it’s actually a levels of drawing mind maps my whole, whole life. And I learned things visually. So I spent so many hours, so many hours with patients, one after the other, just drawing out teeth. And I’m a terrible artist at the same time, so I’m drawing our teeth, highlighting what an abscess is that it did it. It did it. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

[00:03:23] So there has to be a better way of doing this. And, you know, I thought there has to be more of a systemic way I can explain every single thing that I want to in dentistry, condition wise, pathologically or what not visually, and also showed them their treatment options and also show patients the risks in a standardised, transparent way where people can understand and really looking deeper into it, we found out that 65% of patients are visual learners, right? And so you had 100% of our consultations available. So that kind of really hit, hit home. But it was at that point that I was, I was just I think that was almost the beginning of a feeling that I want to do something visually, that that can explain conditions. But then I spoke to my best mate, who’s also the co-founder of Chair Side Kiri, and circling back, we decided to do a trip to Sri Lanka where we contacted a ton of dental companies and ask for filling materials, sterilisation packs. I would probably say instruments as well to some degree because we borrowed some from the practice and then we, we put it all in suitcase, put it in a backpack, and we went up to the northern northeast of Sri Lanka where we went to some orphanages. And in those orphanages, you know, care. And I thought, let’s do a bit of dental treatment.

[00:04:38] Let’s go and go and go and see these kids and see if we can help them. And there’s about 120 kids in this fast orphanage that we went to, and I sat with them and carried one of the most humble individuals I’ve had the pleasure to be surrounded by. You know, he was he’s not a dentist. He’s in tech. But he he was he was the guy who was holding the light from a torch through a torch while while we were treating these these kids. We were doing check-ups on these kids. And I thought, you know, the feeling that I got from that that we got from that was incredible. We had kids who were subject to war to tsunami, queuing up to have dental treatment in this little dental practice that we almost borrowed for for a day, once we’d done the triaging in the orphanages to go and actually do the treatment in the clinic. And we and then when when the community found out about it, they’d queue up round the corner and there was these kids and one of them came on a bike and his mate was riding the bike and he was on the back of the bike and he didn’t have one arm and one leg and he had on the other side he had one arm and one leg because apparently when when one of the bombs dropped, he didn’t quite make it into the bunker.

[00:05:45] Half his body was left out, half his body was in. And he came in with these I mean, it was crazy. And so this gave me this incredible perspective on. My fortunate position in life and largely because I was born in Sri Lanka and my parents were subject to a lot of what was going on at the time. And if it wasn’t for the fact that my father was offered to do a PhD in Scotland in a university in Stirling, I wouldn’t have moved to England, Scotland at the time anyway at the age of sort of eight months. And it was that split second decision that could have actually my life could have ended up being one of those kids that we’re treating in this orphanage. Right. Who knows? So I’m in this position now where I’m trying to do dental treatment, and I think I’m coming back thinking, yeah, I’ve done some charity work. Awesome. I feel great. But actually I didn’t it didn’t feel like that was that I did anything sustainable there. You know, I went in, I thought, you know, this is not something I can go into and do every six months. But it was one of the best feelings I got. Now, one thing that came as a by-product of what we did on that trip, and we did go again and again.

[00:06:48] But on that trip was we taught these kids off the cuff. It was a five minute thing which we wrote. We taught these kids a song, and we used visuals on how they how to brush their teeth. So it’s like in the Tamil language, it’s like, go to the left, go to the right, up, down, up, down. And these are kids who didn’t have toothbrushes. There’s like the most northern east village in Sri Lanka. They were using all the sort of anything they could get hold of. Really. These are kids who didn’t actually know the techniques of oral hygiene or the importance of the fact that you should do it twice a day. So we taught them the song and then we left and came back three years later. Actually, two years later, actually, we came back and it was incredible. The entire everybody who was there could sing the song in an assembly off by heart. And not only that, but the new kids that were coming through could also sing this song. And it almost became like a nursery rhyme about how to brush their teeth and if something as simple as that. And I was like, wow, no, hang on a second. This is impact like the dental treatment I did two years ago. That’s fleeting to some degree, right? But this is genuine impact.

[00:07:53] And at that moment, something hit me which is like, wow, this feeling is incredible. And then to know that then a year later, Kyrie went back, same sort of thing. That song is going, that song is that’s something that’s going to pass down. So then I came back to the UK and at that point this was now sort of like the year before we started share side. I looked at the UK and I found one was like 180 kids having their teeth removed under general anaesthetic in this country every day. And why? Fundamentally, it’s because of a lack of knowledge on the parents part and there’s obviously various other socioeconomic issues around that, but it is something that can be largely preventable. Caries is a preventable disease, right. Looking deeper into it, 94% of this population suffer from some form of the spectrum of gum disease, the spectrum, and then like 45% from chronic gum disease, which is, again, a preventable disease. But more importantly, I mean, if you look at the systemic impacts of gum disease or what we can find from gum disease on the rest of the body, Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, I’m sure a periodontist would be much better at explaining this than then. I but, you know, we know the we know the systemic impacts, but these are all preventable conditions. So why why are we in a system where prevention is still not quite making it work in day to day practice? And I kept that kept lingering in my mind, going a few steps further.

[00:09:17] You know, Raj, I think Raj Rajaratnam had released an article and this it may have been before that it was it was a point where 90% of dentists were afraid of being sued. And these PhDs that were coming through sort of in the latter latter parts of of of my PhD training, you know, that fear was very much a real thing. And and I personally and all my colleagues, the associates were all feeling that. So why are we feeling that? And again, the running theme throughout patient health and throughout dentists satisfaction and happiness in the workplace all came down to poor communication or great communication. That was just the communication was a fundamental thing. Right? And then something just the penny just dropped for me at that point where it was like, I really am struggling with this whole explaining things and I find that patients eyes light up when I do it visually through drawing. It’s not a scalable solution for me on a daily basis to keep drawing pictures, right? At the same time, communication is not clear, but patients are appreciating, appreciating the visuals. How can we fix that and keep dentists safe at the same time? And that’s when the vision for our side kind of developed.

[00:10:24] And it developed through the core concept of we want to make it easier and safer for dentists to communicate effectively so patients can make better decisions about their health. And that is the fundamental drive for and culture and chess that is built on that as a foundation. Our values are aligned fully on that team. Everyone’s built with the view that we want to make it easier and safer for dentists to communicate effectively so patients can make better decisions about their health. So we’re fully empathetic on why is it that communication is such a problem in communicating better health to patients from the dentist part and being a practitioner, I feel like I have this inside experience on a daily basis as to the time constraints, the pressures, the stresses, the decisions and numerous decisions we have to make, the decision fatigue that we have as we go patients in the morning. You know, you probably, probably have a different view when you’re treating patients in the evening and late, late at night. It’s like we’re human beings at the end of the day and then adding extra elements to the workflow. I mean, how can we be compassionate about that to some degree when dentists already have so much going on? So all of these problems lingering, like, how can we build a great team to solve this? And so first and foremost, it was Cory and I with a PowerPoint presentation going around the houses, really trying to trying to get some kind of buy in from to build a prototype, really.

[00:11:49] And I remember we did a presentation with our accountants, sort of friends and family sort of network. There was about 20 of them in the room. And we did this sort of PowerPoint presentation of what we how we felt we could impact patient communication for the better. And, you know, we got zero sort of zero kind of movement on that. But what we did get was a lot of if you can build something and show us what it could look like, we’ll consider it. So Kyrie and I, we put sort of we were working at the time and I’m I was I was sort of four and a half clinical days at that time. Remember, we went five, we went to four and a half. I found around four and a half to be a nice spot for me when I was fully focussed on clinical and I use that time, that money, that income to facilitate on a monthly basis the ability and any savings to build prototypes and really understand what it is, the content, the animations, everything for gum disease for a fair few conditions and what that journey looks like. So we could explain that to investors.

[00:12:52] But more importantly, we then changed our stance a bit because we thought we don’t really want to explain this to investors. And that was something that was really powerful for me because that moment it became, we want to make this we want to explain this to patients and dentists. We want patients and dentists to love this. How can we build a prototype that the patients and dentists could love because everything else comes as a result of that, right? How can we impact patients? How can make life easier for dentists? So we continued on that journey. We built a user experience and and things were progressing on a on a side. I going to call it a side hustle called our side hustle, but on evenings and weekends and and really intense at that point. Then once we built our first prototype, we put it in. Chess originally was a screen in the dental chair, on the dental chair that patients could just watch and dentists could actually use use the tools. It was almost like a little, little proof of concept. At that point, we took the proof of concept back to the lead to the to the lead investor. And he was the first person to invest. And it wasn’t a huge amount, but he invested. He was very generous. He was very trusting. And we owe him a lot to this day. And at that point.

[00:14:07] He was he was he was he friend and family?

[00:14:09] Yeah. Well, he interestingly enough, he came on the the off the trip to Sri Lanka to three years before I was the one who helped coordinate the trip. And he experienced the journey that we experienced on those trips. So when we came back, we went to him and said, Hey, look, we’ve got this, we’ve got this idea. We think we can transform patient communication. We want to make an impact. We think this can impact if we think this can change the way dentists and patients interact. And it was at that point that we we secured that investment. And then things went from strength to strength at that point, because we were allowed to then turn that prototype, that proof of concept into a real tangible prototype that could be used by a fair few dentists. Right. And yeah, so so that’s how it kind of started. And it just went on from there. And we were able then to get two or three dentists on board to use the platform, bearing in mind we were very hardware based at the time because we had this tablet screen on the dental chair playing and dental animations that dentists could touch interactively. And the UI was horrible, the experience was terrible, but it did serve the purpose.

[00:15:14] It was almost like it played animations, but the biggest impact was patience. And I still remember one of the first few patients that that came across. It was this autistic child that I had really struggled to to get to sit in the chair. But the minute I put him in this chair and I had these visuals, he almost got drawn to them. And he sat back and I and I was and I was able to actually do a physical check-up on him. And the mom actually wrote me one of the most loveliest testimonials. She said to me, You know, this child has struggled to come and sit in a chair. He had really severe autism. So to actually concentrate allow you to to to carry out what you want to carry out. However, the minute you were able to switch on these visuals and show this patient exactly what you’re doing, but more importantly, engage with him and give him something to look at, he was a lot more cooperative, let alone the positive impact that the visual could have on his understanding of what we were trying to do. And it was at that point I thought, we’re definitely on to something here. Like the hassles, you know, you.

[00:16:19] I love the way you sort of extrapolate stuff from, you know, your experiences, you know, because it’s beautiful. It kind of gives meaning to your work, meaning to everything that you do because, you know, the next guy could have said, you know, I wanted to start a company and wanted something to help dentists make more money. And there it is, you know. But you started off with the orphanage and the the story has a lot more meaning to you than just doing a business. Is that because you’re a charming storyteller, or is that is that does your brain work in that in that way, that what you do has to have meaning? And, you know, like, I feel for it. It’s almost it’s almost like, I don’t know, talk to Simon about Parlour and he’s there’s there’s like a mission focus the mission to save the planet. That’s why he’s he’s got that thing. And I find difficulty. If you talk to me about my toothpaste, I’ll say I’ll tell you it’s the best toothpaste in the world. Right. I try you know, it’s the best. I haven’t got some stories to tell you about that or or, you know, how the best toothpaste in the world might change the world or and I guess we’re all wired differently. But but this. What about you? I mean, what is it? Is it is it that you’ve got this sort of mission that you want to get through?

[00:17:40] I think I mean, one of my core values personally is that I want to live my life with purpose and passion, and I want to only do things that I’m passionate about fundamentally because, you know, I want to wake up every morning and just really get excited about what I’m doing and the ability to create, the ability to impact people’s health and be in health care. And it might sound fleeting. I’m not sure it might sound something we might take for granted, but we’re actually involved in impacting people’s health, which I think is like firsthand incredible. But then to to be able to create and build something with people using ideas that we all have, using our brains, problem solving, thinking from using different methods of thinking, using different mental models. You know, it’s it’s also learning something new, like, you know, like building a business and all of that. It leads. It is almost like one of those challenges that you just fall in love with. And for me, I, you know, I’m very, very passionate about impacting if it can really impact people. And in in my case, people’s health, you know, that would have been a purpose worth or an a mission worth worth pursuing through my life. Right. So I find that incredibly rewarding. I mean, that gives me job satisfaction. I’ve always felt actually with my patients, if I’d be fair to you. I don’t like the word play, but the term here is play the long game and maybe not the word game either, but the two fundamental ways they play the long game and play the long game, in a way I think was Raji told me that Saroj Rajaratnam said he was an incredible comment because what it means, what he said is, look after your patience over the long term and expect nothing.

[00:19:31] Do the best by them over a period of time and expect nothing. And the value comes with time. And I’ve been in the same practice my whole life. I was in Fiji then I stayed there and became a partner there and I’ve seen that journey with patience and to be in a position where actually patients come back. Now that I’m only there two days a week, it’s like, oh, like, you know, it’s probably more stressful trying to squeeze everyone in, to be honest with you. But that’s what happens when you’re in a practice for a period of time, especially given the current climate where it’s hard to get into dentists. And I think that I’ve been rewarded with that feeling largely because I like to feel like I’ve always put patient’s best interests first, not expected anything as a transactional relationship at any point, but if they found value in what I did, they’d be interested in what else I could do for them as well over time. And yeah, that all stems kind of from from just being I guess, I guess just just being passionate about what you and having a purpose, having a real sense of mission. It makes you honestly feel. I honestly feel like I can’t wake up in the morning and be excited about something if I don’t have that. And I’ve been in jobs during my childhood, like during my my teens, where I’ve felt like I can’t do this, I can’t do this for the rest of my life. Like and so maybe that’s also.

[00:20:50] Just just going back to the piece where you developed a piece of software. You weren’t looking for money because you’ve got this purpose and you believe in this in this project, and you’re going to impact all these patients through education and helping them understand it and then become more compliant, shall we say. And just I think you referred to the whole game. Game, you don’t like the word game, but but the.

[00:21:14] Whole you know.

[00:21:15] Of educate. And I think communication is the key word that I think is the key to success of any practice, whether we’re talking about business, whether we’re talking about having patients happy dentists or happy team members, communication is key. But how do you go from that piece of saying, right, we’ve got this idea that I want to communicate and I’m going to produce this thing, this piece of software on a tablet. Yeah, that’s engineering. It’s software development is writing code and then the whole money raising piece. And then just take me back to when you go to someone and say, give us some money for this project. Surely there’s a whole conversation that happens about equity or how you get your money back and all the rest of it. And would you like to give us some insight into that?

[00:22:01] Absolutely. So when Chair said when we talk about the hardware, the software, I think one of the biggest things we did, you know, you make decisions and with a view of what this vision could be and you pivot so much as you learn from the feedback. And when it was a hardware based solution, you know, we actually had a manufacturing line in China and we had to and we’ve got a pattern for it in the UK as well, for this piece of hardware that sits on a dental chair, you know, where you can always Netflix and fill to some degree, you know, but you can also learn a lot about what you want to what you want, want to understand. And I think we’ve learned some lessons through that journey and also through the software development journey, because what we’ve actually done is I’ve been very privileged to be able to have to connect with people who are experts in their field in that space. And that for me was the secret. It was to find the best minds who have either done it or who are doing it. And in dentistry, the only thing I can compare it to is having mentors and and really tapping into that and seeing if you can learn from their experiences and if they’re happy to share those with you. There’s you know, you can really you can do anything you want if you’ve got advisors in the necessary space. So let me put it this way. In the software side, one of my cousins and again, I feel life is really interesting because things just align.

[00:23:25] But my cousin who who came to this came here when he’s 24 from Sri Lanka, lived with us for five years. He’s older than me, but he owns a software house. Well, that he built himself then. It was my grandma’s funeral, sadly. And I met and we we got the flight down to Sri Lanka and he was I was talking to about what we’re doing share side. La la la la la la. And he’s like, let me build you a team, a tech team. And the more I got into it, he’s like, I would love to be part of this. Like, this sounds like something worth pursuing and to the point where he sort of separated himself from his his software house. And he then came in, came on board as what we call the CTO and really built an in-house tech team from the ground up, all the processes, all the things that need to be done, the systems. I’m very much we’re all very much orientated on people’s systems and processes. So really getting all of that right aligned with the vision. And if we can, if you can hire talented people and you understand for me understanding a clear vision and a clear sense of purpose and having a strong set of values. I have a 65 page blueprint about chess that I wrote just, just on our culture, which for me was important for me because it allows us to to employ, to recruit way.

[00:24:48] But you can’t we can’t we can’t continue we can’t go forward without discussing that again. Go on. 65 pages.

[00:24:57] 65 pages. A lot of it’s probably waffle, to be honest.

[00:24:59] No, no.

[00:25:00] But it’s it’s almost like a journal of thoughts of of everything from vision, from our vision, from our mission, from this thing called the hedgehog concept, which I find really fascinating, which is what you’re passionate about, what your world class are and what your and what your economic engine is. And it’s a Venn diagram and where you sit in that as a business. And for me, it was like what we’re passionate about, we’re passionate about helping dentists and impacting patient health for the better patient understanding because we’re trying to get specific as possible. And then what are we while class that we’re going to be. Well, class building innovation that can transform patient communication for dentists. And what’s the economic engine? Well, we have to build a business model around that, sort of like it’s a SAS product at the minute, but there are other various elements that come into that. So that’s one big major part of like that. There’s a huge element as well of leadership, what leadership looks like, what level five leadership looks like, what it is to act with humility but also professional will, you know, but also inspire and empower as we grow. So there’s sort of a chart on that. And then and then as you go past level five leadership, there’s a partner and like who we hire and what that looks like and what the values of the company are.

[00:26:22] To who is that and who is that.

[00:26:25] Like? So fundamentally, people who are highly disciplined and highly passionate about the purpose, heart, strong work ethic. And integrity. These are some core things that are non-negotiable when it comes to our side. I’m a true believer in consistency and discipline over time.

[00:26:47] How many people have you got now?

[00:26:49] We’ve got a team of developers, animators and a business team, so we’ve got three elements of cheer side. We just recruited a new someone in marketing, which is like, I’m just trying to count. So we’ve got six, six, seven, eight, about 15, six, six, 15 to 15 and we’re still recruiting two more. So. I’m about 17 now. But we’ve we’ve got a long way to go. It’s just. I mean, it’s just a beginning. But, I mean, we’ve also learned our lesson. So we’ve got to know who we want to hire, how we want to hire, and what those those people look like because they all have a stake and they will have skin in the game. And skin in the game is a really important thing, a concept to me, because everyone has to have if the chessboard has to be their company, it has to be their company. They’ve got to feel it, believe it. So they have equity. They will have shares, all options. When you do that, you have a long term relationship. And when you when you have long term, when you make long term decisions with long term people, you end up making really good. You have to make sure those people are the right people right. And you never get it. I mean, it’s hard to get it spot on every time, but one way of filtering it is not based on just talent. It’s also based on personality. It’s also based on those values that we uphold. And the extension of of who we are is the leadership team. But also, when I talk about the leadership team, as soon as having a democratic way of way of working, there’s so many different cultures out there like freedom and responsibility and all of this. Right? But I found that I would love to have a team that’s freedom and responsibility, but it’s so hard. It’s so hard. And so it doesn’t come without its challenges.

[00:28:28] I’ve got a few questions that stem from all of that, what you’ve just said. And I’m just I’m just going to be sort of sort of, first of all, drill down into I’ve recruited hundreds of people over the year, and I feel like I’ve got the process nailed down. And when I finally do think I’ve got the process nailed out, I hire someone in a serial right point. In case that happened to be a senior senior web developer that I ended up hiring, technically, even my current senior developer will tell me like gifted beyond gifted, right? These guys, this guy was right in ERP systems for banks and stuff. Amazing. Passed all of our tests came aboard long story short fired him. He’s not he’s not been with us long. Payman knows when I hired him didn’t last very long. And it was a values based thing. Right. You talked about you like to hire people of integrity, values, this, that and the other. How on earth do you test for them? Because until this is in my in my limited experience. But until they’re in your business, until they’re communicating with your team, until they’re attending discussions where perhaps they disagree with team members or disagree with you as a leader. Right. And that’s and that’s all. Okay. Is how they respond. You can’t test any of that. Right. So a lot of the time I get it right. There are times even now after being in business for 16 years, I can’t do it all up. So how do you test for integrity and how do you test the things like values and all of that? And then I’ve got a second question after that, which stems down to slicing up your equity and all that razzmatazz, because I’m curious about that more than anything else. But let’s let’s just stick to recruitment for now. How do you test.

[00:30:20] For okay, so deep seated values are something that you learn over time. And I don’t think it’s something you can test in in a in an interview. I don’t think it’s something that is fair to test in an interview almost and based. It’s almost like judging a book by its cover. But there are definitely questions you can ask based on experiences of how people have performed.

[00:30:43] Go and do. Tell me, tell me. Have you hired some good people?

[00:30:46] One example actually that worked really well for us is we have a policy that we actually when we do one interview, then we all go out for lunch on a separate interview and a second interview where it’s a lot more formal and you learn a lot from that relaxed environment. In fact, there was one guy that we thought was incredible and he was on paper and he interviewed really well. Actually, interestingly, when it came to the conversations over lunch, it was almost like, I hate to say it, but it was almost like the examples he gave from his experiences with his last company. Like everyone else was really bad at what they did and he was a maverick at what he did. And it almost you started to realise that actually, you know, these, it’s these little things. And I think I think I’m very again fortunate to have co-founders who are quite good at also reading people and also good at recruiting alongside. I mean I personally have as part of the dental practice, obviously recruited nurses and and dentist and whatnot in the past. But then, Sanjay, he’s been recruiting developers for four years. Kyrie, he’s been in in recruitment in the the banking and tech space as well with experience. And also we have an advisor for recruitment. So with all of that in place and with our core fundamental things that we look for, we’re fortunate to have sort of four I would say I’m not going to say four, eight years and eight eyes from four people that can all input into what what they’re noticing from, from the behaviours and the conversations that these, that these potential employees have that fit in line with the culture of chair side. And it’s probably sense and I think it might sound soft, but I think it’s more of a feeling and based on how and what and how and what people act in, how they act in certain circumstances and when posed with certain questions and more than what what actually how they actually respond.

[00:32:40] I think that’s a very good point, man. I think that’s a very good point to have to have some relaxed time with the potential candidate. That’s a buddy. Excellent idea.

[00:32:50] Excellent. I mean, how high is low? Five, how fast if hopefully you don’t have to fire fast. Right. But hiring slow is part of that process. And in fairness, we came across that accidentally because I think when we with one of the candidates, we actually, you know, just coincidentally ended up going for lunch early doors. And then we learned a lot from that lunch.

[00:33:11] We learned from that.

[00:33:11] And we learned so much also afterwards because because it was a case of like, oh, we went, you know, went to went to the bar to play pool afterwards, all of that. And then when the guards down, you get to understand if they’re the right cultural fit and especially with some of the, the experience based questions that come. And I think, I think over time you try and build a kind of understanding, but we’re still learning. I’m always learning. I’m not the best at that at all. You just have to try and minimise the mistakes and reduce the number of mistakes you make.

[00:33:41] It’s an amazing stuff, buddy. It’s amazing stuff. Tell us. Tell us. Let’s go back. Let’s go back. Childhood before and why people go, hey.

[00:33:49] Before we do that, let’s finish off the question about the equity. The staff get in, check all that because I’m really, really curious. So we started off we started off the conversation about like you go in for to raise money. And, you know, it’s interesting how different businesses approach this. And I always find it really interesting that, you know, you’ve got this business and on day one, you’ve got a tablet and you’ve got some animations, and then you show someone a prototype and you say, give us some money. And in exchange for that, there’s going to be some kind of exchange. Usually it’s equity talk to. I don’t know how comfortable you feel sharing the numbers, but just talk to me, if not just about the thought process of you’ve got a company that’s not generating any revenue right now. It’s an idea. It’s something you’re passionate about, and you’ve got a prototype and you go to an investor, be it a friend, family member, or someone you went on a trip with and say, Give us some dough and we’ll give you this in exchange. Talk me through that. Did you did you do it like a valuation in your head or a future valuation? Just take me to those conversations, mate.

[00:35:02] So, so, absolutely. So just as a guiding principle, you need if your business there’s two types of businesses in my mind, there’s a cashflow, a solid cash flow business. You could call it bricks and mortar to some degree. Nowadays, it doesn’t even have to be bricks and mortar, but it is fundamentally a a revenue based business. And then there’s another business where you can add value through scale. Right. And that value doesn’t necessarily mean commercial value from sales. It could come in various, various means. But you’re building the value of the business because of the number of people you are impacting per se. Right. So when you exit business, I guess my understanding is that you can exit a business based on a multiple of EBITDA of a of a cash flow because you’re selling the future cash flow or you’re fundamentally selling the values that generated the uses or not. When I say uses, you’re selling the fact that, you know, you’ve got a concept that people love and they’re willing to pay for or someone’s willing to pay for somehow. Right. And interestingly, I have actually coming back to just on that exit point share side is actually like we’re building a business for life. Like it’s not actually something that we’re looking for like a, you know, most start-ups are going to have an immediate five year runway with an exit or whatnot. We don’t actually have that. We want to build a business that will last. And through that journey, what happens? What happens? Well, you know, something happens along that journey. Great. But so going back to that with knowing the end in having the end in mind and knowing how we want what our North Star is and knowing that we want to build a business that will last, we know that having people on the journey, this isn’t going to be something that is going to be a quick overnight thing.

[00:36:43] So we have to build. We have to have significant investment. It’s not something that we can to achieve to realise the vision of impacting patients around the world through visual communication. That’s not something we can do, you know, door to door sales. Right. And hope for every transactional cost. Also, one critical part here is that we’re Chesnut is a product that’s not replacing an existing product in a workflow, if that makes sense. We’re not the new. So that replaces the current SUV. That’s not what we are. We are an additional option in a in a climate where patients demand to know or wish to know more and dentists are at the risk of litigation. So we’ve come to a point where we’ve created a solution to help mitigate risk but also empower patient understanding. Therefore, that solution is a culture change, and that culture change comes with its own challenges. I can’t promote chair side or the team can’t promote chair side as Oh, we’re the new so common users, we’re PMS. We have to almost explain what it is we’re trying to do. We are we are a patient community onwards for so long we’ll are we a patient communication platform? Are we a patient education platform? What sounds what sounds sexy? What doesn’t like what is our reality? And so actually getting the words because we are not replacing an existing software or an existing part of that journey, you could argue we’re replacing flip charts, you know, where you had those pictures of teeth.

[00:38:10] So all of that requires investment. So to get that investment, you need to somehow a firm, in my opinion, really have a purpose that is worth pursuing, that is has a tangible business model around it and has a tangible market that is willing to be impacted by it. So when you raise money and you value your business, there’s this thing called the total addressable market. Where how big is this market? Look, you can’t raise, you know, £1,000,000 if you can’t value a company £1,000,000 if your market there’s only sort of ten people willing to spend £100 in that market. Right. It’s just not going to happen. But if you’ve got a market like dentistry where there’s one point you know, 1.2 million odd dentists around the world, this is call it 42,000 dentists in the UK. You know, maybe there’s an opportunity where you can build a product to target a specific niche within that domain and therefore you can then in in my understanding, you have a fair assessment of how many people you think you can impact over what time early doors investors get a more favourable share and you value the company according to your total addressable market, according to your potential economic model and the various impact in revenue streams you can generate from that, right.

[00:39:27] Yeah, but what did you tell, what did you tell the investor that came down to in pounds and pence and percentages.

[00:39:33] Pounds and pence. I would I think.

[00:39:36] If you honestly don’t want to talk about that’s.

[00:39:39] No we can I think at the beginning it’s fair to say there is also this incentive called this by the way. Yeah. Where you know early doors investors get.

[00:39:52] What’s a.

[00:39:53] It’s it’s seed investment entrepreneur seed investment entrepreneur scheme. I can’t remember what it’s called, I think. I can’t remember what the the. So the idea is it’s.

[00:40:07] An investment enterprise scheme, but the same sort of seed. So it’s a it’s a it’s a good tax break for anyone who is wanting to invest. So there’s there’s a tax benefit from that. And it allows you to go out to mass market and I guess give a percentage of your company.

[00:40:25] Up.

[00:40:25] To a pool of investors who you choose to invest. You invest in your company under that enterprise scheme, if I understand that correctly.

[00:40:34] Correct. I mean, I guess what it is, is, you know, high risk individuals are able to invest in businesses that are non bricks and mortar, that are not, for example, property and stuff like that, and put money in and have a potential tax relief on that investment. Right.

[00:40:53] Quick question on that. So did you set up an SES as an investment platform for chair sites or was that correct? Was that your original strategy before you approached your number one investor or did that person bypass that and get into the equity early doors?

[00:41:11] That investor was already savvy on that. And it was it was it was our accountant’s advice. And by counting, our accountant was the first investor here. So his advice, well, it’s the other way round. He’s the first investor and then became our accountant. Right. So he was like, look, we can raise this off ses the da da da da da. In fact, you know, here we go. Here’s some, here’s some funding. Let me go with it. Let’s go with it. And we were like, okay, really, it’s a case of how much equity would you like to have in exchange for the amount that you’re putting in? And we believe that this is how much we feel we can let go of to make it interesting for you, but also scalable for us as we go through this journey. Because, you know, you can’t give away 50% of the company on day one for a very small investment that if you’re raising big money later on, you know, you could get diluted quite heavily. Right.

[00:42:05] So and then and then go on going forward, when you get like a rock star, sort of you go higher that you want to hire. What ends up being the the ownership part, the do you are you following the usual thing that tech companies do with share options and all that for people?

[00:42:23] Absolutely. Like every every every we we mean the ethos that aside is that everyone’s part of the journey and wherever we go, however we get there, when we get there, we will get there. Everybody wins. That’s the idea. And if you’re a rock star, you win to just as much as if you’re not a rock star and you just contributed in a different way in your own. And that’s why hiring is really important for us. But then they’re all part of an option pool that is safeguarded that they can access as part of the agreement within chance.

[00:42:52] So back back to that original piece where what percentage did you hive up and say, we’re going to give that to SAS and as owners we’re going to hold onto the rest. Where where was that comfort point for you?

[00:43:06] I think a good question for me. I think early days, we wouldn’t want to give away any more at that point then I don’t think anyone would would want to give more than I think incubators generally give away about 7%.

[00:43:20] Okay.

[00:43:22] So the market there is a market average kind of thing, but each industry is also different, right? Like if you’re going to build, if you if you’re going to if you’re going to need to start off, if you need seed investment of like 10 million because you’re building like something that can enter your brain and you need R&D like research grants to be able to actually embed a chip in your brain. The R&D itself will cost about five mil. Right? And you can’t then go to go to an investor and raise, you know, what, 20 to 25 grand as your first investor and give him 50% of the company. That’s not going to happen. So there is every industry is different, but I would say 7% is typically what most incubators offer, as I think they might give you six figures for that.

[00:44:09] So did you give any did you give up 7%?

[00:44:13] It’s not like we didn’t do that. We didn’t actually do that. And we didn’t raise we didn’t raise that at that point. He was a much smaller investor and is a much different equity stake. But just to give you an idea.

[00:44:25] Do you know what I’m not I’m not being I’m not.

[00:44:29] Nosy, Mr..

[00:44:30] Newson. I’m not buying this book. I’m not I’m not being Mr. Nosey and I’m actually being Mr. Inquisitive and I’ll explain why. And I’m just about to jump into a partnership with a couple of people.

[00:44:43] And.

[00:44:44] And there’s, there’s a, there’s a business idea stroke model that I think is fairly powerful. And the people involved a the right people in that business.

[00:44:55] Should we get it out of him?

[00:44:58] That was proven right. Obviously. Love it.

[00:45:00] Love and let’s get this.

[00:45:01] Out of, you know, love it, love it, not make anything.

[00:45:06] Host, guest host. This week is loving and just.

[00:45:09] Yes.

[00:45:10] It is. Prav, take.

[00:45:11] A.

[00:45:12] Lovely thanks again. Thanks for joining.

[00:45:15] Me. So I’m just going to tell you that I was born and raised in Manchester and my dad drove a taxi and owned a corner shop. I had a tough childhood and I was bagging spuds in the corner shop for a living.

[00:45:28] All right. What was it? What was it? What was it? It was the basic area without giving it all the way. So you might as you can’t say what you said and then not say the next thing gone.

[00:45:36] I’m going to tell you why I’m acquisitive and I’m not being a nosy, you know, what is the there is this business idea, right? That revolves around three individuals who’ve got this idea to take it to market. And there is an opportunity for us to go and raise some money to kick start this project. Now, the reason why I’m curious is that the idea is great. The concept’s great. We there’s a mission that we believe in and we’re all pretty positive about it anyway. So but the business has got no value, right? Because there’s a product, there’s an idea, it’s potentially a service behind it, but it is cash flow zero. So we can go out to either individuals that we know we’re going to put our own hands in our own pockets to kick start the business as well. But if we want a massive cash injection. We’re asking ourselves this question at the moment. What percentage do we let go of before we go hunt it? Right.

[00:46:37] Really good.

[00:46:37] Question. And that’s really good. That’s why I’m asking that is why I’m asking you this question right now, because I am curious. I don’t actually care about the numbers, the percentage like you talked about, 7%. And then you said, oh, well, this investor got a different deal in this, that and the other just broadly speaking. And it’s not a tech it’s not a tech product, by the way. But broadly speaking, like how do you even have that conversation with investors with yourselves? Right. Because you could just pick a number out of the air. Right. We’ve all watched Dragon’s Den. Right. They make an absolute fool of themselves in value in the companies for like 10 million quid and they’ve not even got a product or whatever. Right. And embarrassing themselves. That’s what I wanted to learn from you May is just just get some insight because you’ve done it. You’ve been there and done that, right? We haven’t.

[00:47:30] Now, of course, I mean, I think I think there’s three parts to any I believe, anyway, from my learning. Sure. One part is understanding product market fit. The next part, I’m just going to lay this out as to how I how I see this. Right. So you’ve got product market fit. You need to achieve product market fit. There’s a huge investment element there with high risk that’s super early stage, that’s you’ve got this idea, but you haven’t actually proven the concept, you haven’t proven usage, you haven’t proven that people are willing to purchase it or not purchase it, and that is probably the highest risk. So there’s a risk to reward ratio based on that phase. So if you’re coming in at that phase early doors, you’re more likely to get to take a bit more equity. But you also have to be understanding of founder motivation. Right. If the founding team don’t have enough skin in the game where it’s worth their sweat equity, and that’s fundamentally what you’re valuing your sweat equity. Right? And then we bootstrapped for years. For years, like I can say, we didn’t we didn’t raise we raised hardly anything for about four years and then had then we were revenue generating and then we were going, you know, sort of like that that raised that funding round. That’s more significant. But what it did was it proved the concept at each phase and you raise enough that you need to to create a runway that takes you to the next phase. So the way I would see it is your concept or the who you wish to back. What is their runway for, what they wish to achieve, and what could the valuation potentially be at that stage? So I’ll give here’s an argument. They say you’re going to you’re in lemonade. You’re selling lemonade. Right. And you think you’ve got this mission, you’ve got this.

[00:49:19] But you’re selling patient education software to pitch to us. Yeah.

[00:49:24] Thank you. Yeah.

[00:49:28] You can give us a glass of lemonade while we listen to you. Me?

[00:49:32] Imagine. Imagine it’s us going and then going.

[00:49:34] Yeah, we’re the lemonade and you’re in. You’re saying no. Hopefully at that early stage, you’re saying, right. I think we could if we get this product right, I think we can make vegan lemonade. Vegan lemonade, we reckon can scale. There’s a vegan market of X, Y, Z. And in the first year, we need to we need food. In the first six months. The first year, dude, we need.

[00:50:09] Is there any eggs, meat and dairy in lemonade?

[00:50:13] I don’t know. Water, lemon, whatever. It’s the process. It’s the process. I’m not sure. Okay. Yeah, let’s let’s call it let’s let’s call it the way the bottle was made. Maybe in the content, but anyway, very bad.

[00:50:31] Whatever the process is.

[00:50:32] Whatever the process. Yeah. So just an argument just it’s just an argument. I use the word vegan because there’s a niche market, you know, it’s targeted, you know, lemonade already exists. Fine. You’re saying we’re going to target this market at this time, this many people, we think we can hit this many people. But first, we need to build to make the best vegan lemonade. To make lemonade we need we need one. We need 150 grand. Right? Most incubators give you 150 grand for seven, 7%. And you say we think that that over six months to 12 to over 12 months, that that 150 grand, you know, that will pay basic wages. We never took salary, but some people may want to take salary that will allow us to, you know, source the product, you know, build the IP, whatever, whatever, whatever, get the actual ingredients right, get the flavours right. And we know that maybe five out of ten people at that stage will want to buy this. Buy this sometimes at seed stage 150 is not enough because you haven’t quite solved it. You might then go to the next level of seed and you might say, I want to raise some more. And I think the trade off is how much if this did go in and if your vision was 100,000 a week that you’re selling, you’re selling this 100,000 a week. And eventually, you know, I don’t know, Procter and Gamble might buy it off you. I’m not sure you will then say to the investor, hey, I think that at this stage in the next 12 months, we can raise more money at this point because we would have hit these targets, hit these milestones. And therefore, this is. Sure, sure, sure, sure. If it’s. But let’s say.

[00:52:11] For this business. I want a million quid. They want. It’s that out there. For sentences. I mean, like you’ve been through all. I’ve never. I’ve never raised.

[00:52:25] Money. Why not? Why not? Why not?

[00:52:27] Is that. No, no. But off the back of a. An idea, right? In your experience, the edge?

[00:52:35] Yeah, 100%. It’s out there. The market’s a bit funky for the next three months. Three years. The projections. I was reading this thing from Sequoia Capital, this really great projection where this thing where there’s like. The next three years is probably going to be quite challenging raising money. But the money is out there and I would probably say scaleable money as opposed to like scalable investments as opposed to cash flow rich investments where more favourable in the past two years for sure, three years, I’m not sure about the next three years. People are looking for more secure cash flow rich investment options. But having said that, the money is out there. You can raise you can raise a million. You can raise 2 million. You can raise 5 million. There are enough, especially in London, there is enough investment to go. It comes down to whether they believe in the purpose. They believe they’re passionate about it, and they believe there’s an economic engine that is tangible and that actually, honestly, I think it comes down to the team. I think it’s if they actually believe in the team because the vision, the product changes, the idea changes what the idea might be at seed stage once you’ve tested it in the market could be completely different when it’s actually the thing that people are using. But if you’ve got the right team that can navigate through that, the challenges and the pivot, I think that’s what people invest in largely. Yeah, yeah.

[00:53:55] Love that, man.

[00:53:56] I think I think I’ve only come to learn that over time. It seems so much, you know, things in hindsight seem so much more obvious.

[00:54:03] So tell us, tell us. Tell us then. More about dentist. What made you want to become a dentist and what made you want to stop being a dentist?

[00:54:12] I originally wanted to do I originally wanted to be a rapper that was actually rap.

[00:54:19] So did Proud really know?

[00:54:21] I grew up listening to NWA and Ice-T back in the day and.

[00:54:27] Oh, amazing.

[00:54:28] How we realised I didn’t have the voice or the.

[00:54:31] Lyrics.

[00:54:33] But I’d study anatomy and biochemistry instead. Payman is winding you up.

[00:54:40] The Fair.

[00:54:41] Enough. So what you wanted to be.

[00:54:43] I thought you actually. I was actually quite excited. I thought.

[00:54:45] You did. No, no, no. I’m just a good storyteller, mate, and. But come on, tell us, rapper, who was your inspiration? Inspirations. Why?

[00:54:55] I come from a point where I think I think I was around at that particular at a particular age, I would probably say 14, 15, where the UK grime scene was in its infancy and it was transitioning from garage, transitioning from garage to, to, to sort of this like more emcees, none of these tracks and having these these lyrics. And I also I think at that point was really was listening to a lot of West Coast hip hop. I think I think in that phase, Tupac and all of them guys were like really making commercial movements and Jay-Z was becoming a thing. And I think I just had this really this I was super passionate about songwriting. And if I would actually go to the crux of it, I think at school it was the thing that I was good at, if that makes sense. Like when I say good at very subjective, but like it was the thing that I felt like.

[00:55:45] I felt like you were in flow.

[00:55:47] I felt like was my thing, right? Yeah. And we do battle raps with other schools and I would be challenging and you know, I wasn’t I probably I wasn’t the captain of the football team nor was I probably the the, the, the coolest kid in on the block at the time. But I was passionate about songwriting. I loved it, I loved it. I did it in my sleep. I did it with my free time. And I felt like I was I felt like I had my identity and that identity like and I still am attached to it because it was such a big part of my identity, but it allowed me to express myself. It was a great platform for expression, but also it allowed me to be myself. And that was something that I carried through. And I’ve been very fortunate to meet friends in the industry who are now full time musicians as well doing their thing and watch them grow and succeed. And, and I was really lovely. But there was there was a point for me where I’m not saying that I ditched it, but I had to make some decisions whether I wanted to follow something I was really passionate about, really passionate about, which is a music thing that was like, I mean, absolute no cash flow like zero negative.

[00:56:58] Like you can’t raise you can’t raise money for that or anything. You just got to graft it. And in hindsight, I learned something about myself. Through that journey is like, what if I actually I didn’t pursue I pursued, I graduated as a dentist and I went three days a week dentist when I graduate because I want to do two days of music. I said when I start earning some money on music videos, I do this on a really pursue my passion. And I ended up becoming a dentist for days and ended up becoming a dentist five days. And because at that point it became like, I don’t know if I had the graft at the time because dentistry was becoming a thing where I was really starting to enjoy the clinical practice and then life kicks in and it’s like, Oh, you know what? I need to, I want to I want to do this course and that course and do this and do that. And then that kind of starts taking over and the whole music thing as well. I felt very like, I think it’s a personal thing at the time, but my mindset at the time was I’d make a song right and I’d go to one extra and BBC one extra would say, Go to the Asian network, and I go to the Asian network and they’d say, Go to BBC one extra.

[00:58:12] And it was like, Oh, and I played my stuff on this Radio one show, which was lovely, but it was also especially a show with Asia. So I was like making, I was like having these Asian beats, but I was also like, I’m saying completely Western. I can’t even speak Tamil or English. I’m not I’m not part of the Punjabi crew. So I didn’t really have the Bhangra thing. But I love lots of Punjabi mates and I loved that music. So we’re a very weird niche of like, wow, you know? And I kept being ping pong and I was like, I can’t build a sustainable crib. But actually in the world now, if I have the courage and I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think I had the courage at the time to actually take the plunge and pursue something I was super passionate about and see where it led. And I learned a lesson from that. And now that. Gratitude. Sorry.

[00:59:01] Regrets?

[00:59:03] Yeah. Well, regretted the timing. Yeah. You regretted the fact that I accepted it as it was and thought.

[00:59:10] You know what didn’t fit right?

[00:59:12] Yeah. Like, I mean, my niche was so small I was making, but I could have. I could. You know what I know now you can build a following of a small niche and then expand, right? And like, I was also super insecure about releasing stuff I just wasn’t 100% happy with. So I’m a bit of a I was a bit of a procrastinator in my own because when you make music, you are the brand, you are the product, you are the solution.

[00:59:39] You at the end of it, isn’t it?

[00:59:40] Yeah. So I was so paralysed by that and I was like, Oh no, you know, it doesn’t really sound too great. And I don’t really have an understanding of market and all of that. And I was just making music and. With what I know now. Like, if I just stuck at it. Like, I think. I think sometimes there’s something. Yeah.

[00:59:58] Sorry, love and sorry. Sorry to interrupt, but tell me this this then moving into the communication side is is kind of that story started with the wrapping. You know, you have the music.

[01:00:11] The music.

[01:00:11] And I actually actually did.

[01:00:14] Yeah. Yeah. That’s kind of kind of where it stems from. You actually connected the dots there? Payman. Yeah, true thing. Yeah. I mean, I learned that and I thought, I’m not playing at this time. I’m just going to really, really blitz it. And if there’s something you’re passionate about, have the courage to really go for it. Take some risks, try it. Obviously educated risks to some degree, but that was a real life lesson. And I still I still write today and I have this hope that like not this hope, but I’m putting it into practice where still recording stuff and just, just putting it out. I think I come to realise as well with that music thing is like that’s everlasting, that’s evergreen, that’s forever that, that is me as a person. I’ll continue to write and do it for myself and to do it for anyone who’s willing to listen to me. And so that’s kind of I’ve kind of made peace with that.

[01:01:07] But that’s how I feel about this podcast. That’s how I feel about this podcast. Really, really. I just feel that, you know, it’s for whoever wants to listen to it and for me.

[01:01:17] But for me, why is that not the best way it takes out so much of the nonsense in your head when you want to do something just for you and for people who want to be part of that. Interestingly, I think it was my younger brother who taught me that he’s five years younger than me, but it was the career he chose. He didn’t choose anything. He didn’t pursue sort of the financial returns of a particular career. He went into like a start up world in like the basics of of VR in a time where, you know, VR was not really a thing. And and I was like, Wow, man, you really inspired me. Like, you just done something you’re just super passionate about zero kid. You really love that kind of stuff and turned him back. Looking back on it, I’m like, you know, that’s that’s kind of kind of important. Just pursue what you’re passionate about, take some risks, have the courage, do it for yourself. And same thing with chess. I’d look if we can impact one patient and we can help one one dentist and it adds significant value. Surely there’s other dentists and patients that will want it right and we just have to try and find them.

[01:02:16] What’s the business model worth? How do people pay for it?

[01:02:20] It’s a subscription product, so it’s a SaaS product at the moment where, yeah, you can you can pay monthly or you can pay for an annual license, which is a bit cheaper. And we’ve tried to keep it, keep the costs as low as possible with the view that it’s an early product. You know, people need to experience it to keep the barrier to entry low at this point and the free.

[01:02:40] Trial or something.

[01:02:41] Yeah, there’s a, there’s a month free trial and hopefully the early. The early users reap the benefits from the from the early incentives.

[01:02:52] To talk us through what happens. Patient comes in needs, needs. Something can explain it to him. Hit the screen.

[01:03:01] Don Yeah. So what.

[01:03:03] Happens is your video comes.

[01:03:04] Out okay. So like really evolving care side now is a cloud based platform. There’s no screen. Yeah, we have that screen as a premium. It is a cloud based platform. Yeah. You sign up within. I would probably say once you’ve filled out your name and a few details, you get access straightaway. You’re in the chat, you’ve got all your conditions. It’s a Netflix style approach. So you’ve got Imagine Netflix, but imagine you’ve got conditions, treatment options, risks, and then you start condition and you can take your patients through that visual journey showing them their condition, their treatment options and their risks. The entire conversation is then timestamped, tracked and stored in your notes to say This was set at this time. This was played for this. This percentage of this video was played. And you can annotate, you can draw, you can do anything you want in an interactive fashion. You can then jump on a video, call with your patient, and again, share all of that content on a video call. Say you’ve had a situation where the patient’s been around. You know, you’ve got large treatment plan and you want to discuss, jump on that and have that conversation to a video call.

[01:04:04] And so you’ve covered what must have been a big time for an accelerated because of the video call. Right.

[01:04:09] That I mean, that’s when it spiralled, to be fair. That’s when it spiralled. A few things came off that we had like within three months we had like 400 practices sign up and then that was on a practice model. Now not the dentist model, but the X number of dentists.

[01:04:25] And then how did that feel? That was to felt like amazing and scary at the same time.

[01:04:31] Do you know what? It’s incredible. But it was five years to get to that point. Right. And like it was just timing. Like the product was in the right place, the market had an immediate need and then it was through that that the visuals became the thing that people loved. Like, okay, a cool video calling, but actually I can share visuals. How can I use these visuals in the chair? Oh, by the way, this is the original product which is chair side, which is like a SAS based cloud based product. Go into Google app com, log in and show your patients anything you want to do on your phone. Do it and your wherever you want and if you want to jump on a video call so that spiralled it and that sold, I think that created awareness for us. That’s what it did. And since then, you know, we’ve been able to go to sort of improve the content while we’re increasing scale. But more importantly, what we’re focusing on user experience, we’re focusing on on having the best content that will that the dentist want to help articulate their messages, whatever that message might be to the patient, whether it’s it’s your perio, whether it’s implants, whether it’s ortho, what the risks are.

[01:05:35] We’ve got animations on like IPR, you know, really explaining, you know, resorption, all these things that, you know, you might not articulate in a conversation or patients might not grasp. You can actually visually explain it within 8 seconds using chair side. And that’s the beauty of it. It’s actually faster and it’s a lot more thorough. And then everything is tracked and stored in your notes. So, you know, there’s proof in five years time, if anyone comes up to you and says, Hey, you never told me that I had gum disease. Well, actually, I did. I even showed you how to use a tepee. And that’s know that was the next one and I showed you this and so on. It’s all timestamped at 9:00 on a monday, 4th of July, whatever the date is. Yeah. So the idea here is in the most automated fashion to help communicate easily, effectively, transparently, using a very straightforward journey that is absolutely customisable whilst having being protected at the same time. And then all of that can be emailed to the patient automatically. So based on what you clicked or those, all that content gets shared to the patient and they can consent to that there and then.

[01:06:41] Does. It connects with the practice software.

[01:06:45] We have we are going through that process right now. The video calling does at this minute, it’s integrated. And it’s a very good question because it’s the question we get all the time. And, you know, what I love about dentistry is like generally from the dentists, through the groups, through to the software houses. Is there is this collaborative like feel? I really feel like people are open to collaborating now. Sometimes there are barriers to collaboration, like technical issues and stuff, but generally everybody is willing to support and help each other. I think that’s a that’s like there’s an abundance mindset as opposed to a scarcity mindset in dentistry. I feel from my experience that’s a really positive thing in our community.

[01:07:26] So for so for example, the you’ve got a video calling platform which I’m assuming has got booking and you can like set appointments or availability or whatever.

[01:07:38] On the video calling side.

[01:07:39] Yeah, yeah, like calendar or something like that or some kind of your version of that. Can that interlink with the dental diary? So the double bookings are not made because we found we’ve built a few bits and pieces of software and the one thing that we found is getting knocking on the door of SWE and trying to get them to open up their API. Yeah, it’s like Rocky not to mate.

[01:08:06] I would probably say the hardest part. I mean, integrating bookings is near enough. It’s a huge challenge. It’s a huge challenge. We don’t have that because we can’t actually get that to happen at this point. And so that actually makes it very challenging. And I don’t think it’s the fault of any of the software houses. I just think it’s the way things are built that are feasible. It’s actually quite difficult as we move, as everybody moves to a more cloud based solution like, you know, you’ve got dental and you got everyone’s moving to sort of more cloud based. That becomes a lot more, I would probably say, achievable.

[01:08:46] Fine. And then you can push your patient data into, let’s say, dental, really, because that’s got an API that allows you to push and pull and whatnot. That’s obviously so I guess it depends on the practice software in terms of what you can and can’t do.

[01:09:01] Yeah.

[01:09:02] But I have a question for you, Prav, when you say to get so to open their API. Yeah. Isn’t that just the revenue share that would determine whether they would or they would agree.

[01:09:14] So there’s technical constraints, point number one.

[01:09:18] Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[01:09:19] And then point number two, I don’t know whether it’s or you guys are too small to talk to. We’re not opening an API or they actually don’t have an API. And for those who are listening that don’t understand what an API is, it is just a language that allows you to connect my software to your software where I can push data into it and I can pull data out of it in both directions. And sometimes you have a one way API that just pushes data out and you can just pull it. Or sometimes you have a two way where you can throw data back in and ideally to connect with a third party software platform, you need some kind of two way API where you can throw data in and you can query it and pull it back out. It’s the easiest way to describe it. And with certainly with software of excellence, that’s that’s not been possible. However, speaking of Dental, their engineers will get on the phone with you and have a chat with you and be very collaborative in terms of if you want to build a tool for their platform and they’ll give you all the documentation code as well. Yeah. Really. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that love of what you’re saying, they’re very collaborative.

[01:10:26] Yeah, very cool. I mean on that note I actually as I said, we are really have a really great mindset. Like they are really open to collaborating, they really want to improve the dentist experience. It’s important to them. I actually think that that because as a we own density now I know.

[01:10:48] Yeah.

[01:10:48] So I think the focus is more on the growth of it’s much easier. I think it’s just easier as we have so much on their plate, they’ve got all these nice things that they have to program and the changes every time they have to program. Yeah, I can imagine even just trying to like work with the tech team on chair side and that’s like like a 20th of maybe, maybe even less like of what so is, is a beast in terms of, in terms of the things that need to be programmed. I can understand why actually getting onto the roadmap is a bit of a challenge, but there is definitely I think there’s definitely a push for everyone, you know, naturally moving, cloud based. I think that might be the future is the integrations and the cloud based platforms.

[01:11:27] Yeah. So just out of curiosity, what integrations like let’s say you’ve got the the best Dental platform that you have. Let’s say somebody comes to you and goes, look, I’m all of. Chair side sunshine right chair side is the is is the censor point of my communication. Which dental practice software should I.

[01:11:50] Get.

[01:11:51] That has the best connection with chair side? And could you describe what that journey would be? Would you be pushing and pulling data out? Could you fire patient data over into the practice software, into that patient’s record? And then curiously, how do you identify James Smith in and James Smith in chair side as being the same human beings when this 25 James Smith’s in the system.

[01:12:21] Very good point. I think the best way for genocide is three levels of integration. The first integration is that when you when you start an animation, it works within the platform itself. So we’re not like you’re eliminating that need to go onto the Chrome based platform. I think that that is that’s a natural, like easy, better user experience. Then the next part is having the name. And so like when you, when you go through an animation sequence on Shoreside, what we call flows, when you go through a flow like a period flow, you’re actually everything that’s being recorded is being recorded under that patient that’s been opened on. So. Right, so you’re not entering. So like honestly, I’m opening up James Smith, I’m looking at the previous notes and I’m looking at his x rays and then I’m opening up the chair side under James Smith because James Smith is already open. I’m using chart side to to explain the visual chair.

[01:13:20] Side is already connected to s away and I can open up chair Smith Chair Smith James Smith Chair So I can open up chair side under that patient’s. Nelson It will fire that patient chair side records open who’s already in sway. So those that’s connected already, right? Is that what you’re saying?

[01:13:45] No, that’s what we’re working on right now.

[01:13:48] Oh, okay. Okay. But if you want to take the best.

[01:13:52] I’m just telling you that. I’m telling you the dream tree with this.

[01:13:55] But but but if you were to take the best integration that you’ve got with a cloud based platform, I’m assuming dental is probably the strongest connection you’ve got. Or maybe there’s another one. What are the possibilities as it stands right now.

[01:14:09] And endless possibilities with with platforms like that because. It’s almost like I’m just plugging in different elements.

[01:14:15] Yeah, but I’m talking about in its current incarnation now I buy chair side and I buy generally. What can I do today.

[01:14:24] You can open up chair side on like today. Yeah. We don’t really you can’t do anything right now because it’s not life, it’s not acting.

[01:14:31] Okay.

[01:14:32] The API is the APIs are being both APIs are being developed, they’re being plugged. So I wouldn’t want to tell you what we can what it will become. But if your answer is today, there is no no deep integration.

[01:14:48] Well the possibilities are endless.

[01:14:51] Huge. Yeah, yeah. But, but.

[01:14:56] But I guess and when we’ve developed pieces of software to integrate.

[01:15:02] It just, just links. Those have two things don’t have to stitch I’ll let the guys I have from Kuroki they’re, they’re not even trying to be within each bits of the software.

[01:15:11] Yeah. They don’t have to be. Yeah.

[01:15:14] That’s the whole Andre Allo. That is the Holy Grail.

[01:15:17] I mean it’s a question they ask the most because I mean probably same with everything, but just like could like and as I mentioned like that they’ve done such a great job. I would probably say trying not to rely on anyone is the best thing. Like if you can be stand alone experience but on awesome. But then the next layer is cool. If you can’t integrate, it makes everyone’s lives easier in terms of the experience. But we set out to build this as a standalone product with no expectation of any integrations because we can’t worry about what we can’t control too much. Yeah. So therefore, if it’s not, if it’s not on the table, we can’t, we can’t expect that to be the be all and end all of, of the success of share side or the failure of chatter. But is the success of chat side fundamentally? And if we if we rely on other people, it could actually lead to the failure of a business. So it’s not it’s not the right thing to do in my eyes. Yeah.

[01:16:13] Yeah. Just a bonus if it happens.

[01:16:17] To the British people change a lot of things in terms of experience. You know, it’s already restricted. We’re all restricted on time, just generally what we do. But in the clinic, more so. Right.

[01:16:31] So what’s your what’s your week? Is it how many days are you doing clinical. None. Or, you know.

[01:16:36] I still do. On on it feels like a day, but it’s actually two like officially. But I take so many like odd clinics here and there, like dental shows, all of that kind of stuff. But yeah, a day to two days a week that’s transitioning down now. And that’s, it’s, it’s more so because of the responsibilities I have to the practice. And yeah, but on a personal level it’s also because I get to use this thing and it’s new innovation on in the trenches every day. Like every day I’m in clinic with every patient and really understand and understand how we’re adding value that that for me is really important because I get to see every incremental change, every animation, how it plays out with my patients on a weekly basis. And I can feed back immediately. I can see the flaws, I can see, Oh, hang on a second. There’s no chance I’m going to do this. I don’t have enough time. How do we make it better? How do we make it quicker? So that for me in the trenches is, is an opportunity as well as upholding some of that to.

[01:17:34] Yeah. I mean, the question is, do you do you plan to stop completely or do you not plan to stop completely? We haven’t decided yet because I know if you’ve heard Prav was the one who pushed me. I was on one day a week and Proust pushed me and said, Look, either you’re pregnant or you’re not, or some other phrase you missed was.

[01:17:55] I’ve got a way. I’ve got a way with choice, way with words.

[01:17:59] It just depends who on a canoe and one foot on the shore or something like.

[01:18:03] That in a canoe on the shore, mate. More likely to be the pregnant bit or something. A bit more crass than that.

[01:18:09] But he pushed me because it’s really hard to stop it. It doesn’t feel right to stop with patience either.

[01:18:14] I think that’s probably the hard part for me. It is. It is hard. I’ve you know, I’ve more so more so because I, I like being wet fingered in dentistry. Like I like that feeling of when I speak to my colleagues, I speak to my colleagues as peers. And I don’t want to you know, I enjoy that still. I enjoy saying, hey, I used this or I did this with this patient and this happened and this result and it’s it’s I’m a dentist, you know, I actually really love clinical dentistry. I really, really enjoy it. It’s the opportunity to impact people firsthand there and then is huge. And I’ve had conversations with friends outside of health and there’s like, how do you feel like I mean, you just impact people straight away like there and then in a 20 minute appointment, 50 minute one half an hour appointment, hour long appointment on the day. And I think that feeling is is quite addictive as well, you know, when you have those relationships with patients. But I also am appreciative of the fact that, you know, it’s it is wise to go all in and it is coming to that point. For me, I think the hardest decision, one of the hardest decisions is actually letting go of it because of the love of it. But I hope I hope to still do some clinical here and there and not completely discard. I’ve had some great mentors, advise me accordingly. And like people like Raj Rattan, who’s the dental director, who then to protection going on about what an incredible individual human being but that’s that’s another story it’s just as as a human being a philosopher thinker and also as someone who knows and has seen everything in dentistry, you know, when he became the director, he still does some clinical work on on the side today. So there’s an argument for both just to not skill as well. But I think that’s a hard thing as a dentist. It’s like any skill, right, as well. And you have that attachment. So I don’t know. I’m I always.

[01:20:09] Think I always used to think, though lots of mothers stop for five years and then start again.

[01:20:14] Hmm.

[01:20:15] I wish that was five years is to be my number. You know, you can stop for five years. Loads of women do that or that. Or do they. Maybe, maybe I just made that up.

[01:20:27] I mean loads.

[01:20:29] Must do that.

[01:20:30] Right? I know at least half people take sabbaticals, right? Yeah. You can always go back on courses and learn how to redo certain things. If you’ve been five years out. There’s no excuse. I have no excuse. I’m just pondering. I just need to.

[01:20:46] Know, too. It’s actually difficult to find. I mean, the first thing you said is I want to talk to my peers as peers, which, by the way, that won’t really stop. Yeah. You know, I haven’t practised at all for ten years now. I still talk to my peers. Like peers kind of thing.

[01:21:01] Yeah, kind of thing. No, don’t worry about that. Yeah, I think, I think, I think there’s a point of diminishing returns where you have to take the plunge and just go all in on what you believe in and what you’re passionate about.

[01:21:14] And I think what Prav said to me, something like.

[01:21:17] I have a timeline for that and that should come to fruition.

[01:21:22] But did you know along the way you’ve spoken about or you’ve said the word impact a lot?

[01:21:29] I didn’t realise. But it’s great.

[01:21:32] You have. You have. I used to think about impact a lot too, but. And you’ve said it in so many different ways. You’ve said that you said impact on one human impact on the world impact. You’ve said a few different impacts, obviously important to you.

[01:21:47] If I can take impact and dive deep into that word for me, it’s contribution to society or contribution to a community or contribution or play my role. Play my role in this world, really? And what have I contributed to? If you know, at the end of the day, like, what were you part of? Everybody needs someone to stack the shelves as you need for society to run. Unless a computer or machine is going to do it. Someone needs to do it. Someone needs to. You will always need nurses. You’ll always need people to contribute their role in society. And you can find passion and purpose in any of those roles, some harder than not. But I believe you can, depending on what your personality type is like, you know, maybe certain certain roles allow for you to enjoy experiences because, you know, there’s some jobs out there that are less stress but allow you to earn a certain income and allows you to have experiences. But there’s. But then in your job or outside in your experiences, you may wish to pursue some impact, whether whatever that is or some contribution. For me, I want to hopefully contribute through my work as well as in whatever it is that I do to society. I think that for me gives me fulfilment and if on that journey I can, I can earn a living. Happy, happy days.

[01:23:03] Did you used to see the rat as that? Or was it just fun?

[01:23:08] Impact impact. The rap was I’m kind of like I’m that.

[01:23:13] That was fun for you. Like what was it?

[01:23:16] Was it fun?

[01:23:17] Was it like that? What’s your which one was it? Know when you said on impact the.

[01:23:20] Impact it was.

[01:23:21] For society. Do my bit on society. For society.

[01:23:24] Honestly speaking. Honestly speaking. The bits that I wrote this track called Teardrops, which is about the conflict, which is about orphans in Sri Lanka who had gone through the tsunami and whatnot. And like I remember performing that once and when I had like people messaged me saying they actually it brought tears to their eyes during that summer. Something with impact that was like resonated for me.

[01:23:47] Is it somewhere online if someone wants to listen to that?

[01:23:50] Teardrops? Yeah. I mean, YouTube took it down because I actually used at the time, like when I made it, I actually used some UNICEF images accidentally, which I didn’t realise, but UNICEF images and then there was like this copyright thing and they pulled it. But I mean, I’ve got stuff now that like I could like it’s, it’s, I’m actually going to be putting some stuff out just for myself really, but until my, my Instagram in the next couple of weeks. But again, it’s cathartic. It’s like therapy almost. I wrote this track, How are you? Which is how hard a friend, a very close friend of mine who’s unfortunately at a very young age, his wife passed away at the age of 37 in in quite very difficult circumstances. And I realised that after that my relationships with people changed a lot because I was actually asking people how they were, but actually asking you how are you like on a deeper level, how are you not just, Hey man, how are you? And it’s bad me on to write something that I was really quite passionate about in them. It’s that kind of thing. It’s almost like journaling is like therapy or therapy.

[01:24:54] You should do a podcast, man.

[01:24:58] What? You should. You should. Shall I rap to you guys? Please.

[01:25:03] Please. Please. No. Sure. Go.

[01:25:06] Would you let me do this? How are you thing? Right. Do it. Okay. All right. How are you? No, really, how are you? The question is kind of simple, but the answer is really true. There’s something deep inside that you might want to say. And I don’t mean. Yeah, cool. I’m cool. Yeah, I’m okay. In true friendship, we’re meant to circumvent the niceness, and they say talk is cheap, but to me it’s priceless. Forming connections comes from communication. But when was the last time I called to discuss my trepidations? So many around me with Hunchback. But this ain’t Paris. Heavy weights on the shoulders. Too hard to manage. I go in line. Everyone’s fine. Ain’t nothing savage. So maybe it’s just me on this journey with the excess baggage. Look. What if it’s okay to not be okay? What if it’s cool to not be cool? Society’s provided us with the stigma seen to be strong. But by burying my feelings, I feel I no longer belong. Centuries have passed shaped our perceptions. But who are they to define? What is perfection? Vulnerable was dishonourable. The emotional was weak. How much longer can we accept this for? Three emotions. How I speak. We still connect every minute just to hot spots, not humans blog our everyday lives. Like on a show like Truman. If ego is the enemy, testosterone keeps testing us, let alone progesterone imposter syndrome, preventing us from being ourselves. Share the weight of our feelings. How we use them deserves a greater meaning. The power of three words can go a long way, when answered honestly changed the course of our day. So next time we meet, maybe I’ll find the courage just to say thank you for asking. Yeah, I’m not. Okay. Jesus. Bloody hell. Wow. Wow.

[01:26:52] Bloody hell, man. Thank you so much, buddy. Thank you so much. Oh, definitely this podcast to a place that had never been before.

[01:27:00] I thought, you’re going to carry on wrapping them up.

[01:27:06] But I think we go back to back.

[01:27:08] But if you give if you give 10% of that song to Prav, I’ll stick it on the back. Let’s do this, buddy. Buddy, that was so good. That was so, so good.

[01:27:18] It was beautiful.

[01:27:19] It was beautiful. That means a lot to me. That really does mean a lot to me.

[01:27:24] It just. Just just the meaning that hung on every single word there. And funnily enough, do you know what I was speaking to? I was speaking to Bob earlier today, because we’re having this conversation about this business course that I’m doing later on this month. And we came we were having the conversation and we were talking about how were you? And we had the conversation this morning and it was like. It’s a question that you don’t expect an answer to. That was the conversation that we had this morning, and it really made me think about the fact that actually, when we asked that question, how are you? We don’t. Majority of the time, we’re not looking for an answer. Right. It’s just a you’re okay, you’re all right. And you’ve just.

[01:28:17] Lost the communication tool at that point. But then, you know, he said that to me and said that to me and I go, Oh.

[01:28:23] Yeah, you know, I mean, actually, this is what we’re so used to. And understandably, we’re so used to just saying how coincidental. In my conversation today, by the way, that’s.

[01:28:36] Really like.

[01:28:39] It’s.

[01:28:39] Literally why I was just I was sat there and if anyone was watching the video, I was I was struck. Do you know what I mean? Just just deeply struck while I was listening to it, because I’d had that conversation earlier, I was reflecting on that conversation that I’ve had with Bob, literally about that this morning. And Bob’s the guy who’s going to write the show notes. So he’s going to listen to this and he’s going to chuckle to himself because he knows the conversation that we had this morning. So it’s so surreal. But the depth of every single word that hung on what you said was was beautiful because there’s no other way that was defining.

[01:29:14] That was I was like.

[01:29:17] Oh, so I could do that and start up and be a dentist.

[01:29:20] Man Yeah.

[01:29:22] Look going on that you put some content up, but he put some content out like that because that was really strong. That was really strongly.

[01:29:31] For my birthday. I actually said to myself, I want to do this. And I got I got I got the video guy who shot something for our side. Lovely guy, Lucas. He’s coming round on Saturday, this Saturday to film about just me in the camera, black and white, just me dropping about five of these different ones that I’ve written. Six, six of them. See how it goes? I just put them out and. But it’s not like I can’t believe. Like I dropped the first one here.

[01:29:58] Buddy, buddy, you don’t even need this. This guy to come around with his camera, pull your frickin phone out because he’s. I’m being serious, right? I’m being serious. Me? Because what you actually just dropped there was I think will impact so many people. Right. Because at any one time when someone’s listening to that, I can assure you there’s a lot of people who are not all right.

[01:30:24] And.

[01:30:24] They want to be questioned deeper. Well, right by the right people. Yeah. And for you to do that as a production in black and white, nicely added, nicely polished, rather than just get your phone out and just do it here and now and whack it on Instagram or Facebook. As a marketer, I can tell you now the second version less polished you raw will have far more impact me promise you.

[01:30:55] Fat.

[01:30:56] Do you know what I don’t let not take Don’t let that camera guy hold you.

[01:31:00] Back You know what happened? You know what happened there. You went for perfection. Paralysis? Yeah. Because you were worried about doing it just like when you were a kid, when you were going to do the rapping. And and then he snuffed it out. He snuffed it out like. Like like a Gary Vee kind of guy. Now you got to do it, dude.

[01:31:17] He’s right. He’s right. And if that’s something that that I try and think deeper into why what things program program means or us to to behave in certain ways. Right. And, and I think I must come from a I want to do it. But now, you know, I just I’m not in the camera. No, not right now. You know, I’m going to have dinner. Yeah. And I will get it done properly. We get we’ve got proper video guide to come and do it. But, but actually sometimes the best things are just done impromptu just like that. And just click send and post it and see where it goes. You don’t need to have a marketing plan behind it. Sometimes you don’t need to have a strategy behind it. You just do it.

[01:31:55] The strongest content that you will produce will be stuff like this. What you’ve just done now, right, that isn’t planned, isn’t pre-production. You’re not fumbling your words or you just go with the flow, right? And whatever happens happens. You pull your camera out, you record something, you share it out there on social and just let the world unfold. Mate, whoever whoever resonates with that resonates with that. Right. And we know the feeds are all made for these devices, right? We’re watching them on these devices. We film on on these devices and the algorithm drives it. You produce a flippin picture, perfect, polished production. I’m confident that you’ll have more impact if you just pull your phone out in about 25 minutes.

[01:32:37] I think you’re giving me this this you’re giving me a bit too much credit for this this this production here, by the way, were made with a camera. But you are right. It’s still a level ahead of a raw, raw footage on your phone, which I think you know. In hindsight, actually. Spot on. Yeah.

[01:32:56] But Doo did do start writing again for sure, right.

[01:33:00] I’m I have recently I don’t know why it is I have recently like. Just being honest with myself and stuff about myself, really. Which is quite nice actually. You know, even younger is like, you’re rapping about other stuff. I mean, Teardrops was a really passionate one for me because it was about the history of my culture, I suppose, and the things that that people where I’m from in Sri Lanka also went through. But but you know what it is, guys? It’s like this really weird thing. Like, now is so good. It’s like it’s ever since I definitely social media has helped with that but to just be genuine and just do what comes to mind and put yourself out there and do it is way better than before when actually you had to go through the barriers to get played and what you got. What got played was what people wanted to hear. Stuff like this would never have got played back then and kind of thing, but I feel now is a much better time for it. But as far as process, as.

[01:33:54] Prav says, it also means much more competition. But but you know what you just did? There was bloody good dude.

[01:34:00] The best part of the podcast mate. Yes, right.

[01:34:03] Yeah. Bloody good.

[01:34:04] Being serious.

[01:34:05] That was promised to that rap expert. I know I’m not, but perhaps the rap expert. Well, but he was excellent. All joking aside, it was all excellent.

[01:34:14] Was it just you didn’t rap, mate? You told the story. Yeah, and that. And that’s what you did.

[01:34:22] I was so glad we started at the end. This time I’m so happy about it. Like, I might never have got to that rap man.

[01:34:28] Sure. Payman Payman payment or credit to you, buddy?

[01:34:31] Yeah. Yeah, it was the onion. Right down to the core of it. That’s where that’s anyone who knows. Like, I mean, I was I was at uni obviously with a lot of dental students. So there’s a lot of the like gen cache, those guys who all were like whereas similar time Sanjeev Sanchar together then Dosanjh was emceeing with me at one point from together, you know. Oh really. Yeah. Yeah, he was in. I’m going to call him out on it. His name was.

[01:35:00] Let me see what. Emcee Ray Radia.

[01:35:04] Radar. Yeah. Crazy. He was easy. He was like, We lived in horse together. He’s like, he’s such.

[01:35:12] A great kid. And Kisch as well, were they? Were they?

[01:35:15] Jen was deejaying. He was doing the whole deejaying thing. And they still doing.

[01:35:18] Where? Where was this?

[01:35:19] That was a kings. Oh, yeah. So that was that was a good time. It’s a good time.

[01:35:28] Amazing, man. We’re one hour, 40 minutes in. Amazingly.

[01:35:34] Wow.

[01:35:36] Let’s get your. We might as well get a final question, Steve. And, you know, just I just like I said to the character, guys, I want to I want to see you in the next round, you know, like in the next finance round to say, hey, man, where we where we at now? You know.

[01:35:52] Like.

[01:35:55] Amazing. So amazing having you on my body.

[01:35:58] You guys have been such, so easy to speak to. I’ve really enjoyed it. I, I haven’t even. I didn’t even realise what the time is right now, but I’m like, oh man, it’s such honestly, such a pleasure and I’m so, so, so, so grateful to come on and be able to even be able to rap. Like, I never thought I’d do that here, but yeah, great.

[01:36:20] Like, it definitely was the best bet.

[01:36:22] But without.

[01:36:24] Question. Without question. Even imagine it was the last day on your planet and cheer side has already impacted millions of dentists and and and become this forever company that you’re never going to sell. And it leaves that legacy. What would be the three pieces of wisdom that you would leave for your loved ones?

[01:36:47] Really? Okay, really interesting. I would I think these these three bits are important to me that I would like to to share. I think the first thing is be curious, just be curious and explore your curiosity and learn to be student. Be student and learn through experiences, learn through reading, learn through understanding people and interactions and expand your curiosity. I think that has led me to to really because through that curiosity you find out almost what you’re passionate about. So the second one for me is discover what you’re passionate about and be passionate and then pursue that passion and have a purpose. Align with your passion because when you have passion, you can wake up every day and really enjoy what you do. But also you can be passionate about simple things. You can be passionate about like birds, passionate about things that we don’t take for, we take for granted. But when you when you live with that passion, everything has a meaning and a story behind it and depth to it. Even the words, how are you? You know, like you can unravel so much out of it. But if if you don’t, if you’re not curious and you’re not passionate, sometimes, you know, we get on with our daily treadmill of life and you miss sometimes I found that I miss the beauty of things when I’m not in that space. So yeah, the, the first thing is definitely be curious and be alert, always be student learn. The second thing is find things that you’re passionate about and pursue them and live with purpose and find purpose around them.

[01:38:21] And then the third thing for me would be courage. Have the courage to take risks. If I didn’t have the courage to take risks, maybe I wouldn’t have explored the music thing at that point. And maybe if I had a bit more courage, I would have actually pursued it. If I didn’t have the courage right now, I wouldn’t maybe be doing shoreside or something that I’m I love because I do my best mate, do it some of the great, the best people I know, some of the best minds I know, and my cousin as well as involved. And I’ve met so many people like yourselves through that journey. And that was all at a time where, you know, the risks I took were, you know, cut. My job was lose, lose, lose, lose, whatever came of that stability, security, all of that. And and just generally, even on a day to day basis, you have the courage to take risks that you’re passionate. But I think it all intertwines to each other to be curious about life and explore and continue to continue to learn. And then once you while you’re learning that, be passionate about when you find the things you’re passionate about, you know, explore that and find purpose and then have the courage to take risks. And then I think for me, that’s helped me a lot. And if I knew that a young, younger age, I may have done, you know, explored a lot more as well.

[01:39:35] So it’s beautiful, man. It’s amazing advice, isn’t it? Amazing advice.

[01:39:43] Thank you. France is a dinner party.

[01:39:46] It just doesn’t seem as important now, doesn’t it? Fancy, fancy, fancy dinner party. Ballet.

[01:39:52] Fancy dinner party.

[01:39:54] I think it’s dead or alive.

[01:39:56] Okay, cool. For me. I found. I find Leonardo da Vinci incredibly interesting. Like he’s someone who is, like a thinker. Like a painter. Like an engineer. Like, you know, he was everything. He did everything. And he was actually really, apparently, according to history, really great many things. And I just don’t understand in a world where now we focus in on one thing and be really great, that one thing. How someone back then had the ability to to master so many concepts. And just as individual. I just love to. To understand his mind. So I think Leonardo da Vinci, for me would be someone who has always stood out as a quite remarkable person in history. If what they say about history.

[01:40:40] It’s a good one.

[01:40:40] I know you’ve had this already on the podcast a few times, but just because of the place that I’m in in my life right now, I think Elon Musk would be super interesting for me, this whole journey that he goes on. Mine’s on a much smaller scale, but nonetheless some transferrable ideas there thoughts, problems, concepts, processes, systems, all sorts but ideas. So I think that’s really, really cool. And the final one for me is a personal one because I’m a Bitcoin fan, like kainos been my guy. So like I’ve never had a chance to really have a chat with him. So I’d love to have Kaino come down. He’s a he’s an MC, he’s a rapper in a UK based guy. He, he, he, I think was someone who was ahead of his time, was ahead of his time. If he did something now, he’d be huge. But he he was at a time when the scene there’s a time and a place for everything. And one thing that whole grime UK garage movement taught me was 20 years ago was the birth of a culture. 20 years later, those who loved it, I mean years ago are now buying the CDs that can allow it to be a sustainable sound. Or you can actually have people like Stormzy and them come through and make a living of it. But it’s these guys just like NWA back in the day or even the precursors of them Run-D.M.C. really built. Hip hop is a similar thing, and I was one of those guys who built the crime scene, which the UK music scene. So for me understand like having him there would, would be super cool for me. That’s a personal one.

[01:42:07] Amazing body, really.

[01:42:09] Amazing.

[01:42:11] Woman. Thank you.

[01:42:12] So lovely to have you, buddy.

[01:42:13] Thank you so much.

[01:42:14] Thank you, guys. Really, really been a pleasure.

[01:42:19] This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

[01:42:34] Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this file, you must have listened to the whole thing and just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

[01:42:49] If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing. And if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it, too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening.

[01:42:59] Thanks.

[01:43:00] And don’t forget our six star rating.