After fleeing Chechnya as a young refugee, Khamzat Asabaev couldn’t access basic dental care. This difficult experience inspired Asabaev to found SoftSmile, a software tool that makes it easier for dentists to provide affordable, accessible orthodontic care to all. Listen to learn how his story exemplifies refugees’ entrepreneurial spirit.
Transcript
Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed. Welcome to JobMakers.
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Denzil Mohammed: Imagine celebrating the holiday season with family and friends, and then your country gets invaded. Scary. But as we see on the news, it’s real. No one wants to be a refugee, but the resilience and fortitude of refugees to withstand catastrophic displacement like that and come out the other side is something remarkable, something worthy of our respect and something that ultimately benefits the country they’re resettled in. For Khamzat Asabeav, refugee from Chechnya and co-founder of SoftSmile, which produces pioneering software for dentists to make advanced treatment plans for patients without relying on third parties, not only was he displaced, but he had to grow up in the country that invaded his, Russia. His experiences shaped his life in profound ways. In response to the lawlessness of the invasion, Khamzat first pursued law, becoming a top mergers and acquisitions attorney in the U.K. and the Middle East. Lack of access to basic care as a refugee and a minority prompted him to pursue entrepreneurship, to make basic services accessible to all. Khamzat’s story is not unique, but it’s rarely told. Refugees go through terrible things, but ultimately make significant contributions to their adopted homeland, having higher rates of employment and entrepreneurship. What does that mean? They give back far more than we give them, as you’ll discover in this week’s JobMakers.
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Denzil Mohammed: Khamzat Asabeav, founder and CEO of SoftSmile and immigrant from Chechnya, welcome to the JobMakers podcast. How are you?
Khamzat Asabaev: Thank you. Doing fine and really honored to be a guest here.
Denzil Mohammed: So tell us a little bit about your business and what makes it special.
Khamzat Asabaev: Sure. SoftSmile is a software company and I’ll give you an example. Imagine you are visiting a doctor, an orthodontist, and you want to make your smile perfect. So that doctor will take some measurements, will scan your teeth, and she will upload that information into a certain portal. So usually she, a doctor, has to wait for weeks until someone somewhere usually oversees, prepares a treatment plan and sends back this information for coordination, again, with the doctor, then there will be manufacturing. So it usually takes four, five, six weeks to have a digital treatment plan ready. But before that, upfront, you paid a few thousand dollars and it’s a very lengthy, costly process. What we are doing with our software, a doctor will do everything in-house and can deliver to you as a patient, a treatment plan just in one day. And we believe this will lead to making orthodontics affordable and accessible. That’s basically what we’re doing.
Denzil Mohammed: Incredible. And this entrepreneurial journey began a very long time ago when you, your family was forced to move. And so not just the idea of entrepreneurship, but the thing that you’re doing, which is making health care more accessible, comes from that experience of being forced to move and, hoping for better on the other side. So I know you were born in Chechnya, but you ended up having to grow up in Moscow. Tell me about that experience.
Khamzat Asabaev: Sure. I was born in Chechnya in Grozny. In 1994, New Year’s Eve actually, when Russia invaded Chechnya with full force, and we, my parents took me and [their] daughter and we moved to Moscow because we had some relatives there. That’s where I grew up. And I saw some discrimination and some, let’s say, bad things being a Chechen kid in Moscow, in Russia. And there was a lot of injustice back there. So this, even when I was a child, got me thinking that maybe something more fair would be possible with even my efforts. And regarding health care, there were cases when Chechens were rejected from getting simple health care in Moscow, in Russia. And when you see that you just get this idea, How’s it possible? And that instills your notion that actually health care is an absolutely fundamental right, and it shall be provided to everyone regardless of their skin color or ethnicity or face. So it just should, must be, fundamental. And when you see some injustice, especially biased injustice, let’s say, you are trying, growing up, you are trying to fix it. And maybe that’s led to a situation when I saw an opportunity to change healthcare a little bit. I really grasped it.
Denzil Mohammed: And that experience also influenced your first choice in a career because you first entered into law, you were a lawyer, just like your father and your grandfather.
Khamzat Asabaev: Yes, I was, actually, I still consider myself a lawyer because once a lawyer, always a lawyer and my counterparts in my business, they don’t understand it [laugh]. But, yes, you’re absolutely right. Because law of people is the only alternative to the law of jungle. And I saw law of jungle being a kid where some powerful and mighty country can completely destroy lives and entire cities [inaudible]. And, again, law is the only alternative.
Denzil Mohammed: And how did this, how did the dental care, how did that happen? Was it just serendipitous? Was it just your friend happened to be working on this?
Khamzat Asabaev: There are, as always, various events converging in some particular point. First, again, maybe from my childhood experience, I knew that dental care, orthodontics, are extremely expensive and not everyone can afford it. Second, my friend who is also from Chechnya, but who didn’t leave Chechnya through the wars, actually, his story, absolutely impressive. He inspired me to start SoftSmile because he was an orthodontist who after graduating, after getting his dental education, he got back to Chechnya and started helping people who would never be able to afford some famous brands like Invisalign or [inaudible], or something like that. So he started making those aligners and braces in-house, and I followed his career. I knew that he’s doing great. And at some point, seeing how great he’s doing, we just decided to join forces and maybe do something together. And I, being a lawyer in a very famous international firm, was able to attract investors and that’s how we started.
Denzil Mohammed: So therefore your pivot into entrepreneurship was not a difficult one. Or was it? I know you had a bad experience starting a business in Switzerland, right?
Khamzat Asabaev: Yes, yes, actually you are right. I wanted to say that there is no particular skill set for entrepreneurship and anyone can do that. But actually, absolutely right. My first experience demonstrates that there are always some mistakes and if you don’t have some safety net, some ability to continue, even though you made some strategic mistakes, it can be really devastating for the entire business. That’s what happened with our small manufacturing lab in Switzerland. We were not ready. We made some strategic mistakes and it failed, which actually was good because SoftSmile now is way bigger, way more successful. We learned from our mistakes. We’re doing things carefully. Now we’re trying to close our weak spots. So it was good experience anyway. Even though it failed, but still we learned.
Denzil Mohammed: Failure is almost like a prerequisite, right?
Khamzat Asabaev: Sometimes, yes. We were lucky to have those failures as a lesson. But, unfortunately, sometimes people bet everything and lose it. And this also happens. And that’s why I think everyone shall be careful measuring how much they’re investing, of their efforts, of their resources, and where. Because failure can always happen. It just doesn’t matter how hard you are working. It will happen if something changes. We just, so went through COVID. We just, in the middle recession, we see that there are a lot of bad things happening without our involvement, just not depending on us. And you should be ready mentally and, let’s say, financially. If something happens, it’s not your fault. Just try again. And this phrase, let’s try again, is what my friend told me when we, after the company was called [inaudible]. So when it failed just in few months, I already left Linklaters, so I didn’t have any job. And my friend told me, let’s try again. And we founded SoftSmile.
Denzil Mohammed: So how is SoftSmile doing today and how do you see its growth?
Khamzat Asabaev: SoftSmile is doing pretty well. We are a product-led company. We are very proud of our product. It’s just amazing software with dozens of intricate algorithms, which make the job, which would take hours, being done in just a few minutes. So it’s 30, 35 times faster, more efficient than any alternatives on the market. And you can imagine it just transforms the entire practice of digital orthodontics. And most importantly people out there know it. So we are getting many requests from them or from contacts. Unfortunately, I cannot due to contractual restrictions disclose names of our clients, but what I can say is about 2,000 patients every day are being treated with our software. So I know the theme of this podcast, creating jobs. So we are creating jobs globally, not only through SoftSmile, but also helping our clients to change their practice and attract more people and work with more doctors. That’s what we’re doing. And regarding the growth right now, we’re focused on the software, but the next step will be working directly with doctors and probably patients so that we will manufacture and design and we will go directly to consumers. So we, I have good confidence in the growth of the business.
Denzil Mohammed: As a business leader, you’ve developed some thoughts over the years. And this is something I’ve heard from other entrepreneurs. But you once said only after getting the product on the market, as you really see who your client base is and what level of demand looks like. I’ve heard this from many different entrepreneurs. Can you describe this a little bit more on how it might work with different kinds of companies versus a software company?
Khamzat Asabaev: Sure. So, you, as an entrepreneur, have this choice, kind of balance. One thing you want to make everything perfect or as close to the perfection as possible before you show it to even your friends. And on the other hand, you want real feedback. You want to understand whether what you’re building is worth it and here where the problem happens. So if you’re insecure, if you’re, let’s say, scared of showing your product to the market, you will find any opportunity to delay the launch and try to make it as great as possible. But the problem which usually happens, that the market evolves and your clients’ needs evolve and your competitors, they are not sleeping, so they’re also doing something. That’s why I believe, although it’s a bit scary, but you shall try to give your product to as many people as possible, provided always you protected from IP perspective, from tech perspective, because there are various strange stories where technology from a young startup is stolen by someone. So you should always think about it. But without real feedback from your customers it’s difficult to build something worth it or what people would expect. The problem we have, we gave demo to the market about 18 months ago and the real problem, that I’m chased by doctors all around the world with questions, when you finally give us a commercial product, when you give it to us. And demo was so good that people thought that everything is ready. But our software is a very complex and intricate product. And that’s why one of my problems, just to explain doctors, please wait a little bit, it’ll be way better. Just give us some time to finalize it. And finally we are at stage where it is finalized and we are getting amazing feedback from leaders of the market. And that’s what we’re proud of.
Denzil Mohammed: I see. So another thing you’ve talked about is having support that allows you to take risks. Even our own research bears that out, that having family or other social support is key to the success of immigrants. If you’re here by yourself, it’s a lot harder. But not everyone has that luxury of having family or a network of support or fellow countrymen. So how can entrepreneurial immigrants build up a support system if they don’t have direct family contacts there.
Khamzat Asabaev: There are various angles to this. You are right. Not everyone has a family, and not everyone has family which can help or support you, especially when you are overseas. But entrepreneurs, so what I would suggest, you should look toward, if you can say, what communities you belong. I’ll give you an example. To me, it was very help that I could approach lawyers or my classmates in the United States or my former colleagues. I also could approach Chechens who live in America just to get some advice from them. I also could approach some doctors and orthodontists saying that, “Look, I’m building this product for you. Could you advise me?” And a few orthodontists actually wrote recommendation letters for my green card, the same few lawyers did. So, it was helpful. So what I’m trying to say that it’s always helpful to have someone around like your family, your friends, even for moral support. But I am not buying that there is no support at all because what you are doing, for instance, helping immigrants, helping people with everything, is one of those examples that those who seek they will find. So I believe people just shall look into themself and see, okay, what kind of community will help me here? Because we all are part of some communities. There is no one completely alone. You can always find some support. There’s so many examples in my life where complete strangers help me so much. And you may say, someone may say, I am a relatively successful guy, but this wouldn’t be possible without complete strangers who were in my life, lending a hand, helping you with advice, not even mentioning friends, family, colleagues, all of them. So nothing in my life would be possible, nothing good would be possible without help of other people. And that’s my motto. We always shall look around. And also there is in law, if you expect some help from people, it is also expected that you will help them. So, not getting into details, I hope there are people who will probably remember that I helped them some point and who can say, “Yes, Khamzat was good, Khamzat was there at certain part of our life.”
Denzil Mohammed: That Khamzat was there. [laugh]. And do you think that the United States entrepreneurial ecosystem lends itself to the things that you’re talking about, that people want to support others in their endeavors?
Khamzat Asabaev: I would say the most advanced entrepreneurial ecosystem in the world, because, as I said, I’ve worked in the U.K., in the Emirates, in Russia, traveled a lot. And entrepreneurs all around the world kind of close community, helping each other, knowing that when you help someone today, they will get back to you with some response later on. But the United States simply because it’s the biggest market in the world and the biggest number of entrepreneurs and the most developed entrepreneurship ecosystem, everyone can find support, I believe.
Denzil Mohammed: That’s really good for you to say. And especially for budding entrepreneurs who may not be in the United States as yet, they have something positive to look forward to. So you spoke very highly of the entrepreneurial ecosystem here in the U.S. But you have started businesses elsewhere and even your current business, it’s cross continental. But the United States has given you, what is to date, your most successful business. How do you feel about the United States as the country that took you in, gave you a second education and allowed you to start and grow a business?
Khamzat Asabaev: I love the United States. And of course there are many problems in the United States, but those problems, if you compare to other countries, you just shall always compare what … As you know, I lived in Russia. I lived in U.K. I lived in some other countries. And I think, although there is some impact right now, I think the core of United States’ success is rule of law. And I’m saying as a lawyer, because one amazing, really amazing thing in the United States is me being a small guy, an entrepreneur, you can always seek some protection of justice in any court, and you can be sure that it will be unbiased and fair judgment. So if you are wrong, that’s fine. You will never say someone bought a judge or there was a corruption or something like that. Just everything is based on law, let’s say, on the principles introduced by the founding fathers and by the constitution. And I highly respect the U.S. commercial and corporate law systems.
Denzil Mohammed: It’s fascinating that you say rule of law is what really makes this country distinctive. Thank you for that perspective, because you certainly come from a place where rule of law probably didn’t always apply. So Khamzat …
Khamzat Asabaev: To say mildly, let’s say [laugh].
Denzil Mohammed: Khamzat Asabaev, founder and CEO of SoftSmile, immigrant from Chechnya, thank you so much for joining us on the JobMakers podcast.
Khamzat Asabaev: Thank you very much, Denzil. It was great talking to you and really honored to talk to your audience. Thank you.
Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and at The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for this week’s inspiring story of one incredible refugee entrepreneur. If you know an outstanding foreign born business owner or innovator we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L, at jobmakerspodcast.org. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers.