Zentist Blueprints: Prioritize Customer Feedback and Community by Launching a User Conference Early

BuilderOps Blueprints is a newsletter on company building foundations for early-stage startups by Costanoa, a VC firm that backs builders across data, dev, and fintech. Throughout this series, Costanoa’s BuilderOps team interviews founders and startup leaders, showcasing their superpowers and learnings on all things company building.

For our latest edition of BuilderOps Blueprints, we sat down with Ato Kasymov, Co-founder and CEO of Zentist, a cloud-based revenue cycle management platform for dental practices and dental service organizations (DSOs). The company recently announced that KeyCorp, the parent company of KeyBank, has become its most recent investor, opening access to its network of DSOs. You can learn more and connect with Zentist folks right here.

You had a very successful career in Kazakhstan. What made you come to the US and take this crazy entrepreneurial leap to founding Zentist? 

After 10 years in corporate finance and managing billion dollar funds in Central Asia, I was at a point in my career where I wanted to take on a different challenge, learn something completely new, but also bring back joy and excitement to my work. With previous experience in investing and managing banking, mortgage, and insurance businesses, where efficiency in data and transactions is critical, my choice easily fell onto healthcare in the United States. But a defining moment for me was when, during my MBA studies in New York, I had a dental clinic visit and it opened my eyes to the complexities of insurance in the US healthcare system. The challenges sparked my curiosity about how technology could streamline these transactional processes. As a non-engineer, I was also curious if I could assemble a strong technical team that can build modern software to address and alleviate such complex challenges of the healthcare industry.

Do you have any words of encouragement for fellow immigrant founders?

Starting in a new country can be challenging, especially when you’re leaving behind all the networks you’ve built over the years. I was too worried at first. But remember to embrace your decision to build something new. You need to find excitement and confidence, especially if you want to build something extraordinary.

Plus, you’ll be surprised by how fast you can build a strong network if you’re intentional about it and persevere. It’s like going to the gym. You will not see results in the first few months, will you? It’s all about not giving up when you don’t see change right away – it will come. Just don’t quit. Remember: if it was easy, someone would have done it already.

Switching gears a bit, we hear Zentist puts on a killer user conference. Can you confirm? 

Yes, we just hosted our 4th Dental RCM Bootcamp, and it was a blast. The credit goes to my co-founder and our Vice President of Growth, Manuchehr Kurbonali, who is in constant search for original and positive ideas for growth. After attending numerous industry conferences and trade shows, we realized that there is still a lack of community for revenue cycle management professionals. Big conferences bring together many DSO leaders and executives, but revenue cycle management leaders stay behind, accountable for revenue collections for their respective DSO organizations. So, really there wasn’t a true community that brings these leaders together, strengthens their networks, and encourages peer-to-peer support. Zentist recognized the opportunity to support such DSO leaders in their jobs and goals by bringing them together at the RCM Bootcamp. 

It’s one thing to decide to do a user conference – but another to actually pull it off. And Zentist has repeatedly gotten it right! Walk us through those early days and how it’s evolved from there.

We deliberately called it a bootcamp from the beginning because we wanted to give our attendees a sense that there would be a lot going on: activities, networking, opportunities to learn, to have fun and be vulnerable and supportive of each other at the same time. 

Our first bootcamp was a pure experiment:  we invited 40 attendees only to Miami.
A small start enabled us to build true connections and friendships. In fact, we met the majority of our own customers for the first time there. Obviously, we made it an unforgettable experience, Miami-style. 

We’ve just successfully hosted our fourth bootcamp which convened more than 250 attendees. We have listened to the feedback and improved the event in so many ways, while keeping what made our inaugural bootcamp special.  

It sounds like you’ve really dialed in on what your user would find valuable. Who are Zentist’s users and what do they get out of the experience?

RCM professionals are the dental industry’s unsung heroes, ensuring patients are happy with their payments, while doctors get paid on time. They work so hard behind the scenes, often without much credit, to make sure their organizations are profitable. 

So when they come to the RCM Bootcamp, we make sure they feel appreciated and recognized for what they do. We make sure to construct the agenda, the speakers, and the workshops which are heavily influenced and actually delivered by the RCM professionals themselves. They get to network and have a great time with like-minded peers in a relaxed and celebratory environment. We also add fun activities like kayaking or a golf tournament. Of course, we top it off with a red carpet and a cocktail party.  

Based on your experience, what advice would you give other founders who are just beginning to plan their first user conference?

When you start, start small. Really think through everything – the bar is so high when you’re an early-stage company so it has to be amazing.

Obsess over every detail: the agenda, the content, the timing, logistics, speakers, and activities. Industries are awash with conferences, however, yours will stand out if you’re really thoughtful about every part of it.

The idea is not selling to every prospect customer at the event. You need to focus on your users, your champions, and the decision makers. Prospect or not: you need to have experts, thought leaders to share best practices. Sometimes they come from vendor organizations too. Although you’re doing this because it’s right for your business, more importantly, it’s about bringing a community together that will become stronger and more valuable to each other in the long run. There may not be an immediate reward but it will pay off over time.

Now that we’re in “advice mode,” what would you say to yourself if you could go back in time to the very early stages of Zentist?

Being a founder and entrepreneur is such a privileged and special role. Your job is to give yourself and your team enough space to find a solution that creates long-lasting value to an industry. Everything is secondary to this.

I can tell you we made mistakes and pivoted in our fourth year. We should have continually evaluated our product market fit instead of rushing to grow.  In hindsight, we should have taken a pause. Perhaps, we could have made corrections to our business model in the first few years.  

Last quick question: what’s a favorite productivity or feel-good hack for you?

I’ve rediscovered the power of walking. With a globally dispersed team, my days start early, but I always make time for a 30-minute walk. It’s become an essential part of my routine, providing clarity and energy that positively impacts my entire day.