Episode #85 – Sebastian Gabor

Do you work in the animal health industry or veterinary profession? Have you ever wondered how people began their careers and how they got to where they are today? Hi everyone. I’m Stacy Purcell, the founder and CEO of The Vet Recruiter, the leading executive search and recruiting firm for the animal health industry and veterinary profession. I was the first recruiter to specialize in the animal health industry and veterinary profession in the United States and built the first search firm to serve this unique niche. For the past 25 plus years, I have built relationships with the industry’s top leaders and trailblazers.

The People of Animal Health Podcast highlights incredible individuals I have connected with throughout my career. You will be able to learn more about their lives, careers, and contributions. With our wide range of expert guests, you’ll be sure to learn something new in every episode. Thanks for tuning in and enjoy the episode. Hello everyone, and welcome to the People of Animal Health Podcast. On today’s show, we are talking with Sebastian Gabor. Sebastian is the co-founder and CEO of Digitail, an all in-one veterinary practice management platform helping veterinary clinics modernize how they deliver care. A serial entrepreneur originally from Romania, Sebastian has built multiple tech start-ups focused on solving real world inefficiencies.

He launched Digitail in 2018 after a frustrating experience managing his own dog’s medical records revealed how outdated some veterinary systems were. Today, Digitail supports over 1,000 practices and more than 1,000,000 pets globally, while pioneering AI powered tools to reduce administrative workload and combat veterinary burnout. Outside of tech, Sebastian is also a tech for good advocate and a three-time Ironman finisher. Sebastian, thank you for being here on the People of Animal Health Podcast. How are you today?

Hey, everyone. It’s amazing to be here. I just traveled from London to Romania, and it’s been a long journey, but I’m so excited to have this conversation with you.

Well, Sebastian, I’m so glad to have you today on the podcast. Let’s start off at the beginning. What was your life like growing up and where did you grow up?

Awesome. Let’s go down memory lane. So, I grew up in Romania. That’s where I was born, and I grew up, up there until when I was 18. Finished high school, and then went to do a business school all the way in Spain, Barcelona. And growing up in Romania, I do remember a lot of stories, but for anyone that’s been in Eastern Europe, again, there’s ex communistic times. It’s an interesting area of the world where a lot of things are possible, and a lot of people are very passionate to grow and to build.

And growing up, I remember my parents, my mom was a doctor, dad was an engineer. They ended up having a distributor for pharma drugs for the human space and it was a really nice time. What I can remember is that they could buy any gift for me when I was young, and that was my best thing ever. If I wanted the Lego, they would buy me a Lego. But then afterwards, as things progressed, I remember they went through bankruptcy, and from having a chance to have any Lego, we ended up … They had to take my piggy bank of all the savings for food and that type of scenario.

And I think that taught me that in life, the most important things are family, friends, and the connections that you have, and that money can come and go. And that really shaped me for later in life. And probably we’ll go through a few more stories, but that was one of the beginning moments of realizing that life is precious, friends are precious, people, connections are precious, and that we should do the most we can to fight for them and to help each other.

Absolutely. Well, family, friends, connections, you’re right those are all so important. Sebastian, tell me about your early career. How did you get started? You went to business school, what were the origins of your career like?

Amazing. So, I went to business school and afterwards, if you ask any of my friends, they probably will say that I was crazy to come back. But I had my grandparents, I had my family back home. So, I left Spain, went back home to Romania and started an NGO for events. At that time in the city where I grew up, which was Iasi, it was quite quiet there was not that much activity. It’s quite a small place, it’s almost 500,000 people, but there was not much happening. So, together with a few friends, we started this NGO where we were doing social events.

So, it was social events, cultural events, sports events, and also a lot of charity for helping new students that have passions, like for example, singing to develop their careers. And it was amazing, for a few years, that was great. And then afterwards, funnily enough, one of my friends from business school called me and asked if I know how to develop apps. And at that time, I have to be honest, I had nothing to do with this industry of building anything, but he said, “Well, you’re from Romania, right?” “Yes.” “And in Romania, you have a lot of engineers.” “Yes, indeed.” “Well, help me build an app.”

And that’s how the first company I’ve started began and that was in 2012. Okay, that’s quite some time, 2012. And it was called IT Gambit at that time. And we ended up growing into almost 100 engineers building products for Disney, Haspro all over the world. It was really an amazing experience of building products that can impact people’s lives.

Well, how did you get into the animal health industry?

So, in 2016, so after running that development agency, ended up selling. So, I ended up going through an exit, which was again, an amazing experience, especially for a first-time founder. And after that, I tried a few more start-ups. But after those start-ups, funny enough, in 2017, I got my first dog and I went to the vet. And as a first-time pet parent, I had a lot of questions you can imagine. And also, my expectations for the experience were quite low, as in I was expecting that I will call and I was waiting time on the phone, then I’m going to get to the reception room and also wait sometime there just to be rushed through a consultation at the end.

And all of that, again, was as expected. But what really did it for me was that at the end of the visit, I had so many more questions to ask, but the doctor was rushed and he said, “No problem, I’ll give you some tips.” And he took a sticky note and started writing three bullet points on a sticky note and a handwriting that I still don’t get to today if I would try to read it. And that was my take at home information. And even though again, they were super kind-hearted, they wanted to help, but they were visibly rushed and they had to do other things.

And that was my takeaway is that this industry is still very much behind in terms of what they can offer, but the people in it are absolutely amazing and they need more help. And that was the entry to the world of it.

Well, it all goes back to the sticky note. The sticky note was the origin of your venture into animal health. So now, you’ve built several start-ups before Digitail, including a traffic sharing app and a food technology platform. Looking back, what lessons from those early ventures most influenced how you built your current company?

Oh, so many. So, let’s start with the traffic app first. The traffic app was an absolutely rollercoaster of an experience. We ended up being the first app in the app store before Google Maps, before Floppy Birds, Angry Birds, I don’t remember the exact name, but it was a super huge rollercoaster at that time. And in less than two weeks, we ended up having over 200,000 users using the app on a daily basis.

Wow.

And do you want to guess how long it takes to lose all of them?

How long?

Less than two days.

Oh, wow. How did that happen?

And the challenge was that at that time, that wasn’t the only focus. That app was just another start-up that I was trying to manage, and there were other few things that I was trying to do at the same time. And it was the same also for my co-founders at that time. And I think the biggest lesson from that time is that if you really believe in something, you need to put your heart and soul and focus on only one thing. One of my friends told me this analogy that really stuck with me is that think of Usain Bolt or any of the Olympic …

You pick your favorite Olympic athlete and imagine Usain Bolt coming and saying, “I want to do the 100 meter to be the best at 100 meter run, but I’ll also want to try a bit of swimming. Maybe I want to do also a bit of baseball.” You can realize that they won’t be the best if they try too many things. So, if you really want to be the best at something, you need to put all your effort into that one thing. And that definitely I took with me at Digitail. And then the second biggest lesson from all those start-ups was with the food delivery app.

And the food delivery app started it with a person I knew for quite some time, started working together, but we were at different stages of life. So, he had other activities and he couldn’t spend all the time and focus on this. And it started being very difficult to move fast and go through the journey, especially in start-ups, as you know, there’s always ups and downs. And again, we had a conversation, we split ways and we went different paths, but the lesson from there is that once you go on a journey like this, it’s a very long journey and the people that you go with, they all need to be in the same mindset and committed for the same long journey.

So, the people that you have with you in a start-up and a company and any type of adventure like this are very important. It definitely can make or break the start-up and I was really, really lucky to be able to do this together with Ruxandra, George, and so many other people that joined Digitail and they’re all passionate. And I think we’ve talked in the past that we mostly hire people that worked in practice, that understand the pain, that want to do better for vets, for pet parents, for pets. There’s so much to do in this space.

And it’s amazing when you see the passion of the people that are here. And yeah, it’s definitely one of the reasons why we’re still pushing hard and not giving up.

Well, it is so important to get the right people on the journey, that is so true. And yes, the people in this profession are so passionate. So, the idea for Digitail came from a frustrating experience with your own dogs’ vaccination records after a scheduling mix up. What happened in that moment and when did you realize it pointed to a much bigger industry problem?

So, definitely the first experience was this one with a sticky note. But afterwards, we ended up getting a phone call to come for a vaccine, but the reality was that the vaccine was already done so we ended up doing it twice. And it was interesting, you had these super small things happening. And going back to what we were saying initially, the people were great, but somehow all these situations were coming to be true. And I started asking, “Okay, but what systems are you using?” And at that time, at least the clinic I was going to was still using pen and paper.

And the question was, why aren’t we using something that can automate, even in Excel, like anything? And that was the trigger to start talking with more and more clinics. And after doing that, I think the shocking realization that I ended up too is that 80% of the animal hospitals, and this was 2018, but 80% of the animal hospitals were still using legacy systems built in the ’90s. And these were the fortunate cases because there were still a big chunk that were still using full pen and paper for managing record in the clinic.

And afterwards, the second realization was that because those systems were old and nobody really updated them or they kept in touch with innovation, the clinics were forced to use many different disconnected tools on top. A tool for a reminder, a tool for client communication, a tool for, you name it, you had different add-ons that you need to patch together. And as a result, 30% to 40% of the staff’s time is still spent on either managing information, putting information in the system, trying to get it from one system to another one, and both the experience for the pet parents and for the staff isn’t what it should be.

So, with a bit of courage and naivety of not understanding what practice management systems really are, we started on the journey of building a better one. And we worked very closely with, at that time, it was almost 30 clinics that we collaborated to with them to build this. And what I can tell you is that we were shocked with how much you need to build to build a really good practice management system. It was an interesting learning.

Well, veterinary medicine has one of the highest burnout rates in healthcare. How did understanding those challenges shape the mission and design of Digitail?

Yes. So, the most important part there was that, at least for us, was to surround ourselves with vet, vet professionals, and everyone that works in clinic, because there’s different roles in clinics and they all come with different stress levels and pains. But doing this surrounding ourselves with those professionals really showed us both the passion that we talked at the beginning, but also the fact that even though they were supposed to finish at 6:00, they were still spending time until 8:00 to do records. Closing, hanging up on the family that was calling and missing dinner and doing this all over again, you can imagine how difficult that is.

And not to mention the day of a vet where you might start the day with a puppy and everything is great, and then you end up having a patient that you might have saved, but there wasn’t enough budget to be able to do it. And even though you know how to save them, you need to put them down. And again, I really don’t want to be in the shoes of someone that has to go through this all over again, and also doing it for 15 patients back-to-back in a day. And I think the biggest lessons for us understanding this … Oh, and not to mention when the label printer doesn’t print the freaking thing that you need to print it, and then the clients complain.

But what we took out of this is that the system is not a nice to have. It’s absolutely core to what they need, and that if we’re successful in building a really good system, it means that vets spend no time in the computer and they spend more time with the patients. So, everything we ended up building was with the purpose of keeping them away from the computers and giving them a system that they can trust, that doesn’t go down, that they can rely on, and that’s again, not just them in the right direction. And at that time when we started, it was a saying with whoever you asked in a clinic like, “What system are you using?”

They would answer again one of the legacy ones and nobody would have answered, “We love our system,” or “that the system works for us.” They actually were saying, “We work for the system.” So, what we ended up taking out of those lessons is how can we build something that doesn’t add more to their plate, but takes away and automates as much as possible? And one of the other pieces that was important is that realizing that there are multiple stakeholders in the clinic, but also outside of the clinic, which is the pet parent.

So, simple examples where instead of the CSR at the reception, taking time and adding the patient, why not let the pet parent book online so then you have all the information directly in your system. Instead of needing to have a phone call, why not let them chat and answer whenever you have time later or even let the AI assistant answer for them at that time? Think of discharge notes, think of a vet needing to read all the records and can just summarize and get a highlight of what they need.

So, all those situations, we’re always trying to answer the question, how can we take mental effort away and how can we automate more? Those are kind of [inaudible 00:17:33].

So interesting. Well, since launching in 2018, Digitail has grown to support more than 1,000 veterinary practices and more than 1,000,000 pets worldwide. What have been some of the toughest challenge that you have faced while scaling the company?

So many, so many. So, this is something that I think I was and I am always open with that start-up is a very difficult thing. It’s not for everyone. I think there’s only a few types of characters and people that can really do this for a long time. And I’ve been really blessed and lucky to find more and more Digitailers that are up for the challenge and want to do this. But throughout the time we went from near death experience where we almost ran out of money in the bank in the early days and we were close to having to shut down.

To moments when we had challenges with the infrastructure and we had to figure out how to update this in real time to make sure that the platform is always on and accessible for the vets. But I think those experiences in the early days really shaped us in understanding that even though we want to grow fast and there’s a lot to do, we need to always make sure that we have a system and a foundation on which we need to build. Because at the end of the day, vets are counting on us for Digitail to always be there and to always be on and to always trust on what they get from that, which means that even though we want to innovate and move fast, we need to make sure that those things happen first.

So, you could say that we definitely wouldn’t have made it here without the people, without even the first 400 vets that I still know name by name that trusted us and they used us and they guided us. And even in the tough moments, they were, “Don’t worry, we’ll be here. We’ll help you. We’ll give you advice.” And it’s really an amazing community and it takes a village to grow a baby. So, definitely we were lucky with all the people that came together and helped this make it happen.

Sebastian, you have described Digitail as becoming an AI native platform. For someone unfamiliar with that concept, what does it mean and how does it change how veterinary practices operate?

Okay, awesome. How much time do we have? Because this might be a long answer.

Go for it.

Amazing. So first, it’s important to understand two concepts. So first, when it comes to AI in general, we’re all talking about generative AI or large language models. And how these work, they work on probabilities. So, what’s the probability of this word to be the next perfect word after this current one? So, they just try to look at sequences of words, which means that if you want to use this current version of AI for math or anything that’s deterministic, it won’t be the best solution. It might get to the end result, but it will consume a thousand more of the output and the power that it needs rather than a simple math algorithm that you can have in the system.

So, because of that, we learned early on and we were very lucky to have another group of 20 early adopters when it came to AI, and this was four years ago, where we work with them to understand where AI is helpful and where AI is not helpful. And at that time, we found many areas where we should never use AI, but we also found a lot of different scenarios where it’s absolutely powerful and I can share more of those in a bit. But the second concept that’s important to understand is a human in the loop or fully automated.

What do I mean by that? Let’s take dictation. Dictation is one of the most popular use cases for AI at the moment, but again, it’s not the only one there’s so much more. But in the case of dictation, a doctor still checks at the end the soap notes. So, there’s a human there that still needs to check before they finalize the process. It definitely speeds up everything, but they still need to check. But now we’re seeing more and more of the fully automated of the autopilot type of scenarios. Think of, let’s say one of the use cases that we’ve built, it’s called Tails Intake.

And for every pet parent that comes to the clinic, they do an automated check-in based talking with the AI assistant. And all that information gets a summary and it goes directly to the medical record. Super powerful time saver, pet parents love it because they can do it at home from the comfort of their home when the spouse probably knows more than they do. So, it’s win-win situations. And in those scenarios, you don’t need a human in the loop. The AI assistant can do that with 10, 100, 1,000 patients all at once.

So, what happens is that in the clinic, you start needing a new role, a new role of a so-called AI engineer, but it’s more of an AI supervisor that goes through not all the thousand ones, but maybe spot checks one in five or one in 10 conversations. And if there’s anything that they want to adjust, they give the feedback in plain language saying, next time also mention about this or next time talk in a more summarized way. And then AI learns and it goes on and it does more. So, I think these two concepts are really important because there’s more and more use cases where now AI is powerful.

But it’s really important to make this differentiation between cases where you still need the human being to give the final check, but there are other scenarios where it can fully automate. And those actually create now more jobs if you think of it, because you need more people to handle all the new use cases that are being created.

That’s fascinating. Well, tools like Tails AI voice to invoice and AI vision are designed to automate documentation and extract insights from medical records. Which AI feature has surprised you the most in terms of real-world impact for veterinary practices?

Let’s say surprise. Definitely I would say the Tails Summary and the Tails Voice to Invoice. I do believe I underestimated the impact of those because again, with dictation, it makes sense that’s the obvious scenario. But with Tails Summarize, what we’ve noticed is that both all the medical staff, instead of going into the system and reading all the medical PDFs, all the client communication, all the lab work, all the notes that were hidden somewhere in a field in your system that you forgot about them. Tails goes, reads all of that in real time and comes with the highlights that you need for that visit.

And it’s insane how it’s able to capture even that small note from five years ago where maybe someone sent a text and there was a mention about a pet or the pet parent being angry or an allergy that was mentioned in a text. So, it’s very powerful in both saving time and serving the right information at the right time. The other one with voice to invoice, it’s in addition to the dictation and it’s very powerful because it reads the entire transcripts of all the conversation, listens to all the entire conversation, and it prepares the plan and the invoice based on what you said.

No more need to go in, add everything manually, prepare the invoice. Maybe you’ve missed something or maybe you forgot that you’ve even said something for the treatment. It does all of that and it even tells you the reason why it selected each treatment, basically referencing what you’ve mentioned before. Other ones that also have been very interesting was Tails Verify, which has definitely been used more and more by vets of all ages, regardless if they’re an associate vet or even more senior.

But what it does, at the end of the visit, it does a cross-check of everything that was written in the notes, everything that was previously in the history, checks for any contraindication, checks if the vaccines were actually done, if there’s nothing due, if there’s another pet in the household that might needed anything else. So, it does all that check for them and it highlights if there are things that need attention. So, it’s just like mental safety that everything is done and you can now close the record and everything is sorted.

So again, it might be from saving time, from increasing the quality of the … Well, the reducing the mental workload of the situation, but definitely we’re seeing more and more applications across the entire visit from before the visit, during the visit, and also after.

Sounds very thorough.

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Now, Digitail is also introducing AI-powered intake and triage tools that you just mentioned that collect patient history before the veterinarian even enters the room. How does all of that change the interaction between veterinarians, pet owners, and the patients?

So, what this does, it creates more time for meaningful conversations. Again, for example, with Intake, I think that’s one of the most obvious is where the pet parents already leave. Probably they leave from work, they come to the clinic, and now they’re forced to spend five, 10 minutes to go through all the history, say all the notes. They’re also like anxiety, they don’t know what’s happening, maybe they’re a bit rushed, and that creates a less of an ideal experience. While the alternative is one day before they’re at home, we were saying that they can be on their couch, they can fill the information.

They have time, they can take even photos, they can remember things that maybe they have more time to think about, and all of that gets triaged also important. So, if they write down any information that doesn’t make sense or if there’s something urgent, Tails will send them quickly to a doctor. But if everything sounds normal, it will create a summary and it gives it on the forefront for the doctors when they come in. And what that does is that instead of focusing on that five, 10-minute conversation, the doctors read and then they can actually just think more either for the patient or on how to create a better relationship with the pet parents as they come in.

And that’s just one example. Other examples are pet parent after they leave, the AI assistant can reach out to the pet parent to do check-ins. Maybe we want to know how the pet is evolving, maybe we want to just get some updates after one month. So, creating that relationship with the pet parent becomes easier and more on autopilot rather than you needing to follow up with every single patient. It basically frees up time for the things that are just communicate information gathering and it leaves more time for reductional meaningful conversation.

And I think one of the best, best ones that I’ve seen, you mentioned you’ve asked the thing what surprised me the most. There’s one really good example that my colleagues have been working on with a group of veterinarians now, and it’s called the Continuous Care Dashboard. And especially today when visits are down, we need to make sure that we can definitely do more marketing and get more clients in, but we have already a client base in the clinic and we need to nurture that client base and make sure that we’re top of mind for them and that they want to come back.

So, what the Continuous Care Dashboard does is there’s an AI assistant that reads absolutely all the medical records, all the client communication, again, all the lab work, absolutely everything that’s in the system and flags who are the patients that need the follow-up, who are the patients with chronic conditions that need help, who are the patients that maybe reached out and need to be triaged quickly. And you can even ask it in plain language, who are the patients that need the dental in the next six months? Who are the patients that are overdue on reminders and we haven’t reached out yet?

And we’ll give you then that information and we’ll also prepare what’s the email or text that you can send to the pet parent. And I think that was a very surprising … We didn’t realize what impact it has before we’ve released it with clinics and they’ve started building more relationships with the pet parents and they’ve realized how much power you have in the existing client base that they have basically at the clinic.

Yeah, it sounds like it gives a lot of time back. Well, Sebastian, you have been deeply involved in the AI for vet med community and research around AI’s effect on veterinary mental health. What are you learning about how AI can actually reduce stress and burnout in the veterinary profession?

That one comes basically in two factors. I won’t go in a long-winded answer on this one because I think we’ve covered a few before, but I would say there’s two categories. One is the time efficiency, which absolutely critical because then you don’t spend time on the things you don’t like, you spend time on the things that actually give you pleasure. No one wants to write a record. No one wants to fill in an invoice. Those are necessary things that we need for documentation, but we can reduce that to an almost zero.

So, time efficiency, time back, that’s one thing. The second part is mental load, cognitive load, decision making. It’s one thing of having to go through everything, think everything, and be the only one that all the pressure is on you versus having the ability to quickly check with your AI assistant or knowing that AI assistant can flag things if there might be something wrong. So, it reduces some of that mental load for you. Never fully delegate, just can’t stress enough that you’re still the in control, you’re still the one driving the plane, but it’s important to have a co-pilot with you in that journey.

So, I would say these two are definitely the biggest one. And probably as a sub area of saving time, it’s also the piece of removing the things you don’t like, which was close to the first one. But you can think of everything, all the admin work, all everything you need to check, gone, done, delegated.

Well, outside of tech, you are a three-time Ironman finisher. How has the discipline and mindset from endurance sports influenced the way you lead a company and navigate the ups and downs of entrepreneurship?

Love the question. So, if any of the viewers, if you know Triathlon or Ironman, it’s basically an insane competition where you need to run. Well, you need to for swim for almost two miles, you need to then go with a bike for 110 miles, and you need to then run for 20 something miles. It’s an absolute rollercoaster and the difference between you making it or not, it’s all the training that you put into it. And it’s all those days, especially it’s the mornings when it’s dark, when it’s running, and you still need to go because everything counts on you going into that training in the rain.

And I think with start-ups, it’s the same. It’s not about what necessarily you like or you don’t like, it’s not about that it’s difficult or not. It’s about that there’s so many people counting on you and that you need to go through with this. That’s probably one of the biggest lessons is that with great power comes great responsibility and there’s so much impact that we fought to have because we wanted to bring more positive impact in the space. But now with that also comes our responsibility of making sure that we continue innovating, that we continue pushing regardless if it’s easier or difficult.

And yes, I have to say it is a lot easier now when we have an amazing team, when already we have over 1,000. We’ve crossed 1,400 clinics now that rely on Digitail on a daily basis, and we’re just seeing that grow faster and faster. But still, the relentlessness of not giving up, and I can tell you that we’re not stopping until we’re going to see vets having most of the day just with pets and nothing to worry about anything else. That’s our mission, and there’s so much more to do. We’re realizing now that last year we helped vets go from 15 patients a day to 30 plus patients a day and making it home on time, absolutely insane.

When we got videos saying that … So, the first videos we got was, “Hey, we made it home one time.” And I was like, “Oh my god, yes, this is the first win.” And then we started hearing of that they can take more patients and more patients and that they took patients from other vet shifts. And it was absolutely insane to see all of this, but this year is different. This year is no longer about driving super efficiencies, it’s also about making sure we have a good relationship with all our pet parents. So, I do believe there’s so much more to do in this space and we’re just getting started and it’s exciting to be on this journey with great people.

Sebastian, what has been the most surprising thing to you so far during your career in the veterinary profession?

Okay, many, many things that were surprising. I have to admit, the first thing that was surprising was I had no idea of the passion that people have. That one, I have to honestly say I wasn’t expecting all of that. But I would say the second piece that was surprising, and this maybe came in the last years, is that there’s so much hidden interest in this industry, unfortunately. And I think some of the people in the space forget that vets are at the center of the ecosystem and they deserve everything we can give them and we need to help them at all times and I think that really sometimes is lost.

And for us, it was really important to give the industry an independent player that cares about the vets. And if you see, yeah, it’s rarely that one of the practice management system are still staying independent and committed to that. So, that was our mission to really be that partner for the clinics. And I think this was a bit surprising where I was expecting more people to work together for better outcomes for everyone in this space, but there’s been silos, let’s say it like that.

Silos. Well, what does your crystal ball say about the future of the veterinary profession?

Oh, I’m extremely excited for this day. If you look also what’s happening now in the technology space where you have companies like OpenAI that raised $100 billion, it’s really difficult to even understand that some, it’s more than twice of how much all the hospitals in the US make a year. It’s an insane number, and that’s how much a company just raised in funding for one time. So, the amount of dollars that are going now into AI and how this is just scratching the surface of what’s possible, it’s absolutely insane.

And it’s our mission to bring that technology as quickly as we can in the palms and the hands of veterinary professionals. So, if I would go to the crystal ball and say what will happen in one year or two years, I will be lying if I know what’s happening in two, three years because it’s changing so much. But at least for the next year, what our assumption is, or at least what we’re building towards is we really believe that each team in the hospital will get their own AI agent. And now we’re very much focusing on having a Tails for the medical team, Tails for a CSR team and Tails for the practice managers.

And those assistants will literally become as an assistant for everyone in the clinic, helping them in their day-to-day on any of the tasks that they have. And I think probably you’re also doing it, I’m also doing it. We’re using Cloud, we’re using ChatGPT, we’re using everything in our day-to-day, and in the next periods, it’s going to be a learning experience on how to work with an AI assistant. This has been probably, for some people, it may be easier, for some people, it takes longer. But everything from learning how to prompt, how to connect it in your day-to-day.

And there’s so many cases where the first tries, it took me longer than it would take me just sending an email or doing anything, a campaign. At the beginning, it takes longer, but once you learn how it works and go through it, it becomes a lot faster. And I’ve even done a coaching session with my … I use Cloud now, and I’ve done a coaching session where after I’ve asked it to duplicate a few emails, send them out together with an offer, I’ve asked it like, “Hey, how could I have done this better so that you can do it more efficient?”

And it gave me feedback on how I can delegate better to the AI assistant. So, it’s really interesting times of learning how to use this technology in our day-to-day and how to embed it and where we need to and where it could have the most impact.

Well, you mentioned that sometimes you come across clinics that are still on paper records and I come across them too. What would you say to practices that are still using paper records?

First, I would really acknowledge that change is difficult, change is difficult. It takes time away from what you want to do to learn something new. But what I would say is that technology got to a point where it’s so much easier to use. It’s more intuitive, it guides you, it doesn’t need to be something where you spend when you rip two weeks of your time to now learn something else. So, my advice would really be just try out, see what’s out there, have at least a half an hour conversation to see what’s possible because it can really change your day.

That’s good advice. Well, Sebastian, you’ve had tremendous success in your career as an entrepreneur. What are a few of your daily habits that help you achieve success on a daily basis?

Find the right co-founders and team members, probably that’s the best advice. But in terms of habits, I would say I wouldn’t have been able to go through all of it without doing any exercise in the morning. Doing exercise, absolutely super impactful. Anything, you can run, you can bike, you can swim anything you like, but some form of exercise to keep you sane and I tend to do that in the morning. And then in the evenings, reading, breathing, like taking downtime, I think it’s very difficult to not do that.

And the other piece is sharing it with friends. I have to say, I do spend quite a lot of time talking with people, sharing the burdens, not necessarily within Digitail, because as a leader, you need to make sure that a team has always a cheerleader and a supporter for everything. But having people with whom you share your ideas, you get advice, it’s very difficult to grow and learn without having someone near you that pushes you more and tells you when you’re wrong. I think we, at least as leaders, we do need more people around us to tell us when we’re wrong and to not be afraid of giving us the constructive feedback because without it, we wouldn’t grow.

That’s a very good point. Well, we know that not every career is perfect, there’s bumps along the way, there’s highs, there’s lows. You’ve had tremendous success and the highs, but what’s the biggest adversity that you’ve encountered so far throughout your career?

Let’s see. I would say this was in the very early days when we just started, we had probably around 30 clinics at that time, so it was very the first year, and we ended up doing an update. We rushed, we ended up doing an update, and unfortunately, we had some downtime and it was really painful for everyone that trusted us. And I think getting the phone calls and seeing how everyone was disappointed was probably one of the most painful moments of the entire journey and I’m so glad it happened then.

Because I think we all need to go through some of these lessons in order to understand the importance of what we do. But I think without Ruxandra, without everyone else in the team saying that we’re going to do better, we’re not going to do this type of mistakes again, and what we do really matters, I would have probably not moved ahead at that time. But yes, I think disappointing people is one of the most painful things I’ve personally gone through, at least from this experience.

What advice would you give the younger version of yourself?

I would say sometimes go slow to go fast, that’s probably one of the good ones. But I would say the advice that I knew at that time and I would still give it is never give up, it’s 100%. If you really believe in something, just go for it. You’re going to hit roadblocks, you’re going to hit your head against the wall, but the most important thing is to not give up as long as you really believe in what you want to do.

And what message or principle do you wish you could teach everyone listening to our podcast today?

Look, there’s going to be ups and downs, there’s going to be hard moments. But you have a choice of defining what you want to be written on your tombstone. And I think it’s a very important exercise to think back to. And for me, at least, what I wanted to make sure I do have written there is never gave up, regardless if it’s good or bad, regardless if it’s difficult, the most important thing is to always keep trying and to not give up. And the second piece is that it’s surprising how many people want to help, and unfortunately, they can’t help if you don’t raise your hand and ask for help. So, going back and actually getting yourself out there and asking for help is the second most important thing.

That’s good advice. Sometimes people have a hard time asking for help. Why do you think that is?

Difficult. Well, maybe sometimes it’s hard to admit that we need help. Maybe sometimes we’re afraid of getting a no, but in the end, it goes back to what we’re saying is if you don’t try, it’s 100% chances you’re not going to make it. So, it’s much better to at least try and ask for that help. And plus, there’s strength in realizing what you cannot do also.

Well, and if you don’t ask, you won’t get a yes either.

100%.

Well, Sebastian, some of our guests say they’ve had a key book that they read that helped them along the way. Do you have a key book in your life that’s impacted you the most?

Okay. For that one, we also need a lot more time, and I can probably send you a huge list, but I would say out of the ones that had tremendous impact, one was definitely Atomic Habits. Maybe it’s a bit-

I have it on my bookshelf over here.

I think it helped me realize that it’s not about wanting something, it’s about building a system that helps you get it. Very important, that book, really, really insightful for how you can organize your life. And I think the second one was Never Split the Difference from Chris Voss and realizing, so he’s an ex FBI negotiator, and he gives practical tips on how to build connections with people and how to communicate with people. And it helped me realize that there’s so much power in language and the words we use.

And also, it’s insanely how even the same word can be interpreted differently by two different people coming from even similar backgrounds. So, realizing that it helped me be a lot more focused on the words we use, on how we use them, and really connecting with people. So, with simple things like mirroring or labeling is very simple things that makes the other person feel that you’re actually in the conversation and connected. So, definitely recommend the book, very impactful and worth reading.

Well, Sebastian, you’ve got the mic. What is one thing you want to share with our listeners of The People of the Animal Health Podcast before you drop the mic today?

First, follow more, Stacy. She’s amazing. But besides this, I would say, look, there’s so much to be done and the day is short, unfortunately sometimes, but just reaching out and trying to find out new solutions, new ways of working. It can be the difference between you enjoying what you do or you still dreading to do all the admin work and everything else. And it’s so much easier now the technology has advanced, there’s so much more processes, great workflows. So, I would say if you haven’t tried it yet, reach out at least to an AI agent, ChatGPT, anything you want online, try it out and you’re going to be surprised to how much it can help you.

Well, Sebastian, thank you for being here as my guest today on The People of Animal Health Podcast. I’ve enjoyed our conversation.

It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.