Today we’d like to introduce you to Dimitri Tsichlis
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My story begins at the age of 11. My father was a dental technician and I always spent time in the lab with him. Whether after school, on the weekends or summer break I would watch and later on help out with various tasks.
My parents lived in Greece and moved to Canada when I was 11. The lab was never big. My father worked many hours and never had more than 1 employee. The beginning was very hard because he literally moved to a new country and started a new life and business during the 1993 Canadian recession at 54 years old. It was not easy and I saw my parents struggle. This is definitely one of the reasons why I have always pushed and persevered for success.
When the time for me to go to University came, I had to choose what I wanted to do in life. I had finished Cinema and communications in College but didn’t see much coming out of that so I decided to discuss with my dad about joining the family business.
He was very against it in the beginning. He did not want me to struggle like he did and pushed for me to go to University instead. After long and multiple discussions, he told me that I would have to go to the technical college and graduate from the 3 year dental technology course that is equivalent to an MDT. He would consider the next steps after I proved to him that I was serious about this.
I worked and studied for 3 years and was all in. When I graduated I started working full time. I quickly came to the conclusion that this lab would never grow unless we invested in the latest technologies and brought someone in to help us market our services. We did great work but no one knew we existed. My Dad agreed.
I asked my wife Lidia Croteau, who was my girlfriend at the time to join us and to help us do just that. Her background was in communications and marketing so this fell right in to her area of expertise. As soon as she started working with us, our only employee quit so Lidia had to pivot and help us with production until we found help to replace him. No marketing was done for about a year but this allowed her to become a dental technician by training and learn every technical aspect of our domain.
Once everything was settled and marketing began we introduced CAD CAM technologies and thanks to Lidia I also started giving lectures at the continuing education programs for the local universities. Our lab grew and we decided to buy our own building and expand. We did just that and built a beautiful cutting edge lab! Unfortunately my Dad got very ill and passed away withing a year from doing that. He never got to see the new premises.
We worked tirelessly and grew to a team of 14 people. We got married and Lidia fell pregnant with our beautiful daughter Evelina. When she was only 7 months old I was diagnosed with a severe case of Lymphoma. Lidia had to take over a lot while I went through hell for the next 2 years.
Thankfully I beat the odds. We decided to pursue our dream which was to move to Florida and start a new life. We always talked about doing this and dreamed about it.
We started Styledent LLC just before Covid. Unfortunately due to Covid when the time came to apply for our investor visa the embassy was closed and our status expired so we had to close doors and leave for Canada.
During the next 4 months while the world was going through so much unknown and uncertainty, we were trying to figure out a way to get back to our dream. With the help of our lawyers we were able to do just that.
We rebuilt everything we lost before leaving, and persevered once again. Within a year we outgrew our tiny space and bought the unit in which we are currently in.
We continue to thrive and are doing everything we love. We have our Dental prosthetics division, Styledent llc, our surgical division with our partner Dr Da costa who joined us 2 years ago and together helped us form SGT Guides.
Last year we became ADA CERP providers and have an educational platform as well called SGT Education, the purpose is to educate anyone who is interested in advancing their dental knowledge.
We are also still running our original lab in Canada.
Life is good!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The difference in business mentality was definitely a struggle. Learning the current American dental market and adapting to what American Drs look for needed learning amongst other struggles listed in the previous step.
It is never a smooth road when you throw yourself in the unknown. Financially it was very hard as well because as Canadians we had to rebuild our credit in the USA and this was very difficult because we could not get any financing, not even a credit card in the very beginning.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
If you have been to a Dentist and have needed a night guard, a denture, crowns, veneers, implants or surgical guides, there are very good chances that a dental lab such as ours was the one that fabricated it.
We specialize in cosmetic and full mouth implant reconstruction cases. What I am proud of is that we continue to evolve and keep adapting to the major changes our market is going through. We have multiple divisions and are no longer only limited to crafting dental prosthetics. We offer dentists many other services. To name a few, continuing education, and in house consulting services that help them integrate technologies to better serve their patients are definitely our newer offerings.
What sets us apart is how large our scope of knowledge extends. Having multiple product offerings in different areas of the dental world and being in 2 different countries makes us understand many things others in our situation cannot and that is very valuable.
Our core values remain the same regardless of all of these changes that are currently changing our market.
How do you think about happiness?
My wife and my daughter, because there was a time that I had to accept the possibility of vanishing from their lives due to my illness.
This is why having gone through that and coming out clean on the other side makes spending time with them a gift and a blessing forever!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.styledent.com
- Instagram: @styledentlab @sgtguides
