On this episode of Catching Up With, the Collab Collective’s Craig Durr talks with Wildix Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder Dimitri Osler during the Wildix Analyst Event in Venice. Dimitri shares how Wildix grew from solving early frustrations with unreliable IP systems into a global UCaaS provider, and he discusses his transition from CTO to Chief Innovation Officer along with the company’s focus on cloud collaboration and making practical, accessible AI available to SMBs.
Craig Durr: And I'm back, everyone. This is Craig Durr, Chief Analyst and Founder of the Collab Collective, and I am still here in Venice. This is part of my Venice art experience. But actually, I'm not here to talk about art. I'm still exploring Wildix. I'm trying to understand more about the DNA and what got this company started. So who better to talk to than one of the co-founders, Dimitri Osler.
Dimitri, how are you doing?
Dimitri Osler: Very good
Craig Durr: Good. Now, Dimitri has got a really great title. He is currently Chief Innovation Officer, right?
Dimitri Osler: Yes. So I graduated from Chief Technical Officer, to innovation.
Craig Durr: That's great. I'm glad you were able to give yourself a promotion over this time frame.
Dimitri Osler: Going technical was a trouble, actually. I should be called the Troubles Officer. *Laughs*
Craig Durr: *Laughs* Let's go back to the origin story. So you started this with your brother 20 years ago, and you had a really great story that Wildix was born out of a frustrating event, a frustration that you were having in the market, right?
Dimitri Osler: Yeah, the IT company called MBX, which was owned by my brother, deployed a couple of (phone systems)… well, they were so crappy, so buggy. They were crashing on calls. They were crashing on a daily basis. I was an intern in that company, and they gave me the task of replacing, and piece by piece, we replaced these phone systems. They were the first IP phone system. They were very buggy, and from then, we grew on basically.
Craig Durr: That's fantastic. So you actually went from intern to co-founder to Chief Innovation Officer, right?
Dimitri Osler: Exactly, we all started with a problem.
Craig Durr: I love that path. But actually, let's lean into this, because it is not a circumstance that you have that title, Chief Innovation Officer. What are you seeing right now in terms of the innovative frontiers that you and Wildix are exploring right now? I mean, there's a lot going on with AI. You've already been cloud-based forever. What's the next frontier you're looking at in terms of innovation?
Dimitri Osler: Well, we and partners are focused basically on SMB, and so our goal is really to democratize access to AI. We want all these small companies out there to be able to use AI to work better, more efficiently, reduce work related stress, and increase their revenues.
Craig Durr: You know, what's really interesting is your partner network speaks to SMB. You guys speak to SMB, but you don't speak to them in a technology language. I like that. It's a very common language you speak, right? I think you guys look at the problem they have, and you can help bring a solution to bear. And you do this to that channel network, that partner network, correct?
Dimitri Osler: They are really close. They are on the territory. They are close to their customers. Usually, they had already been in business relations for years, right? So there is this trust between partners and customers, and trust between partners and us, which is kind of unique.
Craig Durr: All right, let's lean into this. So you’re the Chief Innovation Officer, and this core audience that you have of SMB, I love that idea, but let's play fortune teller. Let's put our, not our chatGPT, but our Dimitri AI to test right now. I'm curious, where do you see the horizon of how AI and SMBs might work together? Like, what are some of the workflows, what are some of those challenges you hope to help solve?
Dimitri Osler: Well, there are so many repetitive jobs which are taking operative tasks, like handling bookings and sending offers, that are taking away (time and resources). Basically, they don't allow small businesses to run their main business, which is to produce value. If we are talking, for example, about a tattoo parlor, their job is to make tattoos, beautiful tattoos. They should not be overwhelmed with handling payments, handling bookings, and so on.
Craig Durr: It's admin. I love that because you know you and I as technologists, we think about this as collaboration technology, communication technologies. All these people think about is, “My customer calls me, or they get in a chat, so how can I make this easier and flow easier?”
Dimitri Osler: Exactly, so we put agents at the front, and then we connect them to the human whenever it's needed.
Craig Durr: That's good. Okay, I love it. So we've got everything here, from the origin story to the new title to where you see the future going right now. So in one year from now, I'm hoping to sit down with you, and we're going to continue this interview. And at that point in time, I want to understand more about Dimitri AI, Chief Innovation Officer, and where Wildix is going next, okay?
Dimitri Osler: I’m gonna be Chief AI Office, alright. *Laughs* Thank you so much.
Craig Durr: Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.
Everyone, this is Craig Durr, Chief Analyst and Founder and Chief AI Person of the Collab Collective. We'll bring you some more from the Wildix analyst event here in Venice, Italy. Thank you.