Why I Built SmileWidget

Hi, I'm Sergey — the founder and developer behind SmileWidget.

I've spent over 25 years on both sides of the business-technology divide. The first 15 years I spent in business — starting in sales, then moving through commercial leadership into executive management, eventually running a large industrial operation as CEO. Budgets, people, operations — the full weight of keeping a business running day to day. It was deeply rewarding, but it also showed me how often the tools businesses rely on are overpriced, overcomplicated, and built by people who've never had to run anything themselves.

That's what pulled me into software engineering. I've spent the past 10 years building backend systems and data infrastructure — tools that collect and organize information from across the web, which turned out to be exactly what SmileWidget needed under the hood.

Here's a pattern I kept noticing: dental practices invest real effort into earning great patient reviews. But those reviews end up scattered across Google, Yelp, Healthgrades, Zocdoc, and Vitals — and most practice websites show none of them. The solutions that exist cost $300–600/month, are built for enterprise sales teams, and come with complexity no small practice needs. There was nothing in between: affordable, professional, and dead simple.

So I built it. SmileWidget pulls your reviews from major platforms, keeps them updated automatically, and displays them on your website in a clean, customizable widget. Setup is one line of code on your website — most practices are live in under five minutes. No technical knowledge needed. No contracts.

SmileWidget is bootstrapped, self-funded, and built to last. There are no investors to please, no growth-at-all-costs pressure, and no board meeting where someone decides to triple your price or pivot the product into something you didn't sign up for. Being a solo founder means no feature bloat, no upsells, and direct access to the person who actually builds the product. When you email , you're talking to me.

I built SmileWidget for practices that want their reviews working harder without paying enterprise prices. If you have questions, ideas, or just want to say hi — I'd love to hear from you.

— Sergey