From Tech to Teeth: Why I started Nova Dental Health
I’m not your typical dental industry professional. After all, I’ve been a founder in the fast-paced, venture capital-backed tech startup world for the last almost 15 years. I’ve raised venture capital, scaled companies from 0-20, 20-200 and 200 to over 1000 people. I’ve worked alongside some of the most incredible people solving some of the hardest problems within their respective industries. Along with my world-class cofounders, we built, scaled and successfully exited our venture capital-backed startup in 2018 to a public company called DraftKings.
So why dentistry and why did I start a Dental Support Organization (DSO)? This journey only goes back to September of 2023, when I started learning about DSOs and the dental industry from some mutual friends who had operated in the space. As I continued to learn, I saw a lot of the value that some DSOs were bringing and could continue to bring to the dental industry. But I also learned of some of the flaws holding back many of these DSOs from being truly great businesses delivering exceptional dental patient care. Too many were operating the DSO as a spreadsheet model only focused on constantly maximizing short-term EBITDA. Sure, this can lead to the 30%+ IRR that many of these private equity-backed platforms are targeting, but it isn’t leading to exceptional patient care and leaves a lot to be desired for both clinical and non-clinical employees of the DSO. There is no connection to the business. And there is no connection to the patient.
In the tech startup world, you learn pretty quickly (or else you fail), that it’s all about people. Finding the best possible people, building the best teams, all of whom are collectively obsessed with the customer experience. Or in the case of dentistry, patient care. I had the benefit of learning these principles from mentors early on in my entrepreneurial career. This is the common denominator of all truly transcendent companies, regardless of the industry they serve. After all, the entire reason I love startups and entrepreneurship, is because I love working alongside exceptional people collectively obsessed with creating great customer experiences. This journey may be a different industry, but these business values never change.
These are the values we are leading with and these values are why we exist as a DSO. Build the best possible team obsessed with delivering the best dental patient care in the communities we serve.
If you’re a doctor looking to continue to grow professional and love dentistry for delivering exceptional patient care, we’d love to hear from you.
