222 Patients in Month One: Inside a Dental Startup That's Booked Out Two Months

The rules of dental student loans just changed, and most dentists have no idea what it means for them.

Selling your dental practice to a DSO? Some dentists who took part of their payout in DSO equity may end up with nothing to show for it.

Dr. Divya Patel was two years out of dental school when she made a decision most dentists take a decade to make: open her own startup instead of buying an established practice. In this episode, Scott sits down with Dr. Patel to unpack why she walked away from Toronto's acquisition market and built Pearl Dental Studio from the ground up instead. They break down the real math behind "buying a practice twice," once to acquire it, and again to actually fix it into your vision, and why that math made a startup the lower-risk path for her, not the riskier one. In this episode: Why acquiring an established practice can cost more long-term than building one from scratch What it actually costs to open a five-op startup in Toronto today, and how Canadian dentists access funding How Dr. Patel built a patient experience around comfort and quality instead of volume and insurance-driven case mix What it's like to bet on yourself as a young dentist, before a spouse, before kids, before "waiting until you're ready" starts costing you years Her 2-3 year vision for the practice, including plans for a second location

ChatGPT just rolled out ads for small businesses, and dentists are already testing it, often with no idea what they're doing.

Last week's episode challenged the traditional path to retirement. This week, Scott Leune gets tactical: what should you actually be doing in dentistry, right now, at your specific age, to make that philosophy real?