FROM MILLIMETERS TO MILES - MY JOURNEY AS A DENTAL ENTREPRENEUR

By Dr. Aditi Agarwal

It’s 2:00 am on February 11th, 2011 and I have just retucked my 3-year-old son back into bed. I am 6 months into my start-up practice and, as usual, I can’t sleep. I toss and turn trying hard not to wake my husband up. How can this be? I’m mentally and physically exhausted yet sleep is a stranger. How long can I continue like this, I wonder. How long before my working capital runs out? How long before I have to throw in the towel? Why did I think I could do this? My grandma was right: “ This is a man’s world. It’s much safer being an employee” she used to say, and her words kept coming back to me.

I was never a good listener. I moved from Dubai, where I grew up, to India when I was 18 – leaving all that I knew behind with the ideals of making a difference in humanity. I struggled to fit into a culture and social ethos that was supposed to be mine but felt alien; not to mention carrying the burden of a full course load that starting dental school at 18 brings. My education in India left me wanting more. I moved again at the age of 23 for my DMD program at Boston University, leaving the metric system, the comfort of home and household help, and even the upside-down light switches.

I survived all this, but how was it that, at 33 years of age and after only 7 years as a dentist, I felt like I had failed? I had invested so much time, energy, and money and had never felt more lost. In life, we all have some pivotal moments, and mine came that night in 2011 as I wondered how I was going to make my next payment, how I was going to tell my parents that I failed, and how I was going to take time off from my practice to attend my brother in laws’ wedding in a month. It was then that my husband and I made a decision.

We have to find a solution. A better way forward.

That day we made a decision to give it our all, to work together as a team; to find the missing link that was hindering me in pursuing what I worked so hard to achieve. We started to comb through any resources that were available to us which were limited at the time. We gleaned our knowledge from business books and journals, blogs and groups, and by talking with other business owners.

The common thread we found was people said that we couldn’t find a solution to what was lacking in the business without figuring out the problem. Many business authors talked about “understanding the data within your business”. This seemed like a novel concept to me as we were never taught that in dental school. We were only taught about teeth and how it was our responsibility to be their saviors. “DATA!” I thought, but I didn’t even know where to begin.

In 2011/2012 looking for data was like searching for a gold mine. We did not have a map, we did not know where to look and we did not know what we were looking for. We spent hours, days, weeks, and months combing through reports in my Practice Management System looking through innumerable reports and tabulating them to find trends and discrepancies all while still seeing patients, being pregnant with my second child, and raising our son.

My husband worked his day job and then would spend quality time with me every night trying to understand these reports. He helped me understand the data by first creating spreadsheets and then creating dashboards. The clarity I got from understanding these dashboards was literally life-changing.

I slowly started to understand what was going wrong and started to put corrective measures in place by simply tracking various key performance indicators. This led to an increase in my profitability and a decrease in my financial burdens. It was at this time that we realized that there weren’t too many resources that were dental specific that could help dental business owners like me understand and help boost our understanding of our business and hence profitability.

Practice By Numbers was born in an unused Operatory in my practice. It grew slowly and steadily over the next few years, helping practice owners get insights into their businesses and institute impactful changes to help improve their profitability and reduce stress.

Everything came to a standstill in March of 2020. All dentists not only lost their only source of income but many battled with identity crisis, debt, and a fear of the unknown.

I lost many staff members either due to new vaccination laws, health issues, or simply fear. Restarting my office without reliable and trained front office personnel was extremely hard. I felt shaken to my core. Witnessing my challenges firsthand, my husband, who has always stood solidly by my side, said to me, “ Don’t worry! We will find a solution, a way out.” And that’s exactly what we did at PbN.

It was in October 2020, that we started to pivot from just a business intelligence software to becoming a solution that can truly help a dentist run an office more smoothly, efficiently, and with less stress.

Automation became my love language and that of my team. We automated many everyday tasks like new patient forms and consents, online booking, online payments,

We have grown by leaps and bounds over the past four years, primarily because we approach problems with the goal of solving them for the end user – the dentist.

As our business has grown, so has my role within the company. I’ve transitioned from being a co-founder advisor to now serving as a co-founder relationship growth manager, all while continuing to oversee marketing efforts and support our team by providing a “dentist’s” perspective. At the same time, I still manage and work in my two dental start-up practices.

My journey from the dental chair as an Orthodontic patient at 10 years of age to becoming a dentist was long and arduous – one I worked tirelessly for, day and night. However, my journey from the dental chair to the executive chair has been nothing short of transformative. It has taught me that dentistry is not just about hand skills and perfect margins but about mindset and vision. I look forward to embracing the ever-changing landscape of dentistry through broadened horizons and renewed purpose as my margins are now defined by miles and not just millimeters.

About the author

Dr. Aditi Agarwal, a proud DEW member, is a dentist and entrepreneur with 20+ years in dentistry. A 2003 Boston University DMD graduate, she co-founded Practice By Numbers, an all-in-one platform for practice management and patient communication. After opening two successful practices, she became Chief Growth Officer, driving innovation in dental technology. Passionate about data-driven success, she empowers dentists to optimize clinical, financial, and patient engagement outcomes through smart, integrated solutions.