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Choose Your Path Six Entrepreneurial Pathways to Grow and Operate Your Dental Group : By Dr. Eric J. Roman
Dentists are typically, by nature and design, super intense engineers working in micro-millimeters of detail, which can make it hard to have perspective in what we need to do to manage the business side of dentistry. A lot of the skills that make us great dentists can also complicate our transition into the entrepreneurial journey.
Dr. Eric J. Roman
After I graduated from dental school in 2007, I built one of the fastest growing practices in the country. We made $2 million in revenue in the first year, $4 million in the second year, and $6 million in the third year. Not even 18 months into being a private practice dentist, I had multiple locations. Each new location was growing faster than the one
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before it. Things were going great, right up until they weren’t. I ended up in a multi-year, multi-million dollar regulatory lawsuit in North Carolina. Long story short, I lost everything. But I was not done, and I was not giving up. Real entrepreneurs have this tendency towards serially building businesses, learning how to do so along the way.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 • DENTAL GROUP PRACTICE
CarolinasDentist was born out of the ashes of my first DSO experience, and over the course of 5 years, we grew it to nearly $30 million in revenue when I recognized that it was time for a change. We often have a belief that we only have one path, and it is going to span our whole career. I realized that CarolinasDentist did not need to be my only journey. While I was grateful for the experience, being authentic to who I was meant that it was time for me to step out of that journey and to create space for everyone else to continue growing. In 2019, a private equity-backed exit allowed me to refocus my energy into a number of other endeavors, including my contribution to the Dentist Entrepreneur Organization. All that to say, there are multiple paths for entrepreneurs to find success in the dental industry. I am a living testament to the fact that these journeys will hardly ever go forward in a straight line. As a matter of fact, I would like to argue that straight paths are neither likely, nor are they fun. Part of what I do now is informing dentists, both young and old, about the power of choosing your own path. Your path might not look like any other. It’s just yours, and it’s based on your skills, your passions, and your unique life.
Patterns of success Of course, there are some general patterns of success that we should
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