Mark Haddad, Endodontist and Co-founder of Specialty1 Partners and ScoutIQ, pulls back the curtain on what private equity actually wants — and why most dentists walk into a deal completely unprepared. At the heart of every PE transaction is one defining decision: do you take the cash and walk away, or do you roll your equity and bet on a bigger payday down the road? If you've ever thought about selling your practice or scaling with PE backing, this episode will change how you think about both paths — and help you figure out which one is right for you

Option A

Cash out

Full liquidity at close. Best for founders nearing retirement or those who want a clean exit. You walk away with 100% of the agreed value — no strings, no risk, no upside.

Option B

Roll the equity

Take partial cash now, convert the rest into ownership of the larger DSO. If the group grows, your stake multiplies. Mark calls it "the second bite of the apple" — and it's how younger founders build serious long-term wealth.

What Every Dental Founder Needs to Know Before Selling

💡 The "Ask Dallin" Question: 

"What factors should I consider when choosing a practice management software?"

Dallin's answer: Two things outrank every other feature — scalability (can it standardize across multiple locations?) and data access (can you actually get to your own data?). Cloud-based PMS platforms tend to win on both. Everything else — user friendliness, features, cost — matters less if you're building toward a group practice.

Top 3 Episodes of The Dental Truth Project. Listen Now!

Got a burning question about dental finance?

Corey Hastings, CEO of Blue Sage Management Group and practicing pediatric dentist, exposes the uncomfortable truth most multi-location dental owners refuse to admit: scaling from one to seven locations almost broke him — not because of bad dentistry, but because he couldn't get out of the chair. The clinical skills that built his practice became the very thing holding it back.

Why Your Greatest Strength Becomes Your Biggest Bottleneck

💡 The "Ask Ken" Question: 

"What's the biggest financial red flag that would make a buyer walk away from your dental group?"

Ken's answer: Buyers want to see a business that can grow without being held hostage by one person's skill set. If your collections are inconsistent, your books are messy, or your entire operation collapses the moment one key person walks out — they'll walk out too. Do a quality of earnings audit on yourself before a buyer does it for you. Find the bombs before they do.

Top 3 Episodes of The Dental Truth Project. Listen Now!

Got a burning question about dental finance?

Virginia Jones, CEO of Village Family Dental (14 locations, 400 employees) & Gary Salman, CEO of Black Talon Security reveal the silent threat that could shut your practice down — not a bad review, not a slow month, but a cyber event you never saw coming.

Post-Change Healthcare breach, dentistry is still 3–4 years behind the rest of healthcare on cybersecurity — and the hackers already know it. Small practices think they're flying under the radar. Large groups think their IT team has it covered. Both are wrong.

The Invisible Threat Inside Your Practice

💡 The "Ask Ken" Question: 

"At what point does adding more locations actually start destroying value instead of creating it?"

Ken's answer: The real question isn't how fast you can grow — it's whether your operational infrastructure has room to breathe. Before you sign on that next location, ask yourself: are your regional managers tapped out or do they have capacity? Growth without operational leverage isn't scaling — it's a slow-motion collapse. Know your limits before your skis outrun your legs.

Top 3 Episodes of The Dental Truth Project. Listen Now!

Got a burning question about dental finance?

Randa Seif, COO of CaliDental, issues a stark warning to every dental practice owner scrolling through AI vendor ads: handing over your patient data to the wrong company isn't just a bad business decision — it could be a legal and ethical catastrophe. 

After personally vetting vendors from Australia, Amsterdam, and across the U.S., she reveals why most AI companies knocking on your door have no business being inside your practice management system.

The Vendor Trust Crisis No One Wants to Say Out Loud

💡 The "Ask Dallin" Question:

"If you stepped into a struggling 3-location group tomorrow, what 3 data reports would you analyze first?"

Dallin's answer: Start with the P&L — every other report you pull should be dictated by what you find there. Revenue problem? Pull production and collections. Labor bloat? Go straight to payroll. The P&L is your compass; everything else is the map.

Top 3 Episodes of The Dental Truth Project. Listen Now!

Got a burning question about dental finance?

Ash Toub, Co-Founder of Smile Data and Ponce Dental Studio, brings a rare dual perspective to dentistry, currently running both a dental group and a software company built for dental groups. After helping scale a 28-location DSO to $10–12M in EBITDA, he developed a proven 5-pillar framework for building dental groups that survive and scale.

The 5 Pillars of a Scalable Dental Group

💡 The "Ask Dallin" Question: 

"What should I do if I have multiple Practice Management Softwares in my DSO?"

Dallin’s answer: In most cases, moving to one PMS is the smarter long-term play. While the transition can be painful upfront, standardizing systems creates cleaner reporting, smoother operations, easier staff training, and stronger scalability. If switching isn’t possible yet, integration tools can help—but one unified system remains the gold standard.

Top 3 Episodes of The Dental Truth Project. Listen Now!

Got a burning question about dental finance?

David Janash, Founder & CEO of Underbite Dental, built a 13-location DSO from the ground up in one of the most brutally competitive markets in the country: New York City. 

He's made every expensive mistake in the book — and turned those mistakes into a data-driven operation that actually tells him what's going to happen before it does.

David used to log into every single office manually, every single night, just to know how his business was doing. 

Then he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building a custom data warehouse and hiring software engineers to solve the problem. 

He eventually scrapped all of it for a monthly software subscription that does it better.

The lesson isn't just about wasted money — it's about what happens to your strategy when you're operating without real insight. 

David coined it himself: "The map to that gap is your data"

The Gap Between Intention and Actuality

💡 The "Ask Ken" Question: 

"Does my EBITDA look strong, but I still feel broke every month?"

Ken's answer: A few things hide from EBITDA that devour your cash — debt service, capital expenditures, and cash vs. accrual distortion. Strong EBITDA and empty pockets aren't a contradiction. They're a signal. Here's how to read it.

Top 3 Episodes of The Dental Truth Project. Listen Now!

Tonya Christal and Danielle Powell of Lee Dental Centers in San Antonio don't have a fancy training platform, a DSO war chest, or a playbook they borrowed from a conference stage. What they do have is something far rarer — a 40-year family practice, a sister who's also their business partner, and the hard-won clarity to know exactly who they are and who they're not.

The hard truth? Most dentists are building their practice to look like someone else's. They're scaling because the seminar said to scale. They're chasing new locations because four feels small now when it used to feel big. And somewhere in that race, they stop asking the one question that actually matters — is this the life I actually want?

Designing Your Group on Purpose

💡 The "Ask Dallin" Segment:

"What AR data patterns signal a billing system problem before cash flow is affected?"

Dallin's answer: Two things to watch. First, your total AR balance — some is normal, but if it's climbing month over month, something is broken. Second, your aging buckets — any meaningful amount sitting at 90+ or 120+ days is a warning sign you can't afford to ignore. Catch these patterns early, before the cash flow feels it.

Top 3 Episodes of The Dental Truth Project. Listen Now!

Got a burning question about dental finance?

Sean Hamel, Founder & CEO of Art of Dental Marketing, tears apart the broken cycle that's quietly draining dental practices dry — and most owners don't even know it's happening.

Every dentist has hired a marketing company. Most have hired several. And yet the phone still isn't ringing the way it should. Sean reveals why the problem was never your marketing budget — it was the message. When every practice looks the same, sounds the same, and posts the same stock photos of people in scrubs, the only way to stand out is discounts. And discounts attract the wrong patients. And the wrong patients feed a cycle that burns through marketing companies, money, and momentum — over and over again.

The hard truth? Patients aren't choosing you because you're clinically superior. They already assume you are. What they're actually buying is how you make them feel — and almost no one is marketing that.

What Patients Are Actually Buying

💡 The "Ask Ken" Question:

"When should a practice stop thinking like a practice and start thinking like a DSO?"

Ken's answer: You never get to let go of the practices — they are everything. The DSO infrastructure means nothing without dental practices that run on repeatable, scalable processes. Get that right first. Then — and only then — think about buying more, doing de novos, and building a growth strategy around it.

Top 3 Episodes of The Dental Truth Project. Listen Now!

Got a burning question about dental finance?

A Czech-trained oral surgeon walks into Wisconsin dentistry — and quietly becomes the guy everyone calls about implants. Dr. Jan Bublik has spent nearly 30 years watching general dentists hold themselves back from a procedure they're more capable of than they've been led to believe. 

He pulls back the curtain on the unspoken rules that keep dentists small, and the community-first model that's changing how implant education actually works.

Key Revelations:

(E.6) Are Dentists Selling Out Their Entire Industry?: Mike Baird, Accelerate Dental

(E.15) We Pulled Insurance Duty From Our Front Desk - Revenue Jumped 30%: Francesca Pregano - Smile Makers Dental Center

Got a burning question about dental finance?

Dr. Rehan Shahid, multi-practice owner, dental coach, and COVID-era graduate, reveals an uncomfortable truth about modern dentistry: dental school teaches clinicians how to drill and fill — but not how to run a business. 

As a result, many highly skilled dentists unknowingly build practices that struggle financially because they lack leadership systems, data-driven decision making, and business fundamentals.

The Business Education Gap in Dentistry

💡 The “Ask Ken” Question:

“Is EBITDA manipulation just part of the game when selling a dental group?”

Ken’s answer: Accuracy matters far more than appearance. Private equity firms will always run a quality-of-earnings review, and any attempt to manipulate EBITDA can destroy a deal immediately. Clean, transparent financial reporting is the only sustainable path when preparing a practice for a sale or partnership.

Top 3 Episodes of The Dental Truth Project. Listen Now!