Jobless pair launch thriving business
The two were working for a dental supply company, when a year ago, they both were laid off. When they got the bad news, they quickly turned entrepreneurial to open up their own dental lab, manufacturing custom pieces for local dentists.
“I went from sick to my stomach, ‘how am I going to make my mortgage payment?’ ” said Rogers. “To ‘this might work.’ ”
One year later, it seems to be working well. The two started Classic Dental Studio in Escondido in January 2009, custom manufacturing dental prosthetics — everything from crowns to cosmetics and full mouth reconstructions — selling to local dentists for their patients.
They added seven employees, mostly technicians, while managing to have no debt. In August, they moved from an 800 square-foot office to a 2,100 square-foot office in Poway, more than doubling their lab space.
They currently deal with around 225 patient cases a month. They preferred not to disclose sales figures, but said revenues have increased 200 percent in the last year since opening.
Rogers had been a production manager, and Dennison was a business consultant for the same company when they met in spring 2008. To start their own lab, they decided they had a great combination in Dennison’s business experience and Roger’s technical expertise. Rogers had 30 years of technical experience in dental lab manufacturing and owned a lab in Hemet when he was in his 20s. Dennison, who got his Master of Business Administration degree from San Diego State University, owned a small marketing company in Rancho Bernardo.
As for people who become laid off and see an entrepreneurial opportunity to continue in the same field, Dennison’s advice from his personal experience is: “Don’t be afraid to do it on your own.”
There are goals to expand Classic Dental Studio by adding more employees in 2010. But Dennison emphasized that it has to be controlled growth, to make sure the lab maintains its top product quality and constant contact with dentists and patients that sets them apart as a high-quality dental lab.
“We want to make sure that communication factor stays high, the quality stays high,” Dennison said.
Competition is worldwide, and there is variance among dental lab products, Rogers said. Theirs aims to produce a higher quality product (they tend to provide products for higher-end San Diego-area dentists) that replicate real teeth and are more finely crafted for absolute customization. Complicated cases? Sometimes patients come into their lab so the finest details can be captured in the prosthetics.
Each piece is handcrafted, and the lab works closely with dentists and patients using videos, photos, and constant communication helped by the Poway lab’s proximity to local dentists. Materials used include porcelain, gold alloy, oppressible ceramic material, and dilithium silicate (a newer formulation of ceramic materials with phenomenal strength), Rogers said.
“We get the very minute details of each tooth,” Rogers said. “Hopefully with our patients you think, ‘Wow, what a great smile.’ You don’t know why, but they look better.”
For more information about Classic Dental Studio, visit www.classicdentalstudio.com/.
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