The Dental CEO Podcast

What if the traditional retirement plan, work hard for 40 years and finally retire at 65, is actually the reason so many dentists end up burned out, broke on experiences, and full of regret?

In Part 1 of this two-part series, Scott Leune revisits a post he wrote 16 years ago that challenged everything he'd been taught about building wealth and retiring. Instead of one big retirement at the end of a career, Scott lays out a philosophy of semi-retiring twice: once during the years your kids need you most, and again once you've built enough wealth to slow down for good.

Scott breaks down:
Why the traditional "work hard, save, retire at 65" path leads to the most common regrets he's heard from wealthy people, again and again
The four life phases (18-25, 26-35, 36-45, 46-65) and what your income, savings, and schedule should look like in each one
Why your 20s and early 30s should be about high income and low costs, not lifestyle upgrades
How to structure your practice so you can drop to two or three days a week during the years your family needs you most
Why your late 40s through 60s can become your highest-earning, highest-impact years, if you've set yourself up correctly
How this philosophy applies directly to practice ownership, associateships, and the timing of buying, building, or selling a practice

This episode lays the groundwork for a bigger conversation. In Part 2, Scott will get tactical, walking through the specific dental practice models that make semi-retiring twice actually possible at each stage of your career.

If you've ever felt like the traditional path to retirement doesn't match the life you actually want to live, this episode will change how you think about your career, your family, and your money.

Episode 80: There's a good chance you've never heard of DHP. While Schein, Patterson, Darby, and Benco dominate the conversation around dental equipment and supplies, DHP has quietly built a 35-plus-year, privately held, family-owned business that Scott says delivers strong pricing and personal service, without the brand recognition to match.

Scott sits down with Dale Roberts, DHP's founder and CEO, and Nick Roberts, COO, to unpack what makes the company different, across both equipment and everyday supplies. Rather than steering dentists toward a narrow list of premium brands, DHP shows the full range of options, from budget-friendly to premium, and lets the dentist decide what's actually right for their practice. That same $15,000 "workhorse" chair some distributors recommend often has a $4,000-$5,000 equivalent that performs just as well, and DHP is the company willing to show dentists that option exists.

They also get into how tariffs have driven up pricing on gloves and other everyday supplies over the past year, squeezing dentist margins at the same time patients have less to spend, and how DHP's service model, real technicians' dentists can call directly rather than an impersonal dispatch system, extends across both equipment repair and ongoing supply relationships. Dale and Nick share what they're seeing across the industry right now: flat patient volume since 2009, new tariff-driven pricing pressure, a slowdown in DSO growth tied to higher interest rates, and why private practice ownership is still thriving despite it all.

In this episode:
Who DHP is, and how a privately held, family-owned company built a 35-plus-year track record across equipment and supplies
Why DHP shows dentists a full range of equipment options across different price points
How tariffs have driven up pricing on everyday supplies like gloves, and what that's done to dentist margins
How DHP handles repair and service, with real technicians dentists can call directly
The real price difference between a premium patient chair and one that performs just as well
How DSO pricing structures compare to what private dentists typically see
What's really happening with dental industry trends: patient flow, tariffs, and DSO growth
Scott's strategy for financing equipment like CBCTs and scanners separately from your startup loan

Learn more: dhpsupply.com

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Episode 79: In 2019, a 22-year-old flew from Dublin to Texas to take three of Scott's courses back-to-back, so eager to learn he came back a second time just to finish the one he missed. Eight years later, that same dentist has built Truly Dental into Europe's largest full arch implant group, 15 locations across Ireland and the UK, on pace to cross $100 million in annual revenue. Now he's setting his sights on the U.S., and he says he can do it cheaper, and just as good.

In this episode, Scott sits down with Mo Shirin to unpack exactly how. Truly manufactures its own implants and prosthetics in-house, down to the submicron level, cutting out the markup baked into nearly every implant sold in the U.S. Mo explains that the actual manufacturing cost of an implant is under 10 cents, yet dentists are routinely charged $200-$250 a piece. Some of his early U.S. patients were flying to Ireland after being quoted 600% more at home for the same procedure, and Truly was still making a healthy margin at a fraction of that price.

This isn't a race to the bottom. Mo walks through how vertical integration, owning the lab, the manufacturing, and the training, lets Truly deliver full arch care at a dramatically lower cost without cutting corners on quality, and why he believes that combination is what will let Truly compete directly with, and outperform, U.S. incumbents once they officially enter the market.

In this episode:
How Mo went from Scott's seminar room at 22 to founder of Europe's largest full arch group
Why Truly manufactures its own implants and prosthetics, and how that cuts cost without cutting quality
The real manufacturing cost of an implant versus what dentists are typically charged
Why U.S. patients were flying to Ireland and paying less, even after travel
How Truly scaled from a single Dublin practice to 15 locations across Ireland and the UK
The pivot from general dentistry to full arch implants, and why it changed everything financially
Mo's plan, and reasoning, for entering the U.S. market to compete directly with incumbents
Mo's philosophy on ego, mentorship, and betting on yourself before you feel ready

Learn more about Mo and Truly Dental: trulydental.ie
Surgical training facility: livepatientdubai.com
Implant manufacturing lab: https://borislabs.ie

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Episode 78: Scott sits down again with Justin Warcup, a pediatric dentist in Dallas-Fort Worth, to break down the numbers behind pediatric airway dentistry and the system he built to scale it, called the BRĒTH Method. Cases run $4,000 to $9,000, case acceptance sits at 52%, and in just three months of focused marketing, Justin scaled from 4–5 cases a month to averaging $130K+ a month, increasing his profit by an estimated $1.4 million on top of his existing practice revenue.

They dig into the real math: why the procedure costs so little to deliver, and why Justin says it's simpler clinically than routine cases most general dentists already do every day.

In this episode:
The exact fee range behind this procedure ($4,000–$9,000 per case)
The case acceptance numbers: 52%
How averaging $130K+ a month in new case starts breaks down to roughly 90% profit
What the clinical treatment actually looks like, and why it's simpler than most dentists assume
Who can realistically add this to their practice (pediatric dentists, general dentists, and orthodontists)
Info on Justin's upcoming BRĒTH Method training event in Dallas-Fort Worth (September 18–19)

Learn more about the BRĒTH Method: justinwarcup.com

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Episode 77: Is there ever really a "right time" to start a practice? In this episode of the Dental CEO Podcast, Scott sits down with Dr. Stamatis Kouniaris and his wife Katarina, a practicing attorney, to talk about one of the boldest timing decisions a young family can make: launching a dental startup in Canada while raising three kids under five, including a newborn just one month old.

Just a month after opening Ilios Dentaire, Stamatis and Katarina are already booked out three to four weeks, adding a hygienist, and hiring a second assistant, all while juggling final construction details, working capital, and the everyday chaos of a young family. They open up about why they chose a startup over an acquisition, how financing and insurance structures shaped their decisions, what it's really like when one spouse is a dentist and the other is navigating life alongside the build, and why they believe waiting for the "right time" often means waiting forever.

Whether you're weighing a startup against an acquisition, wondering how kids factor into the timeline, or just want an honest look at the first month of practice ownership, this conversation is a real, unfiltered look at building a business and a family at the same time.

Topics covered: startup vs. acquisition decisions, financing and lending strategy, insurance and fee structures, balancing parenthood with practice ownership, and the value of coaching during a startup build.

See photos and videos of Ilios Dentaire on Instagram: @ilios.dentaire

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the Dental CEO Podcast and leave a review, it helps other dentists find these conversations.