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About Ideal Practices
Dental Startup Consulting Backed by Nearly 1,000 Practice Launches.
Most associate dentists enter practice ownership the wrong way. Because nobody ever showed them the right way. We changed that.
Our Mission
Ownership done right changes everything.
Dental school trains exceptional clinicians. It doesn't train business owners. And so most associate dentists spend years doing incredible work inside someone else's practice, undervalued and without a real path forward.
Here's what the industry doesn't talk about: practices rarely fail on paper. The real failure happens in the background. The owner still associating two days a week to make ends meet. Not taking home a paycheck. Overworked and overtired. Ownership done the wrong way doesn't solve the problem. It creates more of them.
Done right, it's a completely different story. Freedom. Control. The ability to deliver the kind of care you actually believe in. And a ripple effect that reaches your family, your patients, and your community in ways that go far beyond dentistry. Whether a dentist gets there through a scratch startup or by acquiring an existing practice, the path forward should be built on vision, not guesswork.
That's what we're advocating for. And we're doing it with as much free guidance, education, and direction as we can put into the world. Because the whole industry is better when dentists know how to do this right.
There was no one showing dentists that ownership, done the right way, could bring freedom and real impact. We changed that.
Stephen Trutter, CEO, Ideal Practices
The Results
What ownership done right actually looks like.
This is what separates Ideal Practices clients from dentists who attempt this on their own. Every practice is 100% custom, built around a unique vision with no templates, no cookie-cutter plans, and no shortcuts.
To Freedom Day
Our clients typically quit associateship within 5 months of opening. The industry average for DIY practices is closer to 2 years.
First-Year Revenue
Our clients typically see $750–850K in their first year. The industry average for new dental offices is $400–500K.
Patients Scheduled
Our clients open with patients already on the schedule, fueled by a custom marketing strategy built specifically for their practice and market.
Reviews From Year One
In their first year alone, our clients often accumulate more 5-star Google reviews than many established dentists have in their entire careers.
Custom. Every Time.
No floor plan templates. No generic business plans. Every practice is built around the dentist's specific vision, market, and goals. Yours will be too.
Wasted on the Wrong Decisions
Growth, not savings, is the focus. But our clients still benefit from significant savings across every facet of the project because they're never making uninformed decisions.
Results reflect typical client outcomes and are not a guarantee.
What Sets Us Apart
We've done this nearly 1,000 times.
There's a big difference between helping dentists and having helped nearly 1,000 associate dentists launch and acquire practices. This is what that experience looks like in practice.
Vision First, Always
Every engagement starts with one conversation: what do you actually want? Before location, before lenders, before lease negotiations. We don't let clients make decisions until they have a clear vision. That clarity is what everything else gets built on.
The Earlier, the Better
The decisions you make before you're committed are the most important ones. We do our best work at the very beginning of the journey, before the lease is signed, before the deal is accepted, before the momentum of a bad decision is hard to reverse. Vision comes first. Everything else follows.
Deeper Than Anyone Else Goes
Other consulting stops at pointing you in a direction. We go further at every stage. Custom floor plans designed 1-on-1 around your vision and your space. In-house credentialing. On-site construction visits. Every bid and every contract reviewed. Pre-opening business and marketing training so you know how to run a practice before you ever open. And that's not the full list.
Education Without the Pitch
Our free courses, podcast, book, and events exist to give associate dentists real information. Not watered-down content designed to create a sales funnel. We believe that when you genuinely teach people, the right ones find their way to us.
Two Paths to Ownership
Startup or acquisition. We know both.
There's no single right answer to how you get into ownership. There's only the right answer for your vision, your market, and your situation. We've helped dentists succeed both ways.
Path One
Starting from Scratch
Building a practice from the ground up gives you total control over every decision, from the location and layout to the culture and patient experience. It's a longer runway, but it's entirely yours.
- Design your practice around your vision
- Choose your market, your demographics, your space
- Build the team and culture from day one
- No inherited problems, systems, or staff
Path Two
Acquiring an Existing Practice
Acquiring a practice means stepping into an existing patient base, revenue, and team. It can compress your timeline to profitability, but only if the right due diligence is done before you're committed.
- Existing patients and cash flow from day one
- Established location and staff in place
- Thorough due diligence to protect your investment
- Transition planning that keeps patients and team intact
How It Works
It starts with one conversation.
The Ownership Clarity Call is free, it's with a real person, and it's where everything begins. Here's what the journey looks like from there.
Ownership Clarity Call
A free call with one of our Startup Advisors. You'll get clarity on whether ownership is right for you, which path fits your situation, and what the right next step actually is.
Vision & Strategy
Your vision calls are with Stephen Trutter and the team directly. Before any decisions are made, you define what you actually want. That vision becomes the filter for everything that follows.
The Full Process
Our 13-stage process takes you from vision to opening day. Every stage has a specialist. Every decision gets reviewed. Nothing gets skipped.
Opening Day & Beyond
You open ready. Thirty days of dedicated post-opening support is included. And for those who want to go further, the Mastery program gives you ongoing access to advisors, colleagues, resources, and two live events each year.
Ready to start with that first conversation?
Book a Free Ownership Clarity Call
Leadership
Stephen Trutter
CEO, Ideal Practices
Stephen built Ideal Practices around a single conviction: associate dentists deserve a guide who is genuinely on their side. With nearly 1,000 practice launches behind him, he has more hands-on experience in dental startup consulting than anyone in the industry.
He hosts The Startup Dentist Podcast, wrote The Startup Dentist book, and leads the Startup Practice Blueprint™ event. Every piece of the Ideal Practices process traces back to something he learned working directly with real clients in real markets.
Stephen's approach has always been simple: give dentists honest information and put their vision first.
The Team
Every client gets the full team behind them.
Our team brings over 700 years of combined dental industry experience, from dental chairs to office management, dental real estate to dental banking, hygienists to construction specialists. Whatever stage of the process you're in, someone on our team has lived it.
Meet the full teamHow We Work
A 13-stage process built from nearly 1,000 launches.
Practice ownership isn't one decision. It's dozens of sequential decisions that have to happen in the right order. Skip a stage or get the order wrong, and the mistakes compound.
Our 13-stage process was built from the ground up by working through every one of those decisions with real clients, in real markets, over more than a decade. It's not theory. It's the map.
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We practice what we preach about giving back.
For every practice we help open, we fund 10 micro-businesses for entrepreneurs in underserved communities around the world through our partnership with HOPE International. Nearly 1,000 practices. Over 4,000 businesses funded.
And it doesn't stop there. We teach every one of our clients how to build a practice that gives back to their own community. Because ownership isn't just about building something for yourself. It's about what you do with the platform you've built.
We don't just tell our clients that community matters. We show them what it looks like.
Ready to see if this is the right fit?
The Ownership Clarity Call is a free conversation with one of our Startup Advisors. You'll leave with a clear picture of which path makes sense for you and what the right next step actually is.
Book an Ownership Clarity Call See our process first