[VOICE]: This [00:00:05] is Dental Leaders. The podcast where you get to go [00:00:10] one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your [00:00:15] hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki. [00:00:20]

Payman Langroudi: This podcast is brought to you by enlighten. Recently, one of the groups did [00:00:25] a survey to understand what is the most profitable thing that they can do in their dental chair and enlighten [00:00:30] came in as a second most profitable thing, coming in at £900 per hour. So if [00:00:35] your dental chair is busy, it should be busy doing things like enlighten. Come and join us on Enlighten [00:00:40] Online Training to fully understand how to do the process, how to talk to patients about [00:00:45] it. Deliver brilliant results every time. Enlighten online training. Com. It gives me great pleasure [00:00:50] to welcome Daniel Jones onto the podcast. Daniel is a serial entrepreneur. You’re going [00:00:55] to have to call you that now. Yes. Two three Start-Ups. Right. Um, uh, [00:01:00] Cambridge graduate studied economics and now finds himself in the Dental space, providing [00:01:05] AI powered software for the back end of dental practices [00:01:10] to make things right, to make chair [00:01:15] time as useful as possible. Give me a little summary of Medfin before we go any further.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, exactly. [00:01:20] So it’s it’s a software that essentially helps practices understand what [00:01:25] is going on in that practice. It’s like analytics. Yeah. Um, and ultimately give them [00:01:30] the roadmap to make their practice or groups work with a lot of groups, make those groups perform better, [00:01:35] like operationally and financially speaking. So I say we make software to to help dental [00:01:40] practices become more profitable.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah. So but then practically what happens? [00:01:45] Do I get a bunch of KPIs. Which chairs doing what. Pound per second.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, [00:01:50] exactly.

Payman Langroudi: Associate per treatment.

Daniel Jones: Exactly. So I guess traditionally when people have tried to get [00:01:55] this information in the context of groups or practices. You kind of like broadly had two options. [00:02:00] You do spreadsheets and loads of manual exports from all your systems, because one of the big problems is that [00:02:05] this is one of the problems we’re solving, is that none of the systems that Dental practices seem to use talk [00:02:10] to each other. So you have to do lots of manual reporting, chopping up the data. [00:02:15] That takes time. It’s often inaccurate. And then the other option, which is for groups, is that [00:02:20] they’ve spent a lot of money building like power BI dashboards and these sort of like custom setups, [00:02:25] which is very involved, very expensive, and is fraught with its own sort of set of problems. [00:02:30] So we built Medfin to be the sort of the third option there, where it’s software. You plug it into your systems, [00:02:35] everything draws in, calculates automatically. So you don’t have to do any of that manual calculation, [00:02:40] but you still get really rich information to basically show you, you know what? What [00:02:45] levels should I be? Should I be pulling in my dental business to improve its performance, [00:02:50] make more money?

Payman Langroudi: And from the user perspective, I use those when you say levers. [00:02:55] All right. Yeah. It tells me this chair is not performing as well as that chair. I go and chat to that associate, [00:03:00] I guess.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, exactly. So associate associate performance is a big one, right? So understanding, you [00:03:05] know, your associates, what are they doing in terms of clinical efficiency, revenue per hour, um, [00:03:10] average daily yield and then understanding why that’s a big thing. So you can have these [00:03:15] you can have these headline metrics, but often you don’t have the metrics below that to understand why. So [00:03:20] why is this person looks like they’re not as clinically efficient. Well it may be just because they’re doing a lot of [00:03:25] NHS treatment for example. And there’s nothing wrong with the way that they do dentistry. It’s just to do with their treatment split. Or [00:03:30] is it because they’re not converting new patient consultations or the treatment plan? Acceptance is low, like [00:03:35] there are so many things that you could be looking at, and our system is trying to make that as easy as possible [00:03:40] for practice owners and group owners to diagnose what is happening and how can I change [00:03:45] it? Um.

Payman Langroudi: And so your life is all about sort of connecting [00:03:50] practice management software to accounting software to is [00:03:55] that it is that is that a lot of what you.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, that’s a lot of what we do in medicine. Um, because I guess [00:04:00] the key problem is that people have all these systems, as you say, accounting software, Xero, [00:04:05] QuickBooks, sage that doesn’t talk to your practice management software and Dental or so [00:04:10] you’ve got maybe like plan patient software if you offer things. So you’ve got like a den plan portal, you’ve [00:04:15] got a CRM, you’ve got maybe a phone system, and none of them [00:04:20] necessarily communicate with each other. So you’ve got data, but it’s in like 6 or 7 different sources. [00:04:25] Lab invoices is a big one. Labs and materials. All the data for that is trapped in a PDF, [00:04:30] you know. So if you want to work out things like what’s my margin on a certain treatment to help you with pricing or [00:04:35] to understand, you know, what treatments should I be doing more of to make my practice more profitable? [00:04:40] Actually, getting to that information is bloody difficult. Um, and we help with [00:04:45] that.

Payman Langroudi: So I can I can understand clearly from a multi practice perspective it makes sense [00:04:50] to, you know, pay you some money to fix this problem. But for a single practice owner, [00:04:55] is it still viable? I mean, what’s the sort of onboarding nightmare? [00:05:00] You’re trying not to make it a nightmare, right?

Daniel Jones: Yeah, exactly. So one [00:05:05] of the things that we’ve been really focusing on is, is making onboarding as seamless [00:05:10] as possible. So if you’re a single site practice, it will take less than an hour of your time, and it’ll take [00:05:15] us a week to get set up. And then everything just flows in automatically, really. And we’ve got a lot of single [00:05:20] site practices using the platform. Um, because, you know, the interesting thing about Dental is that [00:05:25] even a single site practice is like, it’s it’s, uh, it’s a fairly big small business, you know, um, [00:05:30] in the grand scheme of things, Dental practices are profitable businesses. So. [00:05:35] Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: What led you to dentistry?

Daniel Jones: That’s a good question. Uh, [00:05:40] one that I get asked a lot. Um, because it’s not obvious. Right. Um, I, I, [00:05:45] I often start when people ask me that or when I hop on calls with people, or I meet people in person at conferences. [00:05:50] One of the first things I say is, you know, I’m not a dentist. I’m not a clinician. [00:05:55] Um, you know, I used to be an investment banker before going into the world of [00:06:00] Start-Ups, but I got interested in healthcare through my [00:06:05] final year of university. So when I was about 19, I got [00:06:10] I went into a GP surgery for routine. Um, it was like a basically [00:06:15] a routine check-up I’d been feeling under the weather. I had like a cough that wouldn’t go away. And when [00:06:20] you’re there, you know, you go into a GP practice and often they’ll take your blood pressure. So I remember they took my blood [00:06:25] pressure and I never forget this. They took my blood pressure. The GP looks at [00:06:30] the reading and says, oh, something, something gone wrong. Do it again. So [00:06:35] he did it again and he said, I think this is something wrong with this machine. I’ll [00:06:40] go and get another one. Do it again. And the reading is pretty much the [00:06:45] same. And it’s like sky high. And he says, you know, not to not to mince my words, [00:06:50] but you’ve got the blood pressure of a fat 65 year old smoker.

Daniel Jones: Well, um, [00:06:55] and that sparked sort of like a chain of investigations over a couple of years. And interestingly, when [00:07:00] I was younger, like when I was a baby, I had this thing called Kawasaki’s disease, which was like an [00:07:05] autoimmune disease. And one of the complications from that is that you can have [00:07:10] issues with your heart, with your arteries. So when I was growing up, [00:07:15] I used to go to cardiology units, hospitals to get my heart checked. So when they found this thing [00:07:20] with the blood pressure, they thought, oh, it can’t be as hot. So they spent a year and a [00:07:25] half testing everything in my body, kidneys and like trying to understand [00:07:30] what was causing this. Um, they’d already written off my heart because of the [00:07:35] the stuff before. They think it can’t be that I’d have [00:07:40] loads of tests. I’d have to go around all the country. And it was just a really frustrating experience. And every time, [00:07:45] you know, people would say, people say we don’t know what’s causing it. I finally, six months [00:07:50] before my final exams, went for a full body MRI, and [00:07:55] when I had this full body MRI, I remember I went to get the results and I just [00:08:00] assumed that, um, you know, I went in and like [00:08:05] every other time they’d say, we don’t know what’s wrong with you.

Daniel Jones: And I remember my girlfriend at the time said, oh, do you want me to come with [00:08:10] you? You know, thinking it’s a big thing, get the results. And I was like, no, of course not. It’s fine. Um, and [00:08:15] I went going to this room and says, look, we’ve got the results from your test [00:08:20] back. Uh, you’ve got a really serious congenital heart condition. You’ve got coarctation [00:08:25] of aorta. Aorta being the principal vessel in your heart and mind is from [00:08:30] birth. There’s a segment of it that had narrowed down to almost nothing, and [00:08:35] that was what was causing it. And they told me that if they hadn’t found it, I’d [00:08:40] have had a heart attack or a stroke by the time I was 40. Well, um, And [00:08:45] I just had such a negative, you know, it’d been missed. Even [00:08:50] after that. They told me I’d have to have open heart surgery initially. So I actually dropped out of university. [00:08:55] Or like at Cambridge, it was called, um, intermitting. So it was like [00:09:00] where I had to leave and I would come back the next year. The only reason I didn’t, I ended up completing [00:09:05] my studies that year was because my grandfather was a doctor, and he looked at my medical records and [00:09:10] he said, I don’t think you should be having this surgery.

Daniel Jones: You know, they would have sawn through my back. I’d have been sort [00:09:15] of three months, like recovery months, where I wouldn’t be able to use my arms [00:09:20] properly because of how big the surgery would be. He said, I don’t think you should be having this. And so I, [00:09:25] my family, you know, paid to get private consultations, took it back to the NHS and they [00:09:30] said, okay, fine, we’ll do a stent, which instead of like weeks and weeks in hospital, I was I was there [00:09:35] for three days and I just came out of that experience with [00:09:40] one the healthcare system that I navigated through [00:09:45] seemed to be in shambles even when I was in hospital. I remember I’d have someone come up to me [00:09:50] with the same three different nurses come up to me with the same paper form saying, can you fill this in? [00:09:55] All the times where I had to go to different specialists, they wouldn’t have my records from somewhere else. So I [00:10:00] just got this, this like sense of chaos on the organisational side within albeit [00:10:05] traditional healthcare. And when I finally got everything sorted, you know, I’m [00:10:10] okay now. I had the I had the surgery.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, I’ve got [00:10:15] a stent. When I finally came out the other side of it, I just thought this [00:10:20] this has to be able to be done better. You know, if I hadn’t have if [00:10:25] I hadn’t have had a grandfather that was a doctor. He was a GP in Wales, [00:10:30] retired. Now he’s 91. But, um, I’d [00:10:35] have I’d have had like life changing surgery and it would have completely, you know, it [00:10:40] already had a big impact, but I would have had to leave university, come back like it would have been such a massive [00:10:45] thing. And I was fortunate enough to have that. But I thought to myself, imagine if I didn’t have that. [00:10:50] Imagine how many other people out there don’t have that, or maybe don’t have the money to pay [00:10:55] for going to see a specialist cardiologist to get another another opinion. So [00:11:00] I got interested in healthcare through that. And I mean, I went into investment banking, went into Fintech [00:11:05] Start-Ups. But in the back of my mind, I was always like, I’d love to do something in healthcare. I’m a bit [00:11:10] of a nerd, so I’d like read around healthcare and like, what are the issues? And one of the big issues that I’d done a [00:11:15] lot of research into was this mess of like disconnected systems. And that [00:11:20] was one the things I found that, you know, no one would have my records when I went to different places. I mean, you’ve [00:11:25] probably found it if you move in London or move somewhere like the GP doesn’t have your records [00:11:30] from the previous place.

Payman Langroudi: It’s crazy, isn’t it, when you think about it. It’s one system. The [00:11:35] whole benefit of it being one system should be that these things should be standardised. But [00:11:40] you’re absolutely right. I mean, I’ve been through healthcare situations where it [00:11:45] was fully private. One of my best friends from school was on the surgical [00:11:50] team, so I could call him at any time I wanted. And there were still so many, [00:11:55] you know, questions that weren’t being answered or things [00:12:00] that got repeated or things that got forgotten all the time. And you. [00:12:05] It’s surprising, isn’t it? It’s surprising when you actually go through it.

Daniel Jones: And when it’s so important, you know, [00:12:10] not only is it a big industry in terms of sort of the money that people spend on healthcare, but [00:12:15] like, it’s life changing. It’s the most important thing in people’s lives. You know, [00:12:20] you can have all the money in the world, but if you’re unwell, you don’t feel like a rich person. Um, [00:12:25] and so should.

Payman Langroudi: You actually feel that, like you’re a purpose driven business [00:12:30] because of that?

Daniel Jones: Well, it’s interesting. So I think I have, [00:12:35] like, I think we’re purpose driven to to a degree. Um, [00:12:40] and I’m certainly I think I’m someone that I think [00:12:45] you can think too hard about what you’re interested in. I think there’s a lot you can overintellectualize what you want [00:12:50] to do and what you’re interested in. And I just felt this pull towards healthcare because of that experience. So to that extent, yeah. [00:12:55] Mission led. Um, but I, I guess that doesn’t really explain [00:13:00] why how I ended up in dentistry specifically. It’s vertical. So I did when I was, when I was [00:13:05] thinking of this company, I was working somewhere else at the time, you know, I had my own business and [00:13:10] I the start of the journey was basically me just [00:13:15] asking. I basically like cold call people, or I’d try and email people and say, can I get 20 [00:13:20] minutes of your time to ask you about your experience? And I spoke to people in hospitals, spoke to people at [00:13:25] GPS. Um, and unfortunately, one of the things in this country [00:13:30] is it’s very hard to do what I want to do with the NHS and NHS [00:13:35] systems. They’re they’re very difficult to integrate with.

Daniel Jones: There’s problems there are problems that even [00:13:40] if we tried incredibly hard, we couldn’t fix. And like the hostile context, almost like a bridge too [00:13:45] far. Mhm. I then looked at the US because like more, more private system, um, [00:13:50] had lots of conversations with the people in the US about maybe doing something in the hospital context [00:13:55] over there. But honestly, I thought it was a bridge too far. You know, I’ve never lived in the States. I don’t know the healthcare [00:14:00] system. I’d be operating from the UK. So then I started speaking. I was like, well, what [00:14:05] else in healthcare? Because there’s a problem in the whole of healthcare. And then I started speaking to dentists and [00:14:10] that’s really how it started. I started speaking to dentists and they said, yeah, we’ve got this exact same problem. [00:14:15] If I if I want to understand what is going on in my business, I’ve got all these, these [00:14:20] systems that don’t talk to each other. And there’s this like data aggregation problem to be to [00:14:25] be nerdy. Um, and that was really the start of the journey. And I’ve, I’ve just followed that ever [00:14:30] since.

Payman Langroudi: Um, it reminds me of fear. Do you know him from, uh, from Pearl Dental [00:14:35] Pearl?

Daniel Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: So I asked him the same question. He’d already had $1 billion [00:14:40] exit with his previous AI company.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, I don’t have that. Yeah. [00:14:45]

Payman Langroudi: He’s a bit older than you, but but interestingly, he’s. I asked him when when did you first start [00:14:50] looking at AI and he was like 2004 or something, you know, way ahead [00:14:55] of the game. Um, but he looked into Dental like he realised that [00:15:00] reading x rays with AI is going to be a big thing. And he said, well, why dental x [00:15:05] rays? And he said, the big thing he said was that the dental [00:15:10] practices have much more autonomy on switching systems than hospitals [00:15:15] do, which is kind of what you just alluded to. Yeah. And so for that reason, he realised [00:15:20] dentists can be quite early adopters, some of them. And so and they have autonomy to choose [00:15:25] whatever system they want. And so he pointed his software dental x rays [00:15:30] instead of any other type of x ray.

Daniel Jones: Yeah absolutely. And the other thing that, and this is one of the reasons I actually [00:15:35] really enjoy working Dental like sector in the, in the UK especially, I can’t speak to the US. I don’t have [00:15:40] experience there, but it’s so entrepreneurial. You know, like practice [00:15:45] owners often dentists, you know, all these people, entrepreneurs even associate dentists. Right. The way that it’s [00:15:50] structured in this country being self-employed. And so there’s this entrepreneurial entrepreneurial streak [00:15:55] that runs through dentistry, which makes like dental practice owners, group owners, [00:16:00] and, you know, even associates, I think think differently to some other areas in healthcare. [00:16:05] Um, there’s less inertia. You know, it’s like one of the things that really stuck out to me [00:16:10] when I speak to people in NHS trusts and the like, there was no there was no incentive to innovate [00:16:15] to to like go beyond where you are today. And dentists have [00:16:20] that, that sort of drive to innovate and be entrepreneurial and to a far, far greater degree [00:16:25] than what.

Payman Langroudi: Surprised you the most about dentistry?

Daniel Jones: It’s a good question. One [00:16:30] of the things that I’ve thought about with dentistry is it’s quite it’s quite an all consuming [00:16:35] like, um, it’s quite an all consuming career. So that’s [00:16:40] one thing that surprised me. I’ve not come across an industry where, you know, a lot of dentists, their [00:16:45] friends are also dentists. And like, there’s a lot of things that you do on the weekend. And it’s such a tight knit community, [00:16:50] which I think is great. You know, everyone seems to know each other. Um, you know, [00:16:55] I remember in the early days, like when I was doing the research stuff, you know, I speak to one person and I managed to get [00:17:00] someone else in a completely different part of the country on a call. They’d be like, oh, yeah, I heard you spoke to doctor [00:17:05] X. My, you know, my mate the other day. Yeah. How do you know that? Um, [00:17:10] so that’s I think that’s.

Payman Langroudi: A very small community.

Daniel Jones: 100%, given it’s such a big industry, like, um, [00:17:15] that’s that’s the thing that’s really surprised me, but I think it’s got its massive pluses, like, um.

Payman Langroudi: What [00:17:20] about negatives? Like what surprised you? Negatively.

Daniel Jones: Negatively?

Payman Langroudi: I mean, have you come across, [00:17:25] for instance, the egos in dentistry? Has that happened to you yet? Yeah, I think so.

Daniel Jones: I [00:17:30] think so. I think so, although I think that’s something that you often see with medical [00:17:35] professionals generally. It’s not just in dentistry. Um, so yeah, you see that, but I mean, I used [00:17:40] to work in finance, so, um, a lot of, uh, there’s a lot of that. Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: Also, you know, [00:17:45] working in big companies, people have like the sort of guardrails in terms of what they can say [00:17:50] and do. You know, there’s that sort of politicking of a big company. You know, finance companies [00:17:55] tend to be big companies. But dentists, it’s interesting because the majority of of practice [00:18:00] owners are these guys who by themselves started a practice, and [00:18:05] many of them are like, you know, some of the most successful people in their towns, right? And so [00:18:10] that kind of gives you a bit of ego driven thing. And then you’ve got the cover [00:18:15] of I’m, I’m want to do the best thing for my patient. And [00:18:20] under that cover we can be awful to each other like really nasty [00:18:25] to each other. Um, based on, um, you know, do the best for my patient. Yeah. [00:18:30] I think that combination of things together, you know, the a lot of us haven’t had any training in [00:18:35] that sort of politicking of the corporate world where there are certain things you can’t say and do, where [00:18:40] everyone’s very sort of conservative. We haven’t had any of that. And then we’ve started [00:18:45] businesses that maybe are doing quite well for our little, you know, like you say, a big little [00:18:50] business. And then we’ve got this thing about the patient and [00:18:55] how, you know, a dentist is often the king of his castle as he in his practice. Yeah. And [00:19:00] what surprised me about going around a lot of dental practices is how different they all are. Because you [00:19:05] imagine, basically it’s the same thing. But no, there’s [00:19:10] a lot of difference culturally. I mean, there are some very happy practices and then some very sad [00:19:15] ones. Um, and it’s funny how like even with seven staff, you can [00:19:20] have two teams fighting with each other. Yeah. You’ve not come [00:19:25] across all this yet.

Daniel Jones: Well, so it’s interesting when I so when I first [00:19:30] started speaking to dentists, just to sort of get a sense of where priorities lay, etc., [00:19:35] the first question I would ask is, you know, what’s your biggest problem today? You know, [00:19:40] if you could have someone come wave a magic wand and that problem would be fixed. Like, what’s the thing [00:19:45] that first jumps to mind? And 95% of [00:19:50] people said like staff and HR. Um, run like the day to day running [00:19:55] of the practice, the sort of management of people within the practice. That was I [00:20:00] mean, almost everyone said that. So yeah, I’ve had a [00:20:05] I’ve had a window into, into that world for sure. From speaking to speaking to practice owners [00:20:10] and group owners.

Payman Langroudi: Where are you at right now? So you just raised £1.5 million.

Daniel Jones: Yeah. [00:20:15] So we raised £1.5 million from venture capital investors back in back in December [00:20:20] now.

Payman Langroudi: So what’s your what do you reckon is your runway now with that. How long can you keep going?

Daniel Jones: Almost [00:20:25] like two. Basically two years. Two years.

Payman Langroudi: So does [00:20:30] that mean in two years time you have to find more finance or be profitable? To the.

Daniel Jones: Point? Yes. [00:20:35] I mean, the way that you calculate, the way they calculate that is basically what’s your monthly burn over how much money you’ve [00:20:40] got left? I think we’re growing at such a rate that that will [00:20:45] if like the runway will prolong, if that makes sense.

Payman Langroudi: So some money will come in.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, exactly. [00:20:50] You know, we’ve got we’ve got lots of paying customers already today. Um.

Payman Langroudi: And is it like [00:20:55] a SaaS product?

Daniel Jones: Exactly. So it’s subscription. It’s subscription product. You pay subscription get. [00:21:00]

Payman Langroudi: Depending on the number of users.

Daniel Jones: So the way this is a good question actually. [00:21:05] So when, when we first started, I’ll be honest I wasn’t sure. You know, when you first have a product, sometimes [00:21:10] you don’t know how to price it. And one of the things that you do to understand how to price something [00:21:15] is you look at other things similar to it in the market and price it on that, whereas [00:21:20] there.

Payman Langroudi: Aren’t are not many.

Daniel Jones: Exactly, and not really for what we want to do. [00:21:25] So we had to sort of think about it more from first principles [00:21:30] and the the day I knew that we should we basically price on the number [00:21:35] of like active surgeries at a practice. So how many surgeries you’ve got in use at a practice on a [00:21:40] per site basis day? I knew we should do that. It was. I went in the same day. I went to visit [00:21:45] a, um, practice in, um, London that was doing [00:21:50] like around 700,000 in, in revenues, like Scott practice. [00:21:55] Um, and then there’s a few few hours later, I was on [00:22:00] a call with a guy in Wales, like cosmetic focus practice, like 3.5 million in revenue. [00:22:05] It just occurred to me, I cannot charge these people the same price for the software. It doesn’t make any sense. [00:22:10] So that’s how we landed on the the the per site and person like [00:22:15] surgeries per site. So yeah.

Payman Langroudi: So what is the cost.

Daniel Jones: So the cost it depends [00:22:20] on it starts at like 149 per month for one surgery and goes up in £50 [00:22:25] increments. Mhm. Mhm. And that’s monthly.

Payman Langroudi: So I guess the [00:22:30] pitch is that you’re going to save way more than that every month right.

Daniel Jones: Yeah I mean that’s what. [00:22:35] Absolutely. Absolutely.

Payman Langroudi: That’s uh give me, give me an insight like an example of an insight [00:22:40] that someone found. Yeah. When, you know, if before before they had your [00:22:45] software, they had no idea. And then the software kind of alerted them to something and they managed to move [00:22:50] the right lever. Like, give me some examples.

Daniel Jones: Yeah. So one of our early customers who has a seven [00:22:55] surgery practice in the Midlands. So one of the things that the software does is it looks [00:23:00] at like your associate, um, performance and goes quite in depth on that. So you start with the sort [00:23:05] of headline metrics like that’s production per hour, how many udas you’re doing, etc., your average daily yield. [00:23:10] And we have them in sort of like a, a live view [00:23:15] sort of table. So you can see them how they compare to one another and the [00:23:20] associate in his practice that worked the most. So there’s associate in practice [00:23:25] that did the most hours out of anyone, even more than the two principals of this practice. It was the absolute workhorse. [00:23:30] But the sort of telltale sign that sparked an investigation was that his [00:23:35] production per hour was like, I think £35 below the practice average. It’s [00:23:40] like, well, you know, why is that the case? So using our platform, you can go through and you can [00:23:45] have a look at, you know, what is his average treatment plan value. What is he charging [00:23:50] relative to other people in the practice across a range of treatments. And so the practice owner and [00:23:55] this was the early days who actually went through with him.

Daniel Jones: We looked through all this [00:24:00] and we realised this guy is underpricing relative to everyone else in the practice by like quite [00:24:05] a significant degree. It’s basically just hadn’t raised his prices in line with, you [00:24:10] know, everyone else over the course of a few years and this hadn’t been picked up. So [00:24:15] the principal sat down with his associate and basically just walked him [00:24:20] through the data. And data is really useful for taking the sting out of conversations like this. You know, [00:24:25] if you say to someone, oh, you should be doing better and you know, you’re not, you’re not, you’re not doing well enough. You’re not efficient [00:24:30] enough, that can feel quite personal. Whereas if you can just say, well, this is [00:24:35] your headline metric. This is the things that are contributing to it. He had a conversation about basically [00:24:40] raising his prices. And it’s useful because you can see what other people in the practice charge and say, look, all you’re [00:24:45] doing is bringing yourself in line with everyone else. You’re not charging more than anyone else. You’re just bringing yourself in line. And [00:24:50] the nice thing about dentistry is, obviously as an associate, you benefit from that also. It’s not like a salaried job. [00:24:55] You also take home more at the end of, uh.

Payman Langroudi: Well, I think there is some nuance [00:25:00] in it that you need to be aware of. I don’t know whether whether you are or or, [00:25:05] for instance, that principle also needs to be aware of, insomuch as [00:25:10] a dentist doesn’t get paid for talking to a patient immediately, [00:25:15] but it does get paid for talking to patients eventually. [00:25:20] And it gets paid a lot eventually for talking to patients. So you could look [00:25:25] at someone, some dentists, uh, hourly rate thing and it might not be [00:25:30] that great. But for instance, one nuances if you join a practice [00:25:35] in the first check-up. So it’s the first six month [00:25:40] cycle of seeing patients. You may not want to rock the boat. [00:25:45] You may, you may, you may be in that trust phase. Yeah. And I say I’d say it’s super smart as [00:25:50] an associate in the first six months just to be very super conservative and just have lots [00:25:55] of conversations. Let the word get around that community that a good guy has [00:26:00] has now arrived, and it could be three years down the road. Those guys are going for full mouth [00:26:05] rehab at 50 grand because of the work you put in at the beginning. And so [00:26:10] although you’re right that we don’t have enough statistics that are meaningful [00:26:15] in running a dental practice. You’re completely right. And a lot of us are measuring things that we [00:26:20] never even do anything about. Which is another big disease. You know, since since this [00:26:25] KPI, the word KPIs has come into dental practice management. Everyone’s trying [00:26:30] to get KPIs. Um, but that immeasurable element [00:26:35] of it. I mean, for instance, if I was a practice owner and I had one guy [00:26:40] earning £180 an hour and the other guy earning £160, [00:26:45] a level of £110 an hour. But the guy who was earning less was loved by [00:26:50] his patients. That’s a much better associate, because love in a dental [00:26:55] practice creates word of mouth and so on. Have you have you had come across these sort [00:27:00] of issues?

Daniel Jones: Yeah. So I think the way that we think about it is that we [00:27:05] wouldn’t necessarily we wouldn’t advise someone just take [00:27:10] purely.

Payman Langroudi: Look at the stats.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, but it’s about giving them a clear part of part [00:27:15] of the picture, if that makes sense. Yeah. So and that’s why it’s [00:27:20] important to arm sort of the, the principal on the ground or the practice manager. The people that can understand that [00:27:25] nuance because it’s very what you’re describing is absolutely correct. But it’s very it’s [00:27:30] very difficult, if not impossible to pick that up in just like data or numbers. [00:27:35] And so it’s about giving people with that context that have that nuance. The [00:27:40] numbers also to be able and then they can use what’s in their brain and their experience [00:27:45] and what they know about that particular associate or that practice combined with the [00:27:50] numbers to make a good decision, if that makes sense. Yeah. So. Absolutely, [00:27:55] absolutely. So it’s the but at the moment, I think a lot of what a lot of practices and groups [00:28:00] lack is even the sort of clear picture to go alongside what they have in their [00:28:05] heads in that nuance and the knowledge. So in this case, for example, you know, he was a well-established [00:28:10] associate and been there. And patients did really like him. Um, they did love him. And [00:28:15] it wasn’t a big uplift in prices, but we calculated it was like if [00:28:20] he worked the same amount of hours, it was for the practice, not just for him, but for [00:28:25] the practice. It’s like 18 K’s worth of EBITDA at the end of the year. And what’s interesting [00:28:30] with our platform, after we can see after you can see the performance. After you can see what happens after that. [00:28:35] Um, so you can actually track what’s going on. So yeah, I think there’s, [00:28:40] there’s huge value to be had. But you’re absolutely right. It needs to be tempered with the experience, [00:28:45] the knowledge of the people that are there that have that full context.

Payman Langroudi: And on the other side [00:28:50] of it, probably there’s plenty of associates who are losing money [00:28:55] for their practice. Yeah.

Daniel Jones: Absolutely.

Payman Langroudi: Without [00:29:00] anyone being aware of of that. And so have you got any sort of range [00:29:05] of daily sort of takings, daily revenue that an associate needs to [00:29:10] be doing in an average practice to be profitable.

Daniel Jones: So it’s a great question. Um, [00:29:15] this is one of the things that we want, want to like, solve in and we’re, [00:29:20] we’re very close to doing this next month. This will be rolled out onto the platform today. [00:29:25] When you look at when people have tried to assess things in dentistry, it’s always been, for example, as you said, [00:29:30] like 80 or revenue per hour. But you know, why do you why why [00:29:35] do you run a business? There’s lots of different reasons why someone would run a business, but ultimately a business has [00:29:40] to survive on what’s left after you pay everything. Right. It’s, um, revenue [00:29:45] is, is is great to have. It’s got to translate into something on the bottom line. [00:29:50] Um, so just looking at revenue can give you quite a misleading picture. So someone that [00:29:55] does £200 per hour, let’s say in one part of the country, a particular [00:30:00] practice might be way in the green, but someone doing £200 per hour at another practice [00:30:05] with higher costs. Maybe it’s a more premium practice. Maybe it’s in central London. Then they won’t be. [00:30:10] So you need to bring that data in. Like what does the cost base look like? What is your [00:30:15] operating cost per surgery per day. And then how much does that actually bring it in. And that [00:30:20] that’s what you need to look at. So I’m slightly loathe [00:30:25] to say like this is what good looks like because it really it just really depends. It really depends on your practice. [00:30:30] And that’s why having the practice specific context and numbers and data is [00:30:35] important.

Payman Langroudi: So why do I even feed in how much I’m spending on marketing and all of that.

Daniel Jones: Yeah. Because the [00:30:40] where that lives, it lives in like your accounting system. So it lives in with zero. We connect in with zero QuickBooks, [00:30:45] etc. so you can pull that data. And this is what’s interesting about what we do is that even [00:30:50] five years ago, probably less, it would have been very difficult to build [00:30:55] what we’ve built because you need ways of connecting in with these different data sources. Now [00:31:00] Xero and QuickBooks, you know, these are huge global tech companies, I think zero is worth [00:31:05] a few billion. It’s massive. Um, so they’ve got a good API, which allows [00:31:10] you to connect in with stuff, but it’s only just the case in the last few years, that cloud like practice [00:31:15] management software has really taken off. And if you don’t have cloud practice management software, it’s very difficult to get data [00:31:20] out of it. There’s no real APIs, etc. so we’re in some ways like a product [00:31:25] of the time. Like this is just becoming really possible because more and more practices are using [00:31:30] tech that allows you to to do that.

Payman Langroudi: So have you found some PMS are easier to connect to than [00:31:35] others, and are you still not connected to all of them?

Daniel Jones: Yeah, we’re still not connected to all of them.

Payman Langroudi: So which are the ones [00:31:40] you’re connected.

Daniel Jones: To and the principal only connect in with today is Dentally. So most of our customers, [00:31:45] like all of our customers today, are on Dental.

Payman Langroudi: Um, so you’re kind of limited by that.

Daniel Jones: Um. [00:31:50]

Payman Langroudi: Dental is growing so quickly. You’ve got plenty of customers to work on.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, exactly. And to an extent, [00:31:55] I mean, the vision is that not.

Payman Langroudi: Stack, by the way?

Daniel Jones: Well, so this [00:32:00] is the thing the vision is that we will be what you might call PMS agnostic so we can connect in with any [00:32:05] PMS. Like the vision really is that we want to connect in with any system that Dental practices. Pms or [00:32:10] not? Yeah. Um, it’s just those integrations take time. And, you know, uh, I think [00:32:15] if my software and the software engineers that work at Medford listening, they probably think [00:32:20] I don’t get enough sleep as it is. Um, so it’s more of a sequencing thing we want to integrate [00:32:25] with Care Stack. We want to integrate with systems of dentists, and then all the other tools people box, [00:32:30] the den grow and all these tools will get there.

Payman Langroudi: Nhs stuff as [00:32:35] well. Right. The compass or whatever it’s called.

Daniel Jones: Well, so that’s, uh.

Payman Langroudi: That was your nightmare.

Daniel Jones: Yeah. [00:32:40] Yeah. Well, the thing is, is that the NHS, the problem the problem is there’s a lot of great things about the NHS. [00:32:45] But there’s the problem really, is that they don’t have that incentive to [00:32:50] innovate. Really. And they’re quite in quite the same way.

Payman Langroudi: So getting your targets mainly a fully private. [00:32:55]

Daniel Jones: No. We work with a lot of mixed practices actually. Yeah. And I would say that mixed practices maybe get even more value out [00:33:00] the valuable platform because we’ve got really we’ve got a lot of stuff that looks at like your UDA you’re tracking, are you [00:33:05] on track? How many should you be delivering, how many UDA is each associate delivering, etc.. Really? [00:33:10] Yeah. So, um, we serve all types of practices, but getting data out [00:33:15] of compass is difficult. There’s no nice API for that as I mean, it’s an NHS system. So yeah. [00:33:20]

Payman Langroudi: So want to talk about starting up and [00:33:25] the process of finding these engineers like inspiring. So it’s not a very [00:33:30] inspirational subject. I know you’re very inspired by it. It’s nice man. It’s nice that you’re inspired by it. But [00:33:35] I can imagine when you’re selling this idea to some chief [00:33:40] technology guy, I guess they’re they’re into numbers and stuff anyway. But but, you know, [00:33:45] inspiring others to come on this journey with you and then selling your story [00:33:50] to investors. And I guess your previous business was, was kind of to connect founders with investors [00:33:55] anyway. So you kind of but just take me from the process of I’m going [00:34:00] to do that. You know, like and we all have lots of ideas, don’t we? And I for [00:34:05] me, it’s the idea that I end up doing is the one that just keeps on coming back. [00:34:10] You know, it doesn’t disappear. It just keeps on coming back again and again. So take me [00:34:15] through that process. You decided I’m going to look at solving problems for dentists with AI. [00:34:20] Yeah. By the way, where’s the AI in all of this? What does what does AI mean when [00:34:25] we’re talking about this?

Daniel Jones: Loads of things. Um, George, do you want to touch on there first? [00:34:30]

Payman Langroudi: Yeah.

Daniel Jones: Okay. Sure. So we use AI in a few different ways. So, um, [00:34:35] the first is in actually cleaning the data. So what’s interesting is data [00:34:40] coming especially from practice management software. And again I appreciate this isn’t the sexiest [00:34:45] of topics. I spend my life looking into it. So I get excited about it. Um, but [00:34:50] when you look at stuff from the practice management software, the way that people use the [00:34:55] software, etc. can make the data that comes out of it misleading or just wrong. Um, [00:35:00] and so there’s lots of different ways that we need to correct for that. Now, if you build a [00:35:05] system where you do all these manual patches, you’re basically [00:35:10] ending up like duct taping, lots of different things. And one of the amazing things with AI is that it can you can basically [00:35:15] build an engine that’s very flexible, so you can let it loose on a data set, and it’s going to be able to detect, [00:35:20] you know, this looks wrong, why is it wrong. And it can tell you why it’s wrong, for example. So one [00:35:25] of the big ways that we like there’s loads of different ways that data goes wrong. I mean, we’ve [00:35:30] documented like 40 plus examples of data going wrong in [00:35:35] PMS to give you like a concrete example, when you’re looking at treatment plan acceptance [00:35:40] for an associate. So how good is this associate presenting treatment plans? [00:35:45] Do they get accepted? When we were first building medicine, we [00:35:50] were looking at these numbers and we’re thinking that seems low, like, you know, 20, 2,025%. [00:35:55] Um, and so we’re digging into why. And we realised that [00:36:00] most clinicians will create several treatment plans for one patient as options.

Payman Langroudi: Mhm.

Daniel Jones: But [00:36:05] when you just look at the raw data on how many treatment plans have been created and how many have [00:36:10] been accepted, you know, I could come in or you could come into practice and they’ll draw up three different [00:36:15] plans for you, but it’s only for one. It’s only for one treatment plan, really. You decide to go ahead with that. [00:36:20] If you look at the data from the PMS, it shows that the dentists got.

Payman Langroudi: 60% drop on your conversion [00:36:25] rate.

Daniel Jones: Exactly. So we have to build we’ve built like an AI engine to clean for that sort of thing. [00:36:30] The other way, like the way that I get really excited about this, that we’re using AI [00:36:35] is bridging the gap between like your numbers and interpreting them and the insights. [00:36:40] So the future of data analysis, in my opinion, I’m quite nerdy on this is like before [00:36:45] we had think about the evolution of it. You had spreadsheets like static [00:36:50] spreadsheets. Yeah. You then come into the age of more like dynamic dashboards, [00:36:55] which is kind of like Medfin v1, if you like. Although we’ve we’ve got one [00:37:00] about to go on to another platform as well. The future, though, is that you’ll be able to basically speak [00:37:05] to your data, and your data will be able to speak to you. And the way that that works is that you have to [00:37:10] have your data in a specific sort of architecture and set up an LMS. Can large [00:37:15] language models can look at that data a bit, like when you ask ChatGPT. So with our platform today, I [00:37:20] could ask you could be a practitioner. You could ask, you know, last month who are my top three performing associates [00:37:25] and why did they perform well? Um, and it would give you an answer based on your data. [00:37:30] Now, I don’t know anyone that prefers to stare at reams of data on dashboards [00:37:35] than than that. It’s just the more intuitive way. Because often when you log into something like that, you’re looking for [00:37:40] an answer on something. Um, we’re able to use it to like, write weekly and monthly reports for practices. [00:37:45] So practices are key in this are the things I care about. These are the targets maybe. [00:37:50] And the AI is going to be able to write a report, send it to you in a PDF that it’s [00:37:55] written saying, this is how you’re doing, this is why things are happening. Um, and that [00:38:00] is the future of data analysis. And that’s where we’re putting a lot of focus today. So yeah, that’s there’s [00:38:05] a couple of ways we use AI.

Payman Langroudi: So how about areas that you don’t know [00:38:10] about yet. I mean for I mean for a start there’s a hallucination question right [00:38:15] as well.

Daniel Jones: Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: Have you have you come across that.

Daniel Jones: Well, so, um, do you want to get really nerdy [00:38:20] about this?

Payman Langroudi: Let’s do this.

Daniel Jones: So, um, I was actually I’ve been speaking with [00:38:25] a few people about this recently, and there’s a big there’s big, this big issue with hallucinating, [00:38:30] and there’s sort of meme doing the rounds and the sort of data nerd world where someone [00:38:35] chucks in a, like a spreadsheet into chat into ChatGPT and says, can you visualise this data [00:38:40] for me? Chatgpt makes loads of charts, looks very pretty, looks very [00:38:45] nice, and then the person responds, this doesn’t look right. Did you make these numbers up? And [00:38:50] ChatGPT responds, yes, you’re absolutely right. I wasn’t [00:38:55] able to open the CSV file. Um, and this is one of the big problems AI is never going to tell you. [00:39:00] It’s just going to make stuff up, basically. Um, and this is really the limitation [00:39:05] of like chucking things into ChatGPT in order to get them. [00:39:10] In order to have something, not hallucinate and answer correctly, you [00:39:15] need to have something in your data architecture, a data architecture. So there’s a database. And [00:39:20] the thing that sits on top of the database is this thing called a semantic layer. Um, and you can think of it like a [00:39:25] translation layer. So, um, let’s say I, I type [00:39:30] in to like the Medfin platform, you know, how does payments treatment affect [00:39:35] his performance. And lamb is going to take [00:39:40] the word treatment mix. But in a database where you’ve just got columns of things, it’ll be like, [00:39:45] you know, with with no names often or just like a code for the name.

Daniel Jones: If [00:39:50] you don’t have that semantic layer, the LM doesn’t know what treatment mix is in the context of the database, [00:39:55] so it can’t answer it properly. So it’s going to get it wrong. So because there’s nothing in that database called treatment mix. [00:40:00] So you need to build this like very very crucial part of your data architecture which is very hard to do [00:40:05] called semantic layer to to give the LM context. And once you do that the accuracy [00:40:10] goes up like exponentially. So that’s, that’s that’s something that we’ve got in our data architecture. [00:40:15] We spend a lot of time working on. Um, but yeah, there’s, there’s horror stories with, with ChatGPT [00:40:20] just make, just make stuff up. You know, even in the early days with, uh, with [00:40:25] chatbots, I remember when, like, customer service, sort of like customer service departments [00:40:30] were rolling it out. People were tricking chatbots into giving them free tickets. I think British Airways had like a problem [00:40:35] where it’s like, yeah, sure, I’ll sell you this ticket for like one pence and there’s ways to break it. Um, [00:40:40] so a lot of work has to go into basically giving that [00:40:45] AI, the right context and the right architecture to perform well, it’s not as simple as just [00:40:50] letting it loose. If that makes sense.

Payman Langroudi: Back to the previous question. The idea [00:40:55] your first employee. Your first investor. Talk [00:41:00] me through that, because there’s plenty of people who have ideas. And I think in this AI world, [00:41:05] we’re less now. I remember before making my children [00:41:10] tell me like ideas, nothing without action and all of that. In this AI world, action becomes [00:41:15] a lot easier. And there’s people listening to this thinking, I’ve got an idea. Yeah, [00:41:20] well, take me through the process. I mean, what happened [00:41:25] in this company, in your previous company? What were the lessons you learned? I’d [00:41:30] like to go into the question of sort of tenacity on one side, pivoting [00:41:35] from a bad idea on the other side, how you recognise those things. Tell me the story of it. [00:41:40]

Daniel Jones: Yeah, sure. So. I mean, the overarching lesson [00:41:45] I drew from both companies, I touch on, you know, the story of them both was find [00:41:50] a good co-founder. Um, I’m very blessed to have an amazing co-founder [00:41:55] of my and my co-founder, Matt.

Payman Langroudi: And he’s the technical guy.

Daniel Jones: He’s the technical guy. He’s the brains. [00:42:00]

Payman Langroudi: You’re not technical at all. Really? Uh, well, barely.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, I you know, I know.

Payman Langroudi: I write code [00:42:05] or anything.

Daniel Jones: Not really. No. Um, I know little bits, but, like, [00:42:10] you wouldn’t want me doing the coding. So, um. Yeah. [00:42:15] Finding good co-founders. I think entrepreneurship, like. And maybe many of the people listening [00:42:20] to this will will be entrepreneurs in the sense of their own practices. Um, [00:42:25] it’s hard, right? Like, it’s a hard journey to go through this. Before this podcast started [00:42:30] and we were talking about ups and downs in that entrepreneurship journey and knowing when, [00:42:35] to your point on tenacity, knowing when to to pack it in or to keep going. And [00:42:40] is that win just around the corner. The hard times going to end with [00:42:45] just one thing about to happen. You don’t want to pack it in just in case. Yeah. Um, and [00:42:50] I think that having like a co-founder that really complements your [00:42:55] skill set is important, but also like, understands you. Um, [00:43:00] most entrepreneurs will see their co-founder like, more than they see their significant other. You know, [00:43:05] um, I see Matt more than I see anyone else like my family. You know, [00:43:10] friends like relationships, all that. And so that [00:43:15] I think I founded embark, the company had before with Matt as well. So it’s like when you found it.

Payman Langroudi: Okay. [00:43:20]

Daniel Jones: Yeah, yeah. When you find a good co-founder, keep hold of him. Um, so that’s that’s [00:43:25] the first thing. But the first, the first company I started to embark was like, to be honest, a bit of an [00:43:30] accidental, um, founding story. So when I left investment banking, to [00:43:35] give you a bit of context here, I always [00:43:40] sort of like from like 15, 16. I was like, I want to go into investment banking. I think [00:43:45] I was like, you know, I read in the papers online that investment bankers get paid the most and it’s really prestigious. [00:43:50] And I where.

Payman Langroudi: Did you grow up?

Daniel Jones: Um, in Cheshire, near Manchester. Oh, [00:43:55] um, I went to a school where people were like, basically, if you [00:44:00] are smart and ambitious, you go into like a professional services sort of job or banking [00:44:05] or, you know, become a corporate lawyer. So these were funnelled towards that. And [00:44:10] I was like, that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna go into banking and do my sort of two years there and go into private equity and make [00:44:15] a load of money and be, you know, be the be the man. And then I got there [00:44:20] and it just wasn’t for me on a number of levels. Um, like, [00:44:25] it’s great. A lot of my friends, like, still working. It was great experience, but it’s not what I wanted to do for [00:44:30] the rest of my life.

Payman Langroudi: And what was the main problem with it? Cut through?

Daniel Jones: Not [00:44:35] so much that it was cutthroat. It was more, Er, I just didn’t enjoy [00:44:40] the work. And, you know, uh, I would say I’m like, fairly like creative person. [00:44:45] Um, and it was like the least creative environment. It was incredibly hierarchical. [00:44:50] Um, like you’re just stuck in front of it. You didn’t speak to people. I [00:44:55] love speaking to people. Um, I was stuck in front of a computer for literally, like 16 hours [00:45:00] every day. Um, so it was there’s a number of I can go into if you want. There’s a number [00:45:05] of things. Um, but when I left that I [00:45:10] found I joined this Start-Up. I was like the third hire. It was a tiny Start-Up. I walked in first [00:45:15] day, like, didn’t even have my sort of, like, laptop set up. It was boxes everywhere. And I was kind of thinking, [00:45:20] what on earth have I done? Um, and so I went from this thing that [00:45:25] all, all of the networking and prep and everyone I knew was in this world I’d just left behind, [00:45:30] and I’d entered this new world, and I didn’t know anyone really. So I was like, well, [00:45:35] how do I get to know people? I can go for loads of coffees with people, reach [00:45:40] out to people on LinkedIn or whatever. But I thought that’s not like the best way of doing it. So I [00:45:45] made a list of people that I knew in the space was like, not necessarily. I knew them well. Seven people long, [00:45:50] and I reached out to each of them and said, can we can we chat and sort of through those chats? [00:45:55] Um, basically, I found other [00:46:00] people with the same problem, you know, they didn’t know that many people in the space. [00:46:05] They thought, well, why don’t we start something, start like a community of people that are really [00:46:10] interested in founding specifically like tech, tech businesses. That’s what I thought I wanted [00:46:15] to explore with you.

Payman Langroudi: Some of your classmates from uni?

Daniel Jones: Yeah, classmates from uni people. I went to school [00:46:20] with, just people from sort of like the London people I met in London, friends of friends. And [00:46:25] um, yeah, the first meetup was was in a pub. [00:46:30] It was like eight people. And then that really just snowballed, like people [00:46:35] wanted. It seemed like people wanted to be a part of a community. People looking for other people [00:46:40] that were also thinking about this sort of thing that they wanted to learn from, maybe find co-founders. And [00:46:45] over the course of a couple of years, we grew to like 1800 members across London and Berlin.

Payman Langroudi: Exciting. [00:46:50]

Daniel Jones: Yeah, we collaborated with all the biggest names in tech. Um, so that was that was really like, find [00:46:55] something solve. I was solving my own problem. Yeah. And then you roll with it. There was no, like, as much [00:47:00] as I’d love to sit here and say, yeah, you know, master plan, I orchestrated this. It just that [00:47:05] was just not just was not the case. Um, sort of.

Payman Langroudi: Some companies came out of that, right? [00:47:10]

Daniel Jones: Yeah, yeah. So it was, um, in fact, just before I came. So I came from Paddington today. We’re based in a [00:47:15] office building there. One of the companies that came out of that, um, one of the founders was working [00:47:20] in that building today, so I said hi to him just for this podcast.

Payman Langroudi: Very nice.

Daniel Jones: Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: But [00:47:25] then you left it.

Daniel Jones: Yeah. Then I left it. Um, I mean, it was very like it was going [00:47:30] well, um, one of the interesting things with the community sort of business. I mean, we monetise [00:47:35] around the community. It was free to be a part of was that it’s one of the only businesses in the world [00:47:40] where your growth and the quality of your product move in opposite directions. So if you think of a software, [00:47:45] the better we make our products, you know, you’d hope that growth would also move that way. [00:47:50]

Payman Langroudi: Kind of.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um.

Payman Langroudi: But so as [00:47:55] the community gets too large, it’s just becomes unmanageable. Is that what you mean?

Daniel Jones: Yeah. People [00:48:00] don’t know each other, right?

Payman Langroudi: Like, it’s not a community anymore. Community anymore.

Daniel Jones: It’s just.

Payman Langroudi: Like a.

Daniel Jones: Big, uh. [00:48:05] Yeah. Town. It’s just a big WhatsApp group. No one wants to be in the group because it’s like so many other people [00:48:10] there. So it made sense to keep it smaller.

Payman Langroudi: But [00:48:15] so on that, on that question of tenacity and pivoting, did you consider. I’ve [00:48:20] got something here. Should I pivot it or you just decide to leave? I mean, like, what [00:48:25] was going through your head?

Daniel Jones: Yeah, it’s it’s a good question, actually. Um, I [00:48:30] think it was this. Like I would say, I’m a very ambitious person. Um, [00:48:35] and I think it was the sense that this isn’t like the vehicle for that ambition, you know, like, [00:48:40] I it was amazing. Like, I loved it. Um, it’s probably the most fun thing I’ve [00:48:45] done in my life so far because it was just a community. I just got to meet so many amazing people, like [00:48:50] people that want to go out and change the world and really creative and driven. Um, but [00:48:55] I just got this sense of there was a ceiling with it. And so I [00:49:00] decided to wait and I passed it on to, um, like, [00:49:05] management, new management, um, who took it forward. And then we actually got [00:49:10] that business got acquired recently. So two months ago. This is a business called opus, um, [00:49:15] who are building like a you can think of it really like a Soho House for entrepreneurs. [00:49:20] Um, um, they acquired the community a couple months back. So it was an amazing [00:49:25] journey. But yeah, I think it was just like I wanted to do and do something. I’m a sort of itchy. [00:49:30] Itchy sort of guy in many ways. I want to I chase [00:49:35] sometimes if I think where I’m at isn’t help, isn’t helping [00:49:40] me to get where I want to go. And I think that’s what I felt when I was in banking. You know, I felt quite. Trapped. [00:49:45] Constrained. Um.

Payman Langroudi: Have you always been [00:49:50] ambitious? Like, were you an ambitious seven year old?

Daniel Jones: Good question. [00:49:55] I know that my mum says I’ve always been very, like, determined. She says that one of like, uh, [00:50:00] even when I was, like, learning to walk. She said, like, you just like, get up and fall over and you just [00:50:05] keep doing it over and over and over. Um, I mean, I obviously don’t remember that. [00:50:10]

Payman Langroudi: But do you remember an inflection point in your sort of childhood, that sort of where [00:50:15] you thought, I mean, look, it takes a degree of obsession, doesn’t it, to get into [00:50:20] Cambridge and all that and be that studier kid. Do you remember some inflection point, like [00:50:25] something, something in childhood that made you that person?

Daniel Jones: Yeah, I do actually. Um, so [00:50:30] I remember I was always at school. I was always like, [00:50:35] um, like pre GCSEs. Let’s say I’d always manage to sort of, like, coast my way through, [00:50:40] um, and get pretty, like, pretty good grades. I was quite naughty kid at school. I [00:50:45] got suspended a bunch of times. I had a pretty poor behavioural record pre like GCSEs. [00:50:50] And I remember I did my GCSEs, I got, you know, I got, [00:50:55] I got really good grades but um I’m mum if you’re [00:51:00] listening you’ll, she’ll remember this. Uh, we had like an awards evening at our [00:51:05] school for GCSE grades. And, you know, I’d always was used to getting, like, top grades, but loads [00:51:10] of people beat me in GCSEs. I didn’t get, didn’t get a shout out on, like, oh, you did really well on [00:51:15] this. And there were people that like candidly [00:51:20] that I thought, like, this might this might sound like egotistical, but I thought, like, [00:51:25] I’m smarter than that person on on stage or whatever, but I, I didn’t. [00:51:30] They’ve trounced me in this arena. And I think [00:51:35] the penny dropped that I couldn’t just coast anymore. It was like if I, [00:51:40] if I continue with what I’m doing, I’m just going to get left behind. And no amount of sort of like [00:51:45] natural.

Payman Langroudi: Being smart will only take you so far.

Daniel Jones: 100%.

Payman Langroudi: You’re right. You’re right. [00:51:50]

Daniel Jones: 100%. So that’s when the penny dropped for me. And then I kicked my ass into gear and, uh, [00:51:55] studied a lot. Um, and yeah, got, you know, the rest is [00:52:00] history sort of thing, but but pre that I just, I don’t think I took it.

Payman Langroudi: Like arriving at Cambridge when everyone’s a [00:52:05] super brain and everyone studies hard. Is it humbling.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, I think so. Must [00:52:10] be I think one of the, one of the actually one of the interesting things with Cambridge is that a lot of people [00:52:15] have a bit of a crisis when they get there, because you’re often the smartest. Not necessarily. This is not [00:52:20] the case with me, because there are smarter people, certainly smarter people than me in [00:52:25] my school that also went to Oxbridge. Um, but there’s [00:52:30] a lot of people there that, you know, they were the smartest person. They knew they were there. Yeah, [00:52:35] at their school, they were the smartest person. And a lot of their, like, self-worth and identity would have been built, built around [00:52:40] like, you know, oh, that guy is the smartest guy in school. Yeah. And you get there, [00:52:45] and now suddenly you’re sort of like, middle of the pack, this sort of bunch of incredibly academically [00:52:50] gifted people. I think a lot of people struggle with that.

Payman Langroudi: Um, is there quite a lot of pressure? Yeah, [00:52:55] must be right. Yeah. So it’s not those sort of uni days of like, [00:53:00] not doing much and partying loads. And I guess there is party, but but [00:53:05] there must be a lot of pressure. Like it must be very competitive, like amongst those smart kids.

Daniel Jones: Yeah [00:53:10] for.

Payman Langroudi: Sure. You definitely can’t be like sitting around, can you, if your class is full of [00:53:15] these kids.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, definitely. It’s 100% less fun than other universities. I made [00:53:20] sure to visit friends from school that were in other universities because I had a lot more [00:53:25] fun there. Um, it’s just a lot more studious, I think. Um, the interesting thing [00:53:30] as well, the terms are really short. So it’s like eight week terms and you do probably more like they pack a [00:53:35] lot in.

Payman Langroudi: A lot of homework and stuff during those eight weeks.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, exactly. So there’s not a lot of time to sort [00:53:40] of breathe when you get there. I mean, it was a great experience. I don’t regret doing it, but it is it’s [00:53:45] it was hard work. Yeah. For sure.

Payman Langroudi: So let’s go through Medfin then when you had the idea, [00:53:50] you had your, your Start-Up partner, your sort of your co-founder. Tell [00:53:55] me about raising cash. Did you put any of your own money in to start with? Like, what were their friends and [00:54:00] family? Was a seed stage or.

Daniel Jones: No, no. So I mean the, the we just [00:54:05] went straight to raising from.

Payman Langroudi: So what’s the process. What’s the process. How many people did you pitch in front of [00:54:10] before you got your investment?

Daniel Jones: So the way that we ran the process, so I’d [00:54:15] already I’d already quit my job at this point. So Matt and I would quit our jobs. Um, [00:54:20] looking back, it was like slightly irresponsible, to be honest, because we didn’t have we didn’t. We had a [00:54:25] vague sense of what we wanted to do, you know, around sort of like healthcare and, you know, data. [00:54:30] But I mean, it’s still vague. Um, but [00:54:35] we’re like, you know what? Like, we’re just gonna have to quit our jobs to get enough time to work on this because we’re both working full time and quite [00:54:40] demanding roles. It was like, we don’t have enough time to think about this, really. So we quit. Um, [00:54:45] and that’s part about the co-founders, like, you know, find someone that you can do that with, you trust, [00:54:50] go on that journey with. We did a sort of few months of research, you know, like just [00:54:55] calling people basically times I felt a bit like a therapist, like, tell me [00:55:00] about your problems. Because ultimately, as an entrepreneur, you know, you build a business around solving someone’s problem like that. [00:55:05] You charge money to solve someone’s problem. And if you can’t solve their problem, they’re not going to pay you any money. So [00:55:10] we spoke to lots of people in sort of different verticals about their problems. And when [00:55:15] we thought it was time to raise, you know, I was living in London. My. [00:55:20] My parents live in London. I was still having to pay rent and living expenses, [00:55:25] so my savings were going. Going down. Um, so, [00:55:30] like, we should we should raise from from VCs. I think we’re on to something here. There’s [00:55:35] a big opportunity. So basically, we we made, uh, like a spreadsheet [00:55:40] of all the funds that we knew that we would [00:55:45] fall into their remit, sort of like early invest at the very earliest stages. You know, we didn’t [00:55:50] we we didn’t really have a product or any revenue. We had no revenue at that point. [00:55:55] So really funding the founders and the idea, um, and.

Payman Langroudi: You knew from your previous [00:56:00] Start-Up which found which VCs they were. Yeah. Was that easy information [00:56:05] to get?

Daniel Jones: You could get you can certainly get that information. It wasn’t all just like in my head. Like you look [00:56:10] up sort of like pre-seed stage investors investing in London healthcare. [00:56:15] And you can build this list of people And one of the things about this sort of venture capital industry [00:56:20] is that. I mean, in many ways it’s similar to to Dental, as it can be quite a closed world. And [00:56:25] everyone knows each other. And often if you can’t get a warm introduction to a fund. [00:56:30] They they won’t take you seriously. So you need someone to basically introduce you. [00:56:35] So we had this list. These are the people we could get the money from. You then create a [00:56:40] column next to it saying like, who are the people that we know at that fund if we do? And obviously we don’t know people [00:56:45] at every single fund in London. So you make another column saying, who are the people that might know someone at [00:56:50] that? And, you know, tools like LinkedIn, you can see who’s connected to who. You can reach out saying, hey, you know, people there, would [00:56:55] you be willing to do an introduction? But the really important thing is with fundraising is [00:57:00] that you have to time bound it. So if you think about any sort of deal, when you when you move quickly [00:57:05] on something, there has to be this sense that stuff. If you don’t move.

Payman Langroudi: Urgency really.

Daniel Jones: Has to [00:57:10] be urgency. Um, so a lot of the work involved in fundraising is in the prep. [00:57:15] So you do this prep, you map out how you get introductions. You put together a pitch deck [00:57:20] like a data room. So we’ve created a data room on an app called notion, which lays [00:57:25] out all our visions. Maybe some of the research videos and stuff that we did [00:57:30] when we sat down and interviewed and recorded what what people were saying. Um, so [00:57:35] we put all that together, and then one day you’ve got everyone’s contact details, you line everyone up, maybe you’re speaking [00:57:40] to a few preferred funds before that as sort of warm up. And then one day it’s like you send out an email to everyone [00:57:45] saying, we’re fundraising. This is this is how much we’re raising. It’s for this. Here’s [00:57:50] a link to my calendar if you want to chat, let’s chat.

Payman Langroudi: How many people did [00:57:55] you send that to?

Daniel Jones: 100 and 105, 110.

Payman Langroudi: How [00:58:00] many replied?

Daniel Jones: It’s fundraising is a numbers game like you can be the most well [00:58:05] connected, intelligent, amazing founder and 90% [00:58:10] VCs will say no. Like I would say, the interesting thing is, is that as [00:58:15] soon as one says yes, often the others pile in. It’s like everything in life, right? People [00:58:20] want to be involved in what other people find interesting or valuable. [00:58:25] So really, the slog in a fundraise process is you want [00:58:30] to get to the first offer on the table for something called a term sheet as quickly as possible. [00:58:35] And once you’ve got that, the rest sort of typically falls into place. But getting to that first [00:58:40] one is really is quite difficult. So I mean, I would sit on calls from [00:58:45] 830 till six just back to back to back pitching [00:58:50] medicine. Um, you move people through a process, you define a process like [00:58:55] this is what we’re going to do, you know, here’s the resources. And then you run people through, [00:59:00] um, and you try and get people over the line. We, we got to got over the line in [00:59:05] about three and a half weeks from start. But it was intense. It was like the only thing that we were doing. [00:59:10] So it’s like.

Payman Langroudi: Not all I do.

Payman Langroudi: All day, every day. You were just zoom calling with, [00:59:15] like a half an hour. Yeah, that’s what it was.

Daniel Jones: Pretty much. And they’ll come back [00:59:20] with questions. I want to hop on more zoom calls. You need to write answers, questions that you send over email. So it’s it’s [00:59:25] better to be in my in my experience at least. And people will have different, different takes on this. But to do [00:59:30] it in a really intense way, I was lucky because at the Start-Up I joined Post Banking. We [00:59:35] raised a huge seed round like $12.5 million for seed round, [00:59:40] and I had there was a one of the founders there, this guy called Xavier. Um, [00:59:45] was he was like a great mentor to me and he brought me along. [00:59:50] I was involved.

Payman Langroudi: In that process.

Daniel Jones: In the whole I was in every single meeting. And so I’d [00:59:55] sort of seen it done before, which is super helpful.

Payman Langroudi: Makes a big difference.

Daniel Jones: Huge difference. [01:00:00] I’m very grateful to have had that opportunity because it yeah, it would have been just I [01:00:05] guess when something’s novel and new, it’s just a bit more difficult.

Payman Langroudi: So let’s fill it out. They give [01:00:10] you there’s £1.5 million land in your account.

Daniel Jones: Yeah. After after about a couple of months of, [01:00:15] um, so you get the term sheet and stuff, which technically not legally binding, but people don’t, you [01:00:20] know, it would ruin someone’s reputation to go back on it. And then you have the lawyers drafting up all legal [01:00:25] docs, etc. that takes a couple of months and then the money will drop in.

Payman Langroudi: And they’re things to [01:00:30] look out for in that legal bit. I mean, do they sometimes try and screw you over and.

Daniel Jones: Yeah. [01:00:35] Well.

Payman Langroudi: What are the sort of the common pitfalls. [01:00:40]

Daniel Jones: Yeah, I would say, um, the thing is with, with [01:00:45] them putting money into the companies because they’re buying, they’re taking a stake in your company, there’s [01:00:50] very little that they can they there’s very little they can do unless you actually break the law or you go out and buy [01:00:55] Rolexes or something with, with the, with the proceeds.

Payman Langroudi: And for them, just from their perspective, [01:01:00] typically, let’s imagine in two years time you need to raise again. Do [01:01:05] they get out at that point. And just is that how it works?

Daniel Jones: They typically ride it up. So if we raise more, they’ll put more money in. [01:01:10]

Payman Langroudi: They’ll put more.

Daniel Jones: Yeah. Um, so.

Payman Langroudi: Until the point where they do get out, wherever that is, at whatever.

Daniel Jones: Point [01:01:15] acquisition or, you know, if you’re going really big IPO or something. But you know, [01:01:20] a lot of I’m under. No. Um, yeah. A lot of, a lot of these venture capital backed companies, [01:01:25] uh, VC investors know that they’re investing in something that’s like [01:01:30] there’s a high failure rate and they invest in things because, you know, one out of [01:01:35] every 50 companies.

Payman Langroudi: They’ve got to deploy their cash and find that unicorn. Right. [01:01:40] Yeah. Yeah. And how much do they interfere?

Daniel Jones: Um, it [01:01:45] depends on the investor, but I think the best investors that [01:01:50] I know of are pretty hands off, and they’re there when you need them. So, I [01:01:55] mean, we, we, we send like, monthly updates and stuff on how we’re doing.

Payman Langroudi: And do they not [01:02:00] turn up to a sort of a board meeting once a month or something?

Daniel Jones: Um, when you grow a bit bigger, they will, [01:02:05] uh, at our stage, it’s sort of seen as overkill.

Payman Langroudi: Did that did that play a.

Payman Langroudi: Part in you deciding [01:02:10] who to go with from the investment perspective that some of these guys have a good reputation [01:02:15] for not getting involved.

Daniel Jones: 100% like you should.

Payman Langroudi: You even pick them based on. [01:02:20]

Daniel Jones: Before if you know if they’re any sort of aspiring entrepreneurs listening to this, before you [01:02:25] take on any investor, whether it’s a fund or, you know, private investors always try [01:02:30] and do reference calls on your investor. You know, they do their research on you very thorough, as [01:02:35] they should. Um, but ultimately it’s a multi-year relationship. And you want [01:02:40] to have a good relationship with your investors. You want to know.

Payman Langroudi: Your due diligence side on them. Right.

Daniel Jones: Definitely. [01:02:45]

Payman Langroudi: Interesting.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, definitely. Um, it’s so important, I think.

Payman Langroudi: And then give me an example. [01:02:50]

Payman Langroudi: Of where they have been able to help you because of everything [01:02:55] they’ve done in the past. Have they introduced you to people, to ideas, [01:03:00] you know, have they helped?

Daniel Jones: Yeah. Um, they have helped, I [01:03:05] would say. Um, it’s not like they click their fingers and like, loads of stuff [01:03:10] sort of drops in your lap, unfortunately. Yeah. Um, but yeah, they can help with introductions. [01:03:15] Um, two people. So, um, you [01:03:20] know, if there are people, other people in the industry that they know they can introduce you to help with [01:03:25] hiring. So it’s like a big thing for any technology company is hiring the best software engineers. [01:03:30] Um, and, you know, they’ll help amplify any job postings. They may know, people that you should go [01:03:35] and speak to about that sort of thing. So there’s a sort of they have a network that can often help, [01:03:40] um, when it comes to.

Payman Langroudi: Do they introduce you to customers as well? Like is [01:03:45] there like a someone funding my dentist and your VC knows who that [01:03:50] is? And is that, is that a thing?

Daniel Jones: They might be able to introduce us to customers if we weren’t building in the dental [01:03:55] space. Um, so let’s say our customers were [01:04:00] tech companies for sure. They’d be able to introduce us. Um, it’s not Dental specific. [01:04:05] It’s more just sort of like non non-tech because these guys, all the networks in tech. So.

Payman Langroudi: Oh, I get [01:04:10] it, I get it. All right. So then tell me about the process of developing software. Do you do that sort of classical [01:04:15] sprint thing.

Daniel Jones: Yeah we do that sort of thing. Um internally [01:04:20] initially like the, the secret sauce is you just have to speak to the people [01:04:25] that use it as often as possible, um, to try and understand what they, what what [01:04:30] they want, what they want to see some. They’re not going to be able to tell you, I want this feature and it should look like this. But [01:04:35] I think a really important part of building a product that is impactful is being able to listen [01:04:40] to the people you’re serving like, listen, empathise, understand what they want [01:04:45] and then build it. Um, so there’s this the sort of discovery element [01:04:50] is really all about speaking to people and asking the right questions. There’s a great book on this called [01:04:55] The Mom Test. The What the Mom like Mom Test American. Um, the [01:05:00] Mumtaz will say British podcast and all that.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah.

Daniel Jones: Um.

Payman Langroudi: And [01:05:05] about how to keep in touch with with the market.

Daniel Jones: Was it to ask questions? [01:05:10] Um, two people in a way that helps surface what [01:05:15] they really think. Because often and, you know, I’m, I am as guilty of this as [01:05:20] anyone, especially British people. Like, we’re all guilty of this and that. You know, we try and we [01:05:25] don’t like something or we think something is bad. You don’t necessarily say, oh, I think that’s terrible. [01:05:30] You put a nice spin on it because you don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. But ultimately [01:05:35] when you’re building a product, you really want to you want to get to the nub of what is great and what is really bad. Yeah. [01:05:40] Um, and so it’s like, how can you ask your questions in a way that get past that?

Payman Langroudi: That’s interesting. [01:05:45]

Daniel Jones: Yeah.

Payman Langroudi: So what other books do you reckon are essential reading for entrepreneurs? [01:05:50] Lean. Lean Start-Up.

Daniel Jones: That’s a great one. Yeah. You read that.

Payman Langroudi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:05:55] Although it got lost in the software piece, man. I didn’t finish it. Um, [01:06:00] I think back then I wasn’t so focussed like years ago. What [01:06:05] else? Any other books come to mind?

Daniel Jones: Uh, 0 to 1 by Peter Thiel’s good book. Like, foundational. [01:06:10] Um, it’s pretty good. I, I I’m a big fan. Like, I read quite a lot. [01:06:15] I’m a big fan generally of, like, biographies and autobiographies. Um.

Payman Langroudi: So you read about other [01:06:20] founders and what they did.

Daniel Jones: Founders and just people in general. Like there have to be sort of tech tech [01:06:25] founders. But if you’re after stuff about tech founders, like the Walter Isaacson biography on Steve Jobs is really [01:06:30] good. It’s amazing. And I think one one of the things that I love about biographies is biographies [01:06:35] like that is you often have people that really like lionised this guy, [01:06:40] but but everyone is human. They have their own flaws and they do it and they, they sort of carve [01:06:45] their own path. And I think by reading stuff like that, you realise there isn’t necessarily a blueprint. Everyone is [01:06:50] imperfect. Um, and you sort of take what you want from, from their story. But [01:06:55] I love reading books like that.

Payman Langroudi: Like, how do you feel about the sacrifice of the [01:07:00] sort of founder life? I mean, you must have people from your [01:07:05] class or whatever now rising up the banking or people you knew [01:07:10] in finance. The sacrifice element that the sort of the [01:07:15] idea that you’re going to delay your happiness until until later. I [01:07:20] mean, you know, people talk about the journey and all that, enjoying the journey. And you got a nice smile [01:07:25] on your face. Looks like you’re enjoying yourself, but it’s hard sometimes. I remember as a dentist when [01:07:30] we started enlightened, I was like three years a dentist. We started enlightened and then lost money for about [01:07:35] five years. And I remember looking around at the people in my class buying their Porsches and [01:07:40] difficult time, a difficult time, not because you never knew what the final outcome of it was going [01:07:45] to be, and working your butt off and losing money is a pain. It’s a horrible, horrible, [01:07:50] horrible thing. Do you do you sometimes reflect on it or are you calm about all that? [01:07:55] Oh.

Daniel Jones: I think in the early days of journey, I [01:08:00] did reflect on that quite a bit. Um, as you say, like a lot of my, a lot of my friends are still they [01:08:05] the route that I was going to do some banking, private equity, most of my like my personal friends still [01:08:10] do that. Um, and they’re earning shitloads of cash.

Payman Langroudi: Did you sometimes think, [01:08:15] what if I do?

Daniel Jones: Sometimes I do. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. [01:08:20] Especially when it gets hard. You know, it’s like on some days, one of the. Maybe [01:08:25] I’d be interested to hear your take on this. I think one of the things with entrepreneurship is just how [01:08:30] much of a rollercoaster it is. You know, some some days something goes amazingly and you’re sort of walking down the [01:08:35] street and you know, those movies where someone’s whistling and they’re saying hi to everyone.

Payman Langroudi: They pass. [01:08:40]

Daniel Jones: Yeah. Sometimes you can feel like that.

Payman Langroudi: The highs are high.

Daniel Jones: The highs are so high, it’s amazing. And then there are other [01:08:45] days where just you feel like you can do nothing, right? And everything’s going wrong. It’s all falling [01:08:50] apart. And, um, those are the days you think. What if?

Payman Langroudi: Um, [01:08:55] I think the more you do it, the more you learn. What the. What do they call it in boxing? The roll [01:09:00] with the punches kind of thing, where the few, the first few big disasters [01:09:05] that happened to you really are shocking. And then the more you do it, you realise. All [01:09:10] right, you know, we’ll get through this as well. But the beginning is very hard. Yeah.

Daniel Jones: Yeah. [01:09:15]

Payman Langroudi: I found that comparison piece very difficult because, you know, as you know, dentists earn a lot early. [01:09:20] It’s not that they earn a lot. I mean, they earn a lot, but but they earn a lot early. Um, [01:09:25] one of the highest earning sort of 23 year olds might be a dentist, you know? [01:09:30] And so you watch your friends, and then you’re losing money. Hello. Hello. You’re [01:09:35] like, am I doing? What the hell am I doing? Yeah. Um, I had to question myself a lot back then. [01:09:40] Um, but it’s very impressive what you’ve done. What keeps you up [01:09:45] at night? I mean, what are you really worried about?

Daniel Jones: Am [01:09:50] I moving fast enough? [01:09:55] I think, you know, um, one of the things that the [01:10:00] like my, the heart surgery sort of imbued within me was this [01:10:05] sense of, you know, if you think back to when you were 20 and I had this, it’s like you basically [01:10:10] feel invincible, like you have no sense of your own mortality. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and [01:10:15] you’re just like, well, this I’m going to be healthy and my [01:10:20] life goes on forever. And you don’t you don’t ever think about that sort of thing. And I think that [01:10:25] experience sort of made me realise that life [01:10:30] is finite, and we only do get a finite amount of time. And [01:10:35] when you compare that, combine that with, with being ambitious. Um, [01:10:40] the thing that keeps me up at night is like, am I am I going quickly enough? Am I making the most of my time to get where I want [01:10:45] to go? Um, that’s the stuff that keeps me up at night staring at the ceiling.

Payman Langroudi: Anxiety. [01:10:50]

Daniel Jones: Yeah, I would say, you know, you could certainly call it that. Um, I wouldn’t say [01:10:55] I’m an anxious person, but like, you know, things that I think about at night when I stare up at my ceiling, I [01:11:00] certainly think about that for sure.

Payman Langroudi: And so what would you say you’re [01:11:05] bad at?

Daniel Jones: Um. What would I say I’m bad at? There’s [01:11:10] loads of things I’m bad at. Coding, for one. Um, I would say, um. [01:11:15] I, I went [01:11:20] on a, I went on a date the other day with this girl and this at the [01:11:25] end of the day, she goes, do you have ADHD? Which [01:11:30] is, um, an interesting thing to hear. And, and I [01:11:35] think that I can be very organised if I put my mind to it. But my, my [01:11:40] mind often goes in like 100 different directions. Um, so that’s something that like [01:11:45] staying like super organised. There’s like Matt, my co-founder is amazing [01:11:50] at this. He’s like one of the most organised people I’ve ever met.

Payman Langroudi: Um, do you need opposites in that sense, don’t [01:11:55] you? I mean, you can’t. I’m sure you can be the creative and organised, but generally [01:12:00] it goes in opposite directions.

Daniel Jones: So I think that my organisational skills [01:12:05] can sometimes leave a bit to be desired.

Payman Langroudi: What about relationships? I mean, it’s difficult having a relationship. I [01:12:10] mean, when I was married, um, and she was paying for everything, [01:12:15] she was paying the mortgage and all that while I was trying to fix this. But like [01:12:20] I say, that that obsessional thing that, you know, a Start-Up is an obsession and [01:12:25] takes up massive amounts of time. And there are moments during [01:12:30] an entrepreneurial journey that absolutely everything has to go get [01:12:35] second place to what’s going on now, like in the three weeks that you are raising cash, you [01:12:40] couldn’t go to a funeral, you can go to a birthday, you can. And [01:12:45] during product launch phases. That happens a lot as well. Have you found relationship wise it’s actually [01:12:50] affected you being in this position?

Daniel Jones: Yeah, I think so. Um, you [01:12:55] know, I think you go into to an extent with your eyes open to that sort of thing. [01:13:00] Um, but even just just from a sort of like, time perspective, like [01:13:05] I have less time to spend with, um, family, with friends. Um, so [01:13:10] it does. It does in, in in that, in that way, I’m very lucky to have people in my life that are pretty, [01:13:15] pretty understanding, um, of that and, you know, very supportive, but no [01:13:20] doubt like it’s, it’s, uh, it does become an obsession. I think the best entrepreneurs, like, are people that [01:13:25] are prone to obsession. Obsession because that’s that’s what drives sort of just. [01:13:30]

Payman Langroudi: Gets you through the difficulties. Yeah, exactly. Let’s [01:13:35] get to the darker part of the pod. I know we’ve been through some dark areas. What [01:13:40] would you say was your biggest mistake in this journey?

Daniel Jones: My biggest [01:13:45] mistake. I think [01:13:50] a big mistake of mine was trying to follow someone else’s [01:13:55] path, or what sort of society deemed an idea of success. [01:14:00] Um, you know, that’s that’s why I started.

Payman Langroudi: The finance job, you.

Daniel Jones: Mean? 100%. [01:14:05] 100%? Um.

Payman Langroudi: I think how many years did you spend in finance?

Daniel Jones: Uh, [01:14:10] just under three. Three years. I’m. It’s quite. It’s. I’m a young guy, so it’s a [01:14:15] decent.

Payman Langroudi: Portion of my life.

Daniel Jones: Um, yeah. Because I think that [01:14:20] when you’re younger, you look around and you think, you know, there are all these different paths. And which path do I go [01:14:25] on? I think it’s the wrong way of looking at it, you know? And that’s something you only get to with, um, [01:14:30] age and wisdom if you like. But I think looking back, I’d [01:14:35] have loved to have been able to sort of start on my own path even earlier, like, [01:14:40] um, I know guys that are like 19. Um, we had a guy working with us for [01:14:45] a bit who was this 19 year old, and he was I was so impressed with the way he thought [01:14:50] about life. You know, he could have gone to a really good university. I don’t want to go to university. I want to go and do this. And [01:14:55] I think it takes real courage and independent thinking to be able to step off that route, [01:15:00] that other, to just step off the beaten track, you know? Um, [01:15:05] so I wish I’d done that earlier.

Payman Langroudi: Some people have things figured out way [01:15:10] earlier than you one and then other people or other other things they [01:15:15] haven’t figured out yet. You know, that comparison is a bit of a difficulty in this situation, you know? [01:15:20] But I get you, I get you, um, going forward, if you [01:15:25] had like a five year best case scenario, like what? What are you what are you telling these [01:15:30] VCs that’s going to happen in five years time? You’re going to be the global leader in this in this area. [01:15:35]

Daniel Jones: Yeah. Um, our goal is to become the the data layer, um, [01:15:40] for dentistry. That’s that’s a goal in the UK. Then in the US and [01:15:45] we’re incredibly ambitious. Want to be international with this. So next couple of [01:15:50] years we’re super focussed on the UK. Um and then we’d like to go to the US in our office. We’ve got a [01:15:55] big split US UK flag and we had it up since day one and I put it up and I told [01:16:00] the rest of the guys on the team, I mean, I’m no like I’m not like a massive fan [01:16:05] of America in the sense of I don’t go around wearing cowboy boots sort of thing. Um, [01:16:10] but I put that on the the wall as a statement of intent when we first [01:16:15] started saying, look like we want to we want to go big [01:16:20] with this. Um, so that’s what we that’s what we tell investors. Um, and just. [01:16:25] Yeah, it’s that’s.

Payman Langroudi: That goes back to that question of am I moving fast enough to achieve that? [01:16:30] Right? Because, I mean, I’m aware of two other Start-Ups who are trying to do what you’re saying. [01:16:35] Who knows what’s happening in America. It’s a big challenge. Big, big, big challenge.

Daniel Jones: That’s [01:16:40] what makes fun.

Payman Langroudi: Of course. Of course. Anything worthwhile is a big challenge. There’s no doubt about that. [01:16:45] Let’s end it on the usual questions. Fantasy dinner party. Three [01:16:50] guests, dead or alive. Who are you having? Oh.

Daniel Jones: I don’t know. Um. Is [01:16:55] it dinner party or is it separate? Separate dinners?

Payman Langroudi: Yeah. [01:17:00] They don’t have to. They don’t have to talk to each other. Yeah, so.

Daniel Jones: I would [01:17:05] the first person I’d like to have dinner with and sadly passed away now is my grandma. [01:17:10] So my grandmother was like, you know, sometimes maybe [01:17:15] you’ve had this. I hadn’t realised how much of an impact and positive impact she’d had on my life, [01:17:20] and she passed away when I was like 16. I think at that age. You’re too young. [01:17:25]

Payman Langroudi: Self-centred?

Daniel Jones: Yeah, you’re too young to understand. And I think that, you know, she was she was such [01:17:30] an amazing person. And she was.

Payman Langroudi: My mum’s mum.

Daniel Jones: Yeah. My mum’s [01:17:35] mum and she I mean she could be quite strict. And so there were times in my sort [01:17:40] of like early teens where we’d, there’d be a bit of friction.

Payman Langroudi: Mhm.

Daniel Jones: Um, but [01:17:45] you know, with, with the fullness of time you realise how important [01:17:50] that is. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I’d like to see her again and talk to her again and [01:17:55] say thank you and sorry for being, you know, a little shit. Um, [01:18:00] and. Yeah, I’d like to do that. I wouldn’t have her at the dinner party [01:18:05] with the other two guests I’m about to mention. So I’d like to have that separate, if that’s all right. And [01:18:10] then. So, uh, there’s a guy called. Are you familiar with a guy called Naval Ravikant? [01:18:15] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love the I love the way that he’s able to simplify, [01:18:20] like, very complex topics. And he just seems to have such clarity of [01:18:25] thought. I’d love to sit down with him and, like, talk to him. I think he’s he’s like a modern [01:18:30] day, so.

Payman Langroudi: Easy to listen to. But but such a big subject. He tackles.

Daniel Jones: 100%. [01:18:35] So interesting when you look at people and you’re like, you got it figured out. Like you’re sort of you’ve thought through stuff pretty [01:18:40] deeply. You’ve got to figure it out. He’s he’s that person. I really enjoy, um, sort [01:18:45] of his musings and content.

Payman Langroudi: You don’t think your grandma would like him?

Daniel Jones: Well, it’s the [01:18:50] more the third person. So the other, like the historical figure that I’m probably like [01:18:55] most interested in is Napoleon. Um, so I’ve, I’ve, I’ve read, read [01:19:00] a few books, like biographies and even like some of his writings because a lot of his diaries still exist. The [01:19:05] reason I think Napoleon and Naval Ravikant would be an interesting pairing is that naval is like, he’s like super [01:19:10] chill. He’s like action and sort of, um, doesn’t necessarily equate with impact. And [01:19:15] you can be of calm mind and still be really ambitious. And then you take Napoleon, who’s [01:19:20] like basically the opposite. He’s just like action, action, action. And he’s a very complex figure in [01:19:25] many ways. You know, like to some people he would be this sort of bloodthirsty tyrant, and [01:19:30] others, he’s this sort of like, amazing Statesman, and he [01:19:35] introduced, like so many interesting things within France around civil administration [01:19:40] laws post the French Revolution, which I just it’s such a fascinating [01:19:45] figure also that he rose from relatively relative obscurity in a, in an age [01:19:50] where there was no social mobility. So he came from like the back end of he was from Corsica, which [01:19:55] was like a backwater, to be like the emperor of France when he was 28. Um, so [01:20:00] but I think it would be interesting to see them interact, and I’d just. Yeah, I’d like to go [01:20:05] to a dinner party with him because he’s another person who’s just so complex. And I find complex people [01:20:10] really interesting, like people that you can’t sort of say they’re that [01:20:15] sort of person.

Payman Langroudi: Do you know this notion of foxes and hedgehogs?

Daniel Jones: No. What [01:20:20] is that?

Payman Langroudi: One of them is is very basic and has basic rules to [01:20:25] life. And the other one is almost like an overthinker and very complex. And [01:20:30] it turns out the basic ones are much more successful than the complex, simple, simple [01:20:35] rules they apply to life. How come there’s no hint of any sort of Manchester accent? [01:20:40]

Daniel Jones: Yeah, if I had a pound for every time someone was a little pocket.

Payman Langroudi: Of Cheshire [01:20:45] where everyone speaks like you.

Daniel Jones: Well, so none of my family are from from up north. Um, none [01:20:50] of my family are from up north. And I think, well, actually, partially, it’s because my grandma, she didn’t want me speaking [01:20:55] with a northern accent. Okay. Sorry to any northerners listening. Um, wasn’t my choice, but. Yeah, uh, [01:21:00] I think that’s why. I think that’s why. And then I’ve been down south for, I don’t know. [01:21:05]

Payman Langroudi: So you never had northern accent?

Daniel Jones: No. Not really. There’s videos of me from school, and it sounded [01:21:10] pretty pretty much the same.

Payman Langroudi: Is there a Welsh connection?

Daniel Jones: There is. Yeah. My mum’s side. [01:21:15] Jones is actually. Wyn Jones is my middle name. So. Super Welsh. [01:21:20] Um, yeah.

Payman Langroudi: Excellent. So who do you support if England play Wales.

Daniel Jones: In the rugby? [01:21:25] Yes, I actually support Wales because.

Payman Langroudi: I’m so happy you said that.

Daniel Jones: My, my granddad my [01:21:30] grandad’s a big Wales fan. Um, football? I mean, yeah, [01:21:35] England. Yeah. For sure.

Payman Langroudi: Amazing. I really enjoyed it, man. I really enjoyed it. And good luck and [01:21:40] maybe we’ll get you back in a couple of years and see where it’s gone.

Daniel Jones: Yeah, that’d be awesome. Thanks for having.

Payman Langroudi: Me. Amazing, [01:21:45] man.

[VOICE]: This is Dental Leaders, the [01:21:50] podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. [01:21:55] Your hosts Payman Langroudi [01:22:00] and Prav Solanki.

Prav Solanki: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this [01:22:05] far, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank you both from me and pay for [01:22:10] actually sticking through and listening to what we’ve had to say and what our guest has had to say, because [01:22:15] I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

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