Full interviews: with our own student entrepreneurs

Connor Bryant; Bryant Dental

What is Bryant Dental?

We supply dental and medical equipment, including loupes, headlights, battery packs, personalised cases and other accessories. Currently, we are the official UK supplier for Lumadent and Xenosys.

We pride ourselves on the fact that we offer excellent quality products at genuinely affordable prices. We hope to be able to continue to bring in more products from well­performing companies based abroad, so that my fellow dental professionals in the UK are able to access a wider and better range of equipment.

When and why did you set up your own business?

It all started in 2014, when a few of my fellow dental student colleagues and I began searching for the ultimate pair of loupes. However, no one was supplying the quality, reliability and longevity that we were looking for. We saw that there was also a huge range of loupes of varying quality all being sold at the same price, so it was very difficult to differentiate between good and bad deals. After reviewing 16 manufacturers and over 30 pairs of loupes, 15 out of the 18 people involved in the search with me chose Xenosys. Because of the tough time trying to find the right pair of loupes, I decided to start up Bryant Dental, selling Xenosys loupes.

How do you effectively dedicate time to both dentistry and your business?

I rarely watch TV, and I left both my Playstation and my Xbox at my parents’ home, so I don't waste much time on these things. To be honest, I quite enjoy setting up things and doing organisation­related work, so I relax by doing things related to my business. Although, as dear as my business is to me, dentistry always comes first. I'm not exactly perfect at it, but I try to type up lecture notes on the day itself so I have less to catch up on at the end of the week or month. I also only engage in my business related work after I'm done my dental workload has been completed. It's always secondary to dentistry.

Do you have any advice for other students with similar entrepreneurial interests and business aspirations?

Get help from other people. Delegate. Find people who work well for you, and whom you work well with, and keep them around. For example, I delegated the task of website design to someone I knew could handle the job well, and the results were impressive. If you haven’t

yet checked it out, it’s www.bryant­dental.com. Also, get funding via the university. There are a vast range of entrepreneurship schemes, programs and resources available to all King’s College students. Don’t miss out on those as they’re there for the taking.

I would also say be prepared to take risks. You’re not going to get anywhere if you never step out of your comfort zone. I also believe that money shouldn’t be the only thing standing in your way, or the thing that makes you quit, because good ideas will always get funding in the end. If you find yourself in that position, either your idea needs some adjustments, or you need to start speaking to the right people.

What do you enjoy most and least about running your own business?

Well, Bryant Dental sells and ships to the UK and the EU, so I really love it when I see people around campus using my products, or my products being used all around Europe. It gives me such a sense of tangible accomplishment. Communicating with a range of people is something I also really enjoy ­ clients, colleagues and partners ­ both face to face and through other media. In fact, my favourite part of it would be talking to people in similar businesses, sharing ideas and receiving i valuable input from them.

On the flipside, I don’t enjoy constantly having the mindset of improving everything I do. The lack of truly free time to procrastinate and relax, doing literally nothing, is tiring sometimes.

Is there anything you would have done differently?

Like I said previously, making the most out of university help for entrepreneurs is something I wish I knew beforehand. I would definitely delegate more, so my workload isn’t as overwhelming. I would also have started earlier, as dental school gets harder throughout the year.

Where do you see Bryant Dental in the future?

Currently we have started sponsoring many more events and organisations like Smile Society projects, workshops and lecture series. We also have an upcoming Perio Masterclass conducted by Alan Sidi, Ravi Saravanamuttu, Claire McCarthy and Carole Labbett. You may have seen us at the BDIA meeting this October, and you will also find us at the BDSA conference in 2016. (All the information is available on our website, as mentioned.) This is in an effort to raise greater awareness of the brand, so we are able to expand our services to more people.

However, I would like Bryant Dental to remain a small company so we retain our core values of personalization and direct communication with our customers.

I would also like to find more overseas companies that don’t yet have associations with international distributers. I would love to be able import them into the UK like I did with Lumadent. Through this, I hope that dental professionals in the UK can get the best that every country can offer rather than just being limited to what’s nearby. That’s one of the advantages for Bryant Dental; being non­exclusive to one brand means that we can pick from the best and bring it here.

​William Holmes; Student Loupes Company

Can you tell us a little bit about the Student Loupes Company?

We’re a small UK-based dental supply company. As the name suggests, our primary focus is to provide dental loupes (and lights) to the student market. Our loupes start at just £35: a genuinely affordable price that is significantly lower than any competition. Because of this, students can benefit from optical magnification right from the outset of their clinical studies.

Since starting the company, the feedback that we have received from our customers has been overwhelmingly positive and our brand continues to grow, despite the increasing competitiveness of the dental loupes market.

We have also recently become an official distributor for the exceptional Smile Line products from Switzerland, which were developed in conjunction with the popular aesthetic dentistry group StyleItaliano. They include Smile Lite: a natural daylight shade-matching light for aesthetic restorations; and Smile Capture, which enables light-smartphone coupling for intra-oral photography.

How did you initially come interested in setting up the company?

The idea sprang to mind when I was looking for a pair of dental loupes. Every company I encountered was charging hundreds to thousands of pounds, for a product that probably cost no more than a tenth of that price to manufacture. I decided to investigate the matter further. After doing some research, I found answers. Large marketing budgets, multiple sales reps and a monopoly by just a few companies on loupes prices was to blame for this premium.

So I thought to myself: surely there must be a way of delivering a simple set of loupes for a truly affordable price to students? What if I’m a student that isn’t sure I’ll like dental loupes, what magnification to get, or what type of loupes I will prefer? I could imagine many students being reluctant to spend their limited funds on a product they may not even end up using.

This was clearly a problem which needed solving. I approached numerous medical equipment manufacturers and eventually found one that would supply a pair of loupes that were simple, effective, and, most importantly, affordable.

In February 2015, I launched the Student Loupes Company website. Since then, the company has grown exponentially, achieving profitability within one month of launch, and has recently become the official supplier of dental loupes for the Dental Hygiene course at Teeside University.

Our recent partnership with Smile Line allows us to offer a wider range of products to the UK dental market.

How do you manage both dentistry and your business?

It’s all about balance; I have had to devote a significant amount of time to the company, which has required discipline and meticulous organisation right from the outset. I’ve grown to realise the importance of allocating specific periods of time for business and for studying. When receiving new product deliveries, it can, at times, make my bedroom like an Amazon warehouse. As silly as it sounds, I have hidden the products out of site in various drawers and wardrobes so that I’m not distracted by them whilst studying.

It is common for people to ask me: “How do you have time to run a company when studying dentistry?” Personally, I always maintain the ethos that there is time for anything if you want to do it badly enough. Admittedly, I don’t have much ‘white time’ in my day, but then again I enjoy keeping active.

What do you feel are some of the most valuable skills you have developed from setting up and running your own business?

Starting a business has been quite unlike any other job. Flexibility, independence and autonomy are just a few of the perks of self-employment. I am involved in all aspects of running the company, which has enabled me to develop several skill sets: stock management, marketing, sales, customer relations, and finance. Fortunately, all of the information that I needed to get started is freely available on the internet, if you look hard enough. I hope to be able to apply the skills I have developed during this process to later life, particularly with regards to dental practice ownership and management. I have realised that there is only so much you can read in books - first-hand business experience is where skills are truly developed and realised.

Is there anything you would have done differently? Is starting a business at university a good idea?

There are, of course, things I would have done differently with hindsight - but as with anything in life, it’s been a learning process and I have no regrets. Small failures here and there have been invaluable to me.

University is one of the best places to start a business, as it has given me the opportunity to try new things out, and to network with others. You can meet and work with like-minded people who can help you generate ideas for company development. Although there may be some negativity and uncertainty towards starting a business, I, however, think there’s no better time to do this, especially as students we generally have fewer commitments than in later life. If you have an idea and think you have the time to manage it, why not start it during your studies? If you delay implementing your idea, you risk other people starting it first.