Dentology Podcast with Kunal Thakker

Transcript – Dentology Podcast with Kunal Thakker

Episode Release Date – Monday 10 March 2025

Andy & Chris (00:01.294)
How you doing? You’re well? I’m very good. Thank you very much. I’m looking forward for this chat. Yes. I think it should be quite good really. I think it’s going to be very exciting. He’s been a hard man to track down. He’s so busy. He’s like a MI5 spy. Exactly. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are delighted. Today we’ve got a very special guest and we’ve got Kunar Thacker joining us who’s the CEO and founder of Tooth Club. And if you haven’t heard of Tooth Club…

you will over the next hour, but you may well have seen the branding. It’s a very, very distinct. You’re probably living under a rock. Yes. you’re in dentistry, they’re very good at marketing and making promotion. Yes. Welcome Kuno. How are you? How are you doing? I was looking forward to having this conversation. Yeah. For those of you who are just listening, Kuno has got a very attractive tree growing behind him.

Kunal Thakker (00:43.096)
Hi Andy, hi Chris, thanks for having me on. Yeah, excellent.

Kunal Thakker (00:56.216)
Yes.

Andy & Chris (00:57.262)
And this goes to serve to what I just said about the branding. Yeah, there we go. power. It’s like you do it very well and you’ve got a beautiful pink tree behind you which ties in very nicely with your branding.

Kunal Thakker (01:09.146)
Yeah, my wife’s a bit worried about all the pink in my life, I have to be honest with you. But you know what, if you’re gonna do it as you said earlier, do it consistently, right? So yeah, so yeah.

Andy & Chris (01:12.898)
Ha

Andy & Chris (01:18.582)
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. That’s what branding’s all about, isn’t it? Yeah, absolutely. Before we get to the business side of things, and you’ve had quite a diverse business life, even before dentistry and even more so for our audience in dentistry, can we kind of just roll back to beginning? Can you give us a sense of what your upbringing was like, what family life was like, where you lived, siblings? It’s always nice to get a show with who you are.

Kunal Thakker (01:40.9)
Yeah, so I grew up in East London. I actually spent most of my life in Ilford, kind of East London border, but really East London and my parents had their own business. They ran shops, so news agents and a video shop at the time. And that was good. was…

Andy & Chris (01:48.97)
Okay

Andy & Chris (01:59.21)
A video shop. We might need to explain to some of our younger viewers what a video shop is. Yeah, sure. Most people stream on Netflix, but back in the day, what we had to do is we had to go to a physical location of shop and then you would peruse what was like a library of videos and then you would get your VHS cassette and you would check it out like a library book.

Kunal Thakker (02:04.896)
I know exactly. Yes.

Andy & Chris (02:22.003)
and you take it home and you then watch the film and return it. And if you’re talking about late, there was a late fee, wasn’t there, returning the video? If based on my local one, it was so bloody irritating because you’d pick up a box and you’d take it to the counter and say, that’s not in. So were you the cool kid at school who always had watched the latest release?

Kunal Thakker (02:26.744)
Yes, that was like, eh? Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (02:35.844)
Yeah, absolutely, that’s been a lot.

Kunal Thakker (02:42.16)
999

I was the child labour that used to work on the shop of an evening or a Saturday to be totally honest, on the weekends. But I loved it, know, I watched my parents grow up, growing up, you know, working really hard, grafting really hard, and they made us work as well, know, we used to help out in the shop. And it was a real family business, like, and you know, I enjoyed it. I think it’s built some of my fondest memories, but definitely, I think my graft and my ability of kind of entrepreneurship definitely comes from those early years of seeing my

Andy & Chris (02:57.559)
Hmm. Hmm.

Kunal Thakker (03:13.202)
parents.

Andy & Chris (03:13.662)
Mmm.

Kunal Thakker (03:14.64)
working. I guess, so yeah, did that, you know, so grew up and I absolutely hated going to the dentist as a child and I think this is partly part of the tooth club story but I had, and some of the dentists will know what this means, but I had to have Bi-Max surgery so I had to have both my jaws broken and it probably could have been avoided if I’d actually seen the dentist in the early years but I used to tear up the appointments because I was just so petrified of going to the dentist and I used to remember when I used to go to the dentist, you know, horrible receptionists that looked down wouldn’t even look up.

Andy & Chris (03:38.701)
Mm-hmm.

Kunal Thakker (03:44.546)
They used to the surgery door open to get a horrible drilling sound, disinfecting smell and also you know there was always toys at the back of this dental surgery that you never knew if you you could play with and that’s my vivid imagination of going to the dentist and I hate it and you used to get like your postcards through to remind you of your appointments so I’d get to the post first so just so I could rip it up so mum wouldn’t know that I had a dental appointment.

Andy & Chris (04:04.033)
Mm-hmm.

Andy & Chris (04:09.582)
Where did your fear come from? What was it that worried you so much about going?

Kunal Thakker (04:13.328)
I just think it’s such an awful thing to go to the dentist as a child. It was just awful. The dentist was miserable, the staff were miserable, the place wasn’t particularly kept very well. And funny enough, that dental practice still exists today, by the way, and it still looks exactly the same as it did 30 years ago. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (04:17.143)
Terrible experience, yeah.

Andy & Chris (04:31.949)
Well there you go, there’s a challenge isn’t there, to acquire that practice and tooth club it at some point.

Kunal Thakker (04:38.604)
Absolutely well, Andy I’ll drop you a note. FTA, if FTA can get me that practice I’ll buy it. And it’s a high street location so it kind of works, it fits the mould. But you know, it’s been, so from on there, I kind of went on to do, know, in Asian families, like studying is really important. So my parents were very much about, you’ve got to pass the exams, coming home and failing wasn’t even an option. So that did my GCSEs, did really well. And then I went on to do biology, chemistry and maths.

absolutely hated it. I was kind of forced into it little bit, not directly forced into it, but the pressure was always there to go and do the sciences, go and be a doctor, you know, very good in an Indian family to go and be a doctor. so I did exactly as a good Indian boy should do, go and do biology, chemistry, maths, absolutely hated it. And I failed. I failed my first year of my A levels. And I think that was a real milestone in my life because all my friends around me went into the second year of A levels. I’d done really bad. I’d come home.

Andy & Chris (05:17.195)
Yeah. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (05:24.395)
you

Kunal Thakker (05:38.498)
and show my parents these grades and it’s just a really awful time and but it also gave me a kick up the backside because I was like I’m never gonna do what someone else tells me to do I need to do what I enjoy and when I passionize so I did accounts accountancy business and I did drama much to the horror of my parents thinking I’ve gone off the rail doing drama

Andy & Chris (05:58.08)
Yeah, plain degree, a plain A level that is,

Kunal Thakker (06:00.816)
Yeah, I know exactly. So that’s exactly what they thought. So I did it and I did, you know, and I built a new group of friends and I went on and actually did really well in my A-levels in the end. But then it was like, I got all my university offers and I had King’s and I had Westminster and I actually took Westminster, which wasn’t considered as good as King’s.

Andy & Chris (06:22.817)
And what had you applied to do?

Kunal Thakker (06:24.272)
And so I applied to do business and finance, but King’s actually did, they did a course that was like maths and finance. So it wasn’t quiet business studies. And I didn’t want to do that. So I put my foot down and said, I’m not going to King’s, I’m going to Westminster. And they’re like, you know, my parents in particular, my fat and my extended family were very much like, you’re crazy. You know, you can’t tend down King’s. You’ve got a really good offer there.

Andy & Chris (06:26.262)
Right, okay.

Andy & Chris (06:46.189)
What’s interesting, Kuna, I listened to you talk, there’s so many things that you kind of acquired as great life skills early on. So your parents gave you that real sense of what hard work is and what’s important to begin. You then had a little bit of failure in that you’re balled up year one of your A levels. But what that then did is that then meant that you then started to take control of who you are and your destiny. But you’re still quite young at this point, because by the sounds you’re sort of 17, 18 years old. Those skills have been

Kunal Thakker (07:10.158)
Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (07:14.212)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (07:16.143)
acquired very early on. Lots of people don’t get those till perhaps 20s, 30s, even their 40s. Or never. Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (07:22.36)
Yeah, yes. I think, know, so with me, because at the time it felt my life was crumbling, right? As a 17 year old, I felt like my life had crumbled. But it hadn’t. And, you know, I think it kind of builds a little bit of grit and resilience to go and, you know, to fail. And actually my biggest life lessons have been from where I failed. yes, I went on to Westminster, did business and finance. And…

Andy & Chris (07:29.901)
Yeah

Andy & Chris (07:38.571)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (07:48.834)
So did you join the Amdram Society? Amateur dramatics, my friend. Get your acting out there. Did you go, I’m going to tread the boards.

Kunal Thakker (07:51.408)
the Amdran’s, what’s the Amdran’s Society? Oh, no, no, no, I didn’t know. I’ve left my drama career well and truly in the past, I tell you.

Andy & Chris (08:04.833)
You haven’t had hankering to rejoin.

Kunal Thakker (08:07.032)
I’ve got a child now that’s an absolute like star and she’s a star of her own show and she’s put on performances all the time so I’m like I know where that comes from. So yeah so then went on and did my degree and you know but there was a little bit in me there was always this thing that I kind of rebelled a bit and I had something to prove and coming from…

Andy & Chris (08:09.707)
Ha ha ha ha.

Yeah, yeah.

Andy & Chris (08:16.641)
Ha ha ha.

Andy & Chris (08:28.907)
Mm.

Kunal Thakker (08:31.152)
a Westminster background, know, the big, going from, at the time, doing business and finance, everyone wanted to go into investment banking. It was kind of the hot thing to do. No one knew what an investment bank did, by the way. They just knew there was lots of money in it, and it was kind of sexy thing to do. Exactly.

Andy & Chris (08:40.585)
No, they just made loads of money big bonuses. Yeah, that’s it TV shows sharp suit. Yeah, we get a nice suit in a mobile phone. That’ll do

Kunal Thakker (08:49.974)
Absolutely and I just I did the I went and I was trying to apply for internships and I got rejected from every single internship and it’s because they didn’t hire on campus at Westminster. Westminster wasn’t kind of their graded university and also at the time I don’t know if they do UCAS points anymore but I was shy of two points on the UCAS points so I just got automatically filtered out and never got in so but that didn’t that didn’t stop me so I went in and I and

basically went and networked. I went and met lots and lots of people. They did like these open evenings. I’d go to every single networking evening that there was going. And I got a chance in with HSBC and they said, you know, we’ll give you a one week internship. No problem. We’ve got projects. I was like, great, I’m going to do it. And I kind of use that as leverage as to every time I spoke to anyone else, I’m doing an internship at HSBC. And it opened the door at Goldman Sachs, right? Yeah. Cause they’re like, if you’ve got an internship at HSBC, you know, we should shortlist you for

Andy & Chris (09:38.957)
Mm-hmm.

Andy & Chris (09:47.533)
You’re like pre-qualified, yeah.

Kunal Thakker (09:47.618)
for at least an interview. And then every other thing, oh, I’ve been shortlisted for an interview at Goldman Sachs. That then kind of opened the doors and I basically ended up getting off. I got interviews at all the top investment banks. I ended up with 11 job offers at all the investment banks and I took Goldman Sachs in the end. That was kind of the early career. And then when I got Goldman Sachs, I was like the golden child. Wow, you got Goldman Sachs. And it was at the time, it was 2005 and I started on a salary of 40,000

Andy & Chris (10:02.775)
Wow.

Wow.

Kunal Thakker (10:17.552)
pounds and it was unheard of for grads to start at that pay rate so it’s a huge like my parents were like very very happy very proud but I think what it’s taught me is there’s always highs and lows and actually and even my parents have been I love my parents to bits and actually they drive me nuts too but you know there’s a you know they’ve always been very very supportive so even the pressure was always from a nice place but it’s I got to a point in my life where I’m not gonna people please

Andy & Chris (10:19.5)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (10:28.757)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (10:44.993)
Mm-hmm.

Kunal Thakker (10:45.934)
be a nice person, but I’m not just not that weak, please. I think that’s one of the lessons that has come. So even now, there’s times in my life where people, my parents and people around me approve certain things, but I’m kind of focused on what I want to do. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (10:59.373)
So were you still investment banking during the old lovely financial crash? that was exciting.

Kunal Thakker (11:05.356)
I was, yes. Some of the most exciting times, yeah. you know, I was, I had viewing to seeing how much liquidity Goldman Sachs had at the time. And, you you had a green, amber, red status and, you know, you never really even went into amber ever. And then this period of where you’re like touching on red, blimmin’, blimmin’ scary. So, yeah, so did Goldman Sachs for 10 years. Absolutely loved it. Started as a grad, worked.

Andy & Chris (11:23.917)
Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (11:31.76)
crazy, crazy hours and then I had a child and I realised I just can’t keep working these hours and my best friend’s wife at the time wanted to set up a dental practice and said, look let’s buy one. I don’t know how to run the business but I’m the dentist. I was like great. And then she got pregnant with twins and she then went on and said, you know, I need to go and have a family. So I then had a full time job working kind of 14 hours days at Goldman Sachs with a side hustle. Left Goldman Sachs to

HSBC because it was kind of an easier role and grew that dental business from one to three sites and sold it in 2019 and

left my job in banking and the parents again, the family again, were like, you’re crazy. My wife’s actually very supportive by the way, actually everyone else other than me and my wife were like, oh, you’re crazy. You’ve got a really good job. You can’t get a good job. And I was like, no, no, I’m going to do it. I’m going to go and set up a new dental group. Absolutely. I’m going to, I’m going to do this, right? I want to be an entrepreneur. And then six weeks in COVID we’re in lockdown. Should have told you, you should have kept your job. should have kept your well paid job. And then my, actually my old boss basically called

Andy & Chris (12:24.833)
Huh.

Andy & Chris (12:31.233)
Hmm.

Kunal Thakker (12:44.146)
me and he said oh you do you want to come back and do some consultancy work it’s work from home and I said no I’m enjoying doing banana bread I’ve got a career break and I really want to stay focused on the vision of building this so I was like nothing was going to distract me and I had money in the bank for once right here which was really nice so I didn’t actually need to go go and take work

Andy & Chris (12:55.213)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (12:58.925)
Yeah. Yeah.

But also I remember somebody saying a while ago about, they were talking about like apes in the jungle as an analogy. And they were saying how the way they move around the jungle is they hold onto a line, but to grab the next one, you’ve got to let go of the one you’re holding onto. And they were saying that that is kind of a bit like business life and entrepreneurship in that if you just keep holding onto the thing you’ve got, you just swing backwards and forwards. You don’t go anywhere. But if you let go, you can then grab something else. if you’re doing such extraordinary hours investment banking,

Kunal Thakker (13:28.26)
Yeah. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (13:33.828)
there isn’t really any capacity to do anything else well. You can do it as a society. Chris and I were in a similar situation. We worked in banking. We bought Frank Town Associates back in 2000. Everybody thought we were nuts. Yeah. One, everybody thought we were nuts. And two, for us, for a period of time, it was a side hustle. We continued to work in the city and we had this business.

As the weeks become months, you realize that you’re probably doing neither particularly well. Definitely. And if you double down on the thing you’re passionate about, suddenly it starts to blow up, doesn’t it? For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Benefits, all that sort of situations, know.

Kunal Thakker (14:06.544)
And it’s quite scary taking that jump right from a secure salary. Yeah.

Yeah.

Andy & Chris (14:14.925)
the time Chris had young children, I had young children, you you were starting a family there. There were lots of things that would have suggested it didn’t make enormous sense. But the thing is, if you believe in it. We never saw it as a risk, did we? Which I think was quite people say to our friends, terrible risk. We thought it was always going to work. So we didn’t really think it was a risk. It’s quite an interesting one. Yeah. But also the things you talk about. Are you familiar with the book by Brony Ware? So Brony Ware is a palliative

Kunal Thakker (14:36.826)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (14:44.879)
care nurse in Australia and she’s written a book which is the five regrets of the dying. And basically she spoke to people in their later years in life and said to them like what are the things that you regret now you’ve got all this experience of life. And the resounding thing that came out for most of them was they felt they lived a life to please other people and not to be the life they wanted to live. And what you said about you can still be kind and nice but you don’t have to people please kind of captures that.

You know, you’re saying like it’s my life and I’m going to live it the way that suits me and it might not suit everybody But it’s not your life. It’s my life It wasn’t investing in apple at an early stage and buying a flat and a barbecue. No No, so the banking did how did the banking world Set you up to create a dental group? What were the core things that that world taught you or did you basically just do the complete opposite?

Kunal Thakker (15:23.13)
Absolutely.

Kunal Thakker (15:28.464)
Yeah. It’s true.

Kunal Thakker (15:41.584)
No, it taught me so much. I should have left banking about five years before I did, by the way. That’s one of my things. But actually, it taught me lot. It taught me about, you know, business is more than about one person. Certainly, my group, you know, I often get lot of praise for what I’ve done at Tooth Club. Actually, it’s my team. I’ve got an incredible…

Andy & Chris (15:54.45)
Mm-hmm.

Andy & Chris (16:01.835)
Mm-hmm.

Kunal Thakker (16:02.542)
team that are passionate about the brand, that driving it forward, are constantly thinking about how we can get better. I think having that and being able to leverage the skills of delegation, trusting others, systems and processes.

Andy & Chris (16:16.597)
I said processes.

Kunal Thakker (16:17.836)
It’s all about systems and processes, right? In Goldman’s you don’t have key man dependencies. You have systems and processes. And I think it’s the same in Toothpub. We are all about system process driven. And that’s ultimately been why we’ve been able to grow so fast. we’ve been able, we come through challenges.

Andy & Chris (16:27.777)
Hmm.

Kunal Thakker (16:39.088)
But you are, and it’s also that recognition, I mean, you’ve got challenges, normally because something’s broken in your processes, so it’s about being able to go back. But actually one of the biggest skills that I’ve kind of transferred over.

Andy & Chris (16:43.275)
Mmm. Yup.

Kunal Thakker (16:49.548)
is at Goldman Sachs I actually helped open their Bangalore office. So an office in India, was the first start of them at offshoring. And they’ve called it outsourcing because it was their people, their culture, just in another country. So offshoring out to India. And I went on that journey. In fact, I went to, was one of the ones that picked up the first set of keys to their offices in India. Now they’ve got 3000 people there. But I’ve actually done very, very identical thing at Tooth Club. So Tooth Club, our head office,

and support centers, we like to call them, are all based in India and in Bangalore and it’s been amazing, right? know, being able to set up a team out there has been not only cost efficient, but it’s been the amount of talent that we’ve been able to get out there is phenomenal. The loyalty, and so we now have a team of 25 people in our Bangalore office doing HR. We’ve got dentists, we’ve got four dentists that work for us in India and all they’re doing is compliance audits.

Andy & Chris (17:34.679)
Hmm.

Kunal Thakker (17:48.336)
floorwalks, CQC, we’ve got HR out there, we’ve got a finance team out there, so actually a really, really good support centre. And why it’s given us the leverage is we just couldn’t afford to have that support in the UK, so our practices have phenomenal support and are able to focus on patient care because we’ve got a back office team that are my team, by the way. It’s not outsourced, I looked at the outsourcing option, I chose to hire people.

Andy & Chris (18:01.495)
Hmm. Hmm.

Andy & Chris (18:06.548)
Mm. Mm.

Kunal Thakker (18:15.842)
team I embraced into the culture of Tooth Club in another country and yes yeah I’m going out in two weeks

Andy & Chris (18:16.333)
Hmm.

Yeah Makes sense And i’ve seen you you go out and visit them as well i’ve seen pictures of you out visiting your your team So it it very much does feel like yeah They’re they’re your team out there as opposed to it’s just people who do workforce over there

Kunal Thakker (18:34.415)
Absolutely, absolutely and even things like the awards night so we have a Tooth Club Awards night, annual night. Obviously we can’t fly the whole team over but we’re taking key people and flying them over but they’re also having their own award ceremonies and they’ll be going out for dinner that evening on us. Just so that they feel part of it and we’ve got some video set up so they can virtually watch in if they want to because it’s kind of it’s probably going to be late in their day.

Andy & Chris (18:43.81)
Nice.

Andy & Chris (18:49.666)
sweet.

Andy & Chris (18:57.741)
Yeah, bit of a time difference.

Kunal Thakker (18:58.968)
Yes, exactly. But the idea is we try and keep them as connected to the culture values, business updates, what we’re doing here, how they’re growing and how they’re adding value. And, you know, and what I’ve been most impressed about is how our practice teams have kind of buddied up with them and really, you know, taking them on the journey of kind of ensuring that they understand what happens at practice level. But equally, our teams are reliant on them now. They need those teams in India to do to do their job effectively. So it’s been a real success. even our Instagram and our, you if you message us on Instagram,

Andy & Chris (19:02.701)
That’s good.

Andy & Chris (19:06.359)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (19:16.982)
Hmm.

Mm.

Hmm.

Kunal Thakker (19:29.002)
you get a response from us from 6 a.m. in the morning till 10 p.m. at night and it’s a response within 15 minutes and that is all done out of India and it’s a shift pattern that works out there and it’s been really really good and has been a real strength and we’re

Andy & Chris (19:37.965)
Hmm.

Kunal Thakker (19:45.552)
have been looking at AI using bots for their social media chats. Personally it’s something I really don’t like. actually, you know, I think what gives us a competitive edge on social media is the fact that you’re to get a real human, give you a real human response and book you in within 15 minutes of you sending us a message between 6am and 10pm.

Andy & Chris (19:49.036)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (19:58.861)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (20:02.795)
I think you can tell Chris and I recently went to a conference over in Orlando and there were a lot of people there talking about maximizing AI and technology. And one of the guys that spoke there was a chap called Duncan Wardle who was the ex-head of innovation and creativity of Disney. And he was talking about- job, Tuttle.

Kunal Thakker (20:08.164)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (20:22.989)
lovely job title, but he was talking about the emotions of humans and how we work and Linking that back to AI. I think AI has a place for sure but I think when as humans we interact with a human we feel it differently and and I think when you’re In a world like healthcare where care is integral to that that very word You want to feel comfortable particularly linking that back to your own initial experience of dentistry

Kunal Thakker (20:24.25)
Yes.

Kunal Thakker (20:33.133)
It does.

Kunal Thakker (20:46.544)
Thank

Andy & Chris (20:52.783)
you know that people will be nervous or there’s an anxiety or they’re about to spend potentially quite a lot of money on something which is personal to them. They want to make sure that they can tick every box. So having people as opposed to, you know, delegating that down to a piece of technology, I think it’s really, really smart thing to do. And it kind of bucks a trend because most people are trying to automate everything. Trying to save money. That’s what they’re trying to do.

Kunal Thakker (21:09.296)
Yeah.

Absolutely and I do believe there’s a place for AI and we’re constantly looking at the technology in our own business saying how can we do this better and what tools are there out there and actually you know most people have probably heard of things like voice stack right yeah absolutely incredible system I think and it’s something we’re looking at we’ve not gone live with it yet but it’s something we’re looking at and you know that for me is kind of the AI I want in my business right because it tells

Andy & Chris (21:38.303)
Yes. Is your reception team still UK based? Right.

Kunal Thakker (21:43.664)
No. So, well, so we have it. So we have patient coordinators that sit in the UK. So every practice, you’re welcomed by a patient coordinator. But one of the things I talked about earlier was the fact that I had this anxiety of going to the dentist where you had someone that just looked down, the receptionist didn’t really engage with you. So sorry. don’t know. Can you hear the fire alarm? Oh. You can’t make it. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Andy & Chris (22:01.389)
Look at that. We can hear the fire. This is real business. This is what real life’s like. That was a test. It’s fine. It’s fine. We can carry on. It was a test. As long as there’s no flames from behind you, we’re all right. Disappear in smoke.

Kunal Thakker (22:13.124)
No, exactly. this whole receptionist concept really, really annoyed me because when you’ve got a patient waiting nervously, I want my team to be engaging with them. I don’t want them to be answering a phone. I don’t want them to be doing lab work. And all these things are really important operational processes, but they need to be done behind the scenes. They don’t need to be done at front of…

Andy & Chris (22:27.885)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (22:36.769)
Yeah, on the desk.

Kunal Thakker (22:37.712)
So I basically removed all of our inbound phones out from the UK. we have a patient experience hub in South Africa that answer all the inbound calls.

why that’s there and it means our practice teams can really focus on the patients in front of them and it is overwhelming. I’ve worked on reception myself every year I’ll go and spend some time on reception just so I can stay connected to what it’s like and particularly in UDA season in our practice in Ipswich we don’t do much NHS but that particular one’s got NHS and it’s hard you know you’ve got patients in front of you, you’ve got the phone going, you’ve got the dentist asking, you’ve got lab work, it’s awful you’ve not got time to get to the patients so we took out the phones and that freed up a ton of time for our nurses.

our reception staff to really engage with patients and it meant we could really script out the patient journey at reception which I think people talk about having a patient journey but don’t necessarily go to the extent of actually scripting how you talk to people, how you talk to different people. So we moved out to South Africa and that’s been another real big success. I’ve never done it in South Africa.

Andy & Chris (23:36.301)
Yeah, designing, designing, that’s how.

Andy & Chris (23:43.777)
Why did you choose South Africa when you had a team in India?

Kunal Thakker (23:46.544)
Do you know, it was really around the communication skills, okay? So if you’ve got a patient and the perception of someone calling the practice and being able to have a call, and I think the English in my team in India is brilliant, but I think there is a legacy perception of a strong accent, not quite being able to understand. So what we did is we said, well, actually, do you know what? We wanna keep our India team really focused on…

the support centre side of things. Also from a timing perspective and an operating hour perspective, Johannesburg, I mean they’re literally one hour ahead of us. So it kind of worked really well. So we split it out and so originally it was just inbound. We’re now doing all of our outbound recalls happen out there. So recalling patients. We do recruitment out there.

Andy & Chris (24:15.021)
side.

Yes, very, yeah.

Andy & Chris (24:29.473)
Hmm.

Kunal Thakker (24:33.872)
and what else do we do out there? And debt collection. And it works really, really well. Really skilled talent pool out there. We’ve got an office, got an amazing operations manager out there that runs it for us as well. So try and get out there as well as frequently as we can. But as much as we will get out there kind of once a quarter amongst the management team, but we’ve got really good in both places, head of operations in both, and we’re really trying to give them the ownership of running their offices.

Andy & Chris (24:49.896)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (24:57.857)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (25:01.348)
And when we’re out there, it’s more of us doing a nice kind of…

Andy & Chris (25:04.021)
Yeah, you have to just think about getting divisions in Mauritius or the Maldives or somewhere like that. That’d be nice because I’d be very up for coming to inspect that facility with you if it was needed. Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (25:08.078)
Yes, I know exactly. Yes, yeah absolutely. Yeah, Tooth Club Maldives, I keep getting Tooth Club Dubai, everyone keeps saying you need to open your Dubai and my wife will make me move out there so yeah.

Andy & Chris (25:23.039)
It’s funny on the the on dentist on the Dubai thing at the moment. There’s so much chatter around it. But I saw something that was quite insightful and someone saying that that, you know, over there is a very relaxed, very low tax regime. And they were talking about it. But somebody made a comment. I’d never really thought about it, but how expensive things are in Dubai. So whilst the earnings are high and it took me back to we had some friends who moved to Australia many years ago and it was similar there in that whilst their earnings were higher, a loaf of bread was three or four pounds. So the cost of

Kunal Thakker (25:40.4)
I’m ready.

Andy & Chris (25:52.973)
living was higher even though the earnings were higher.

Kunal Thakker (25:56.593)
I’ve got friends out there, because I was out there in December and I asked them the exact same question. was like, so expensive. And they’re like, well, actually that’s because you’re staying kind of in like Mayfair, right? You know, if you were staying, you know, in kind of the more suburbs or some of the more surrounding areas, you’d go to your local shopping mall. You wouldn’t be in Dubai mall buying your loaf of bread. And they’re like, it’s a big price difference. They were actually saying, so food, petrol, all of that kind of stuff was actually, it was cheaper, but what was more expensive was the luxuries. I think also home help, all of that was a,

Andy & Chris (26:01.069)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (26:24.535)
Right.

Kunal Thakker (26:26.556)
lot more cost-effective than it is here. So what they were paying on tax, I think they’re essentially paying on luxuries is the way it was sold to me. But I love London.

Andy & Chris (26:33.709)
Yeah, well if you go and spend on something why not luxuries? And I suppose you don’t go to Dubai to live in a suburbs. No Yeah

Kunal Thakker (26:40.74)
Yeah, but I love London, right? So I know a lot of people moving out there, I’ve heard the same thing about tax efficiency. My wife would love to move out there, the climate. But I love London. I just love, there’s something, and I go to Dubai quite a lot actually. But when I come home, I’m glad to be home, because it’s home.

Andy & Chris (26:57.281)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. What things do you obsess about when you’re scaling a business? Because you’re doing incredibly well. You’re adding new sites on a regular basis. You’ve got your offshore teams. So what are the things that keep you up at night when you’re trying to go through this growth phase?

Kunal Thakker (27:14.384)
People, people, people, people. Honestly, it’s people and money because cash flow is important but…

Generally it’s people. Do we have the right people in the right team in the right place at the right time? Do they understand our culture? And this is my biggest thing. And I actually had our management team in yesterday in the office and I said, I can’t be the only one now constantly talking about culture. I everyone talking about culture because there’s so many new people coming in. It’s scary, right? I’m losing my baby. I’m losing my baby. It’s becoming bigger and it’s exciting.

Andy & Chris (27:27.501)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (27:36.767)
No, that’s right, yeah.

Andy & Chris (27:43.073)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

If you’re not careful, you get dilution.

Kunal Thakker (27:50.404)
Yeah, but there’s something very nice about keeping your baby a baby and having

role. So really around people that we bring into the business and it’s so important to me. And I’ll give you an example, right? I bought a, I don’t do many acquisitions. I did two acquisitions. One was a phenomenal success and one was an absolute car crash. And when I, and, and it’s, I say it was a car crash because of the way we incorporated that practice into, into, into the business. It’s taken us two years now and it is now a success. And I’m so proud of it because it’s got such an amazing team in there.

that have kind of helped deliver the change and got it back to where I’d bought it. And I guess the people element is, the example I saying is, I bought this practice and I got rid of the principal because he was an absolute, I can’t say it, right? Hey, bleep, bleep, bleep. And he just didn’t fit into the culture of our business. And he was just, he was the kind of person that slams a surgery door in front, in a nurse’s face. He was arrogant.

Andy & Chris (28:41.207)
Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (28:53.38)
He was rude to reception, came in demanding, we have a patient car park. And he was like, no, that’s my car park, I’m parking my car there.

So what about the old disabled lady that needs parking outside right here, you’re young and fit, right here. And there was parking 10 seconds away, it wasn’t like there was no parking, it was literally a 10 second walk. So I got, and he was a big revenue earner for us, he was a massive revenue earner. And I removed him from the business. And it hurt us financially, but do I regret that decision? Absolutely not, the best thing I did.

Andy & Chris (29:09.239)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (29:22.539)
Makes a statement to the team though, think.

Kunal Thakker (29:25.436)
100%, 100%, you will not be in my business slamming a cupboard door in anyone’s face. I wouldn’t do it, I wouldn’t do it to anyone. So, you know, why would anyone else in this business do it? Yeah. So, so the whole, so what worries me as I grow is really about people, make sure you’ve got the right people, they’re trained to do their jobs, and…

Andy & Chris (29:28.417)
Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (29:34.039)
You’re a C. Yeah. Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (29:48.142)
Yeah, you know, and that we don’t bring in any bad eggs, but equally when we bring in good eggs, we’re kind of getting them to adapt and appreciate the culture of what our business looks like. And recruitment, I think, in the industry is really hard, and everyone say recruitment’s really hard. I will not hire anyone that does not fit our culture. Don’t care how hard recruitment is, you know.

Andy & Chris (29:55.869)
Mmm. Mmm.

Andy & Chris (30:07.009)
Have you got to the stage yet where the business has outgrown some of the people? So in the early days in business, you kind of take people in and they’re good for a moment in time. But then quite often a business kind of grows and moves on and evolves. And those people, they’re not bad people, but they’re just not, they’re not fit for the business yet. Have you got to that stage yet? They’re the wrong place on the bus. It’s awkward, isn’t it? It’s difficult.

Kunal Thakker (30:26.56)
Andy, you have touched on a real raw top of yes, yes, and it is it’s really awkward and I’m actually in the middle of it right now and yeah and it’s really hard people that I’ve really done they’re not bad people me and Don yeah

Andy & Chris (30:35.659)
Hmm

Andy & Chris (30:40.301)
because they’re not bad people, the business has moved on perhaps beyond their level of skill.

Kunal Thakker (30:45.796)
Yeah, and I’m really honest about this, and I’ve always been honest about it to my management team. It’s a journey and we’re all gonna get off the bus at some point, including me, right, yeah. It’s just when that point comes. But it is really hard because when you know people have given your business blood, sweat and tears, you really, really appreciate it. But you have to, you

Andy & Chris (30:56.232)
Mm-hmm.

Andy & Chris (31:04.46)
Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (31:08.59)
I don’t see myself as the owner of business. I see myself as I’ve got a role in this business, I’ve got job in this business, and we have to look after and protect this business. Huge amount of responsibility, you we’ve got 300 people in the business, so I feel very responsible for 300 people’s rent, mortgages, bills. So we have to navigate this business in the right way. And I guess I’m going through it right now, so it’s quite a raw topic. And without giving away the specifics, do you know what? It’s just to do it with kindness.

Andy & Chris (31:23.607)
Mm.

Kunal Thakker (31:36.72)
I’m not trying to be nice, I’m not trying to be someone’s best friend, but what I’m going to do is do it with kindness. If I can be really kind in my behaviour in the way I do it, so that includes ensuring a little bit of financial reward, that’s what will happen. If it means securing good reference, if it means using some of my contacts to find them a role, I’m absolutely going to do it. It is really, really, really hard.

Andy & Chris (31:42.925)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (31:47.467)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (31:59.554)
Yeah. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (32:05.353)
It is, it is, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (32:06.296)
right thing for the business at the right time yeah and I think in a year’s time if I look back well I think I’ve made the right decision I do but

Andy & Chris (32:12.845)
I think if you lead with kindness, you can never be wrong.

It doesn’t make it any easier, but at least it and also I think for the people his friend. No. I think for the people who stay behind, it’s important as well because they can see that, you, yeah, you do things right. Regardless of how difficult and awkward that, situation is your, you’re quite a rare breed because as a, as a non dentist, as the owner of a, of a dental group, you, you fall into quite a small category. Would you say that’s been a blessing or a curse in terms of trying to get things moved forward as

as non-dentist.

Kunal Thakker (32:48.794)
You know, I see it as a bit of both, to be honest. I’m always really nervous when I talk to other dentists or dental owners that are dentists. So, you know, I’m in a WhatsApp group and I’m always very nervous as the non-dentist kind of giving an opinion. Like, you know, these guys are really smart. They’ve done five years in a BDS degree, most at King’s, gone on and done probably masters, way more educated and qualified than I am. But I do see…

Andy & Chris (33:04.107)
Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (33:14.48)
because I see the world differently and I always see things through a patient’s perspective. I don’t ever see it through a dentist’s perspective or a clinician’s perspective. I how does the patient perceive it? I think that kind of puts me in a different position. I also think I’ve kind of been taught through my career how to manage people, how to speak to people, how to motivate people. So I can go and I can talk to a dentist, I can talk to a nurse, I can talk to receptionist and I feel like I can get on their wavelength. I feel like I’ve kind of learnt that process through working in the shop as a child, you know, through golf.

Andy & Chris (33:16.727)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (33:20.672)
Yep.

Andy & Chris (33:26.061)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (33:31.463)
Mmm. Mmm.

Andy & Chris (33:43.123)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Kunal Thakker (33:44.456)
and sacks. know, so I’ve kind of learned that hack. I do feel, you know, think that dentists have gone on to grow a group. I think that challenge is probably a little bit harder because they’re so good clinically, but probably haven’t had that same skill. So yeah, it’s a curse and a blessing, but I guess from a marketing perspective, I think particularly, I think I see the world very differently to dentists.

Andy & Chris (34:04.533)
Yeah, you have a different lens. I think for sure. Yeah, I mean personally I think it’s more of a blessing than a curse because I always take the view that there’s enough people in a dental practice that understand dentistry and Arguably, it doesn’t need another person from the dental side. don’t need to be a clinician. Do you need to understand other bits?

Kunal Thakker (34:22.618)
agree and and you know what it’s the classic thing right yeah you know if I hire good clinicians they and I have done I’ve always hired really really good dentists that helped and taught me everything in my first dental practice I didn’t know what composite was right yeah and I had a dentist that’s how I explained the difference between amalgam and composite and I thought right got it right yeah you know no one’s ever had to teach me that again and and I’m also not trying to understand it as a patient how would you explain amalgam versus composite to a patient so it’s a it’s a different it’s a hiring good people I think is key

Andy & Chris (34:34.914)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (34:41.74)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (34:50.797)
Cool. When you first came into dentistry, who was kind to you?

Kunal Thakker (34:57.84)
Gary Chapman. Yeah, Ortman, yeah. Have a lot of love for Gary.

Andy & Chris (34:59.431)
No. Good ol’ Gary.

Kunal Thakker (35:04.164)
and everyone always thinks of themselves as self-supporting. They’re going to be at the bidding table when that time comes, right? There’s no early wins here, Gary’s listening. But I love Gary. I love Gary. I tell you, he’s, exactly. He’s a really good guy, really good human. But he actually, he wasn’t nice to me, he was kind to me, but he actually taught me a lot about business. And he came to look at one of my practices in the early days.

Andy & Chris (35:15.688)
In a retired, by the way.

Andy & Chris (35:27.789)
Hmm.

Kunal Thakker (35:34.05)
and this was that tooth doctor and he came upstairs it was on a high street but it on a first floor and he walked in and said look I can’t buy this but can I have to know what move it downstairs right yeah onto the high street and you’ll double your turnover so I went and did exactly that I went and built it on the high street and I quadrupled my turnover and then today I built a group of dental practices or high street location

Andy & Chris (35:57.644)
Yeah foot foot. Using that principle.

Kunal Thakker (35:59.248)
and it worked and it worked and it worked so well and I built up the social media so that’s how I used to get the patients through upstairs but we really never got it through the thought force so we kind of leveraged both and that was for us was what worked really well was kind of the golden recipe actually having a combination of both and patient experience by the way I that’s really important so you know so that’s what happened so when I did that so every time since I’ve done that and it’s a recipe that works but he was really kind

Andy & Chris (36:27.393)
Hmm.

Kunal Thakker (36:29.272)
to me and even today you know I’ve caught not so much recently but you know in the early days of tooth club I call him up and say how much should I be paying on rent he’s like five percent of turnover or less than five percent of turnover I was like great just nuggets like that having someone at the of the phone that you can call that isn’t going to judge you I mean he may have an end goal in mine but you know there’s no immediate benefit to him but he’s willing to pick up the phone and help me so yeah yeah

Andy & Chris (36:42.688)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (36:48.521)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andy & Chris (36:52.545)
No, he’s a good advice. He’s good advice. He’s a guy. He is a good guy.

Kunal Thakker (36:56.49)
And there’s lots. I think there’s so many good people in this industry. I think it’s a really, really beautiful industry to be part of. When we go to industry events, you meet people and it’s such a nice networking opportunity. Not only do you talk about business, but you build friendships with these people. And we now have a group, a WhatsApp group, of all the non-private equity backed.

Andy & Chris (37:02.197)
Yeah, it’s good people. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (37:10.913)
Yeah, yeah.

Kunal Thakker (37:16.266)
Dental groups, there’s a really nice supportive group. There isn’t any bitching There isn’t any bad mouth and there isn’t any aggressive competition, right? It’s actually how can I help you? I’ve used this product It’s working really well. You should try it, you know, it’s it’s trying to if there’s a real win-win relationship there And I think that’s a really nice evolution

Andy & Chris (37:29.453)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (37:36.238)
Mm-hmm.

But also I think from a market perspective, it’s important because dentistry needs support in various guises and one of those is money. So if as a profession, the profession of working together to all get better and all grow and all deliver better outcomes, that will get more attention with the people that we need. For the better of the profession. Whether it’s the banks, equity, venture guides, whoever it might be, because you need a flood of money in at the top end for any profession to grow. So it’s lovely to hear that the

Kunal Thakker (37:56.472)
Absolutely.

Kunal Thakker (38:03.396)
Yes.

Andy & Chris (38:06.999)
people who are owning money in those groups are collaborating and working together to help improve one another’s business. Well when one of you fails, yes. Well, as in a big failure, it affects everybody else. ripple We see the banks instantly sort of like, whoop, hello, yeah.

Kunal Thakker (38:14.468)
lately.

Kunal Thakker (38:19.618)
Ugh.

Yeah, and I think that’s a really, really good point actually. You know, like where you fail, right now…

I’m particularly, I’m looking for an industry win. I’m looking for a real success story in the PE world, in the acquisition space, because that will then boost the market. It’s going to suppress a little bit. I particularly don’t like people playing down the market. You value your business like what it is. Yes, there’s going to be multiples. You can’t control that multiple, but we shouldn’t be playing down the value of our businesses and things that are really good about our businesses. I strongly believe dental healthcare is such a strong

Andy & Chris (38:48.844)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (38:52.332)
Nope.

Kunal Thakker (39:02.238)
industry that people want to invest in and really good income. It’s a really good business tree. So yes, we’re going through a cycle and a bit like the Lemons and the Credit Crunch, you know, you go through a cycle, we come back out, right? Unfortunately, I feel old enough now to say it, right? But we’ve been through that cycle, I’ve seen it. So we will come through this cycle in the same way. So really control yours. So I do think that actually, do you know, if someone in the industry fails, actually, it’s not a good story.

Andy & Chris (39:03.745)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (39:11.937)
Yeah?

Yeah

Andy & Chris (39:28.161)
No, it’s not bad for everybody. And it’s that thing isn’t it? I remember somebody describing the kind of success a bit like stars in the sky. Imagine if there was only one success. So you only had one star in the sky, how dark the sky would be. But the sky is so pretty because there’s thousands and billions of stars. So everybody can do well, but it takes a particular outlook and mindset to support other people and not see them as being a competitor. And we can all do well.

Kunal Thakker (39:39.94)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (39:54.992)
100 % and even like people when people talk to me about squats I’m always happy to share how I do my squats, you know, what’s important in a squat journey and you know I’m doing something with FMC at the moment on short kind of short videos because I don’t feel threatened by someone else opening a squat actually I love it. I love to what they’ve done. I’d love to see what have you done different, right? Yeah, because we can all learn right and equally hopefully they can learn from some of my mistakes and not make the same ones but also some of good stuff we do so I think actually and and you know what?

Andy & Chris (40:12.045)
Mm.

Mm. Mm.

Andy & Chris (40:20.054)
Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (40:24.996)
the world has more pretty looking flower-dressed dental practices. a win, you know, and there’s 10 year old that won’t go feeling scared to a dentist for the rest of his life.

Andy & Chris (40:29.293)
Yeah, it’s a result especially for florists exactly

Andy & Chris (40:36.949)
It’s interesting, sort of driven, isn’t it, by that the core is the fact of you hated going to the dentist. Yeah. And you’re all what you try and do is create an enjoyable experience. Because as we say on various things, it’s not people wake up on a Monday morning and go, yes, I’m going to the dentist today.

Kunal Thakker (40:43.898)
Yeah, it is.

It is.

Kunal Thakker (40:57.57)
It is a, but my wife’s like, also, I hate going to get my nails done. I just like how I feel afterwards. Right? Yeah. Right. So she still goes to get her nails done every two weeks. Don’t I know it? Right. Yeah. It’s a, but it’s, that same experience of kind of saying, actually, you know, it is going to be a bit uncomfortable, but let’s make it as nice as you can. Let’s have a coffee. Let’s watch a favorite episode, Netflix. And these things don’t cost a lot. The thing that costs a lot actually is the service, right? So to put TVs up on a, on a ceiling doesn’t cost a lot. Having nice coffees doesn’t cost a lot. The biggest cost that we have

Andy & Chris (41:12.171)
Yeah, you’ll get a great outcome. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah

Kunal Thakker (41:27.524)
in our patient journey is service and it’s training our people because you know in the UK the service sector really has has fallen flat right I think it’s gone you know everywhere whether it’s Starbucks whether it’s a know a top-end restaurant you can just see the service levels have deteriorated so my constant battle is around we need to keep our service levels up yeah so motivating the team incentivizing the team to make sure that we are really giving that person service and that’s probably the most expensive bit because I don’t want someone coming to my practice

Andy & Chris (41:36.609)
Yeah. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (41:48.173)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (41:53.229)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Kunal Thakker (41:57.586)
and we sat down like that and we do mystery shoppers all the time by the way because we want to make sure you know that we that we’re constantly evolving our patient journey and and we’re not brilliant by the way because sometimes on social media everything’s all perfect it’s not I’d say we deliver our patients journey probably about 70 % of the time right yeah it’s not good enough we need to get to 100 so constantly striving to get better and better

Andy & Chris (42:01.718)
Yeah. Good.

Andy & Chris (42:11.277)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (42:15.735)
Mm.

Yeah.

But you obviously, you must look at lifetime value of client because that’s what service really gives you. Yeah, you get the hits down your way, maybe in the visalign or implants, but actually, unless you’ve actually got the patient coming in.

Kunal Thakker (42:27.076)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (42:34.374)
Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. Well, we don’t want the one-off Invisalign deal. So we do a lot of offers, if anyone follows us social media. But what you’ll find on our offers, and this is giving away a bit of a nugget, right, is so you want to join, you want to come to Tooth Club and you want £500 off your Invisalign or your composite bonding. We’ll give you that, but you have to join the club. So have to join the membership program. Right, yeah? So we’re going to get you to leave your last dental practice because you’re going to be on a subscription model, yeah? And that’s going to find value. So when they’ve got a toothache, guess where they come?

Andy & Chris (42:39.147)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (42:52.469)
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (42:57.793)
Yeah, lifetime value of clients, so important.

Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (43:04.818)
and it’s hopefully back to us where they’ve been paying for their plan and they’ve had a really good patient experience as well. And we try and pitch ourselves so we’re not too expensive. I know dental isn’t cheap, but we’re certainly not going high-end, top-end, expensive private. We kind of find it nice, but we see it’s certainly not cheap either. We know there’s people that have dentistry.

Andy & Chris (43:10.349)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (43:19.852)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (43:23.229)
Yeah, want consistency don’t you a consistency of revenue. That’s a quality revenue stream. You know, you’re you’re obviously a really busy guy. What what in your personal diary is non-negotiable? Good

Kunal Thakker (43:36.578)
children, my children. So I actually, so I’m based in an office right near my son’s school, so I drop and pick. So my non-negotiables are really, you know, it’s that family time. And actually it’s driven by my wife more than me, I have to be honest with you, right? So actually I like to drop and pick my son and that’s really quality time that I get with him. But my wife mandates dinner together.

Andy & Chris (43:44.481)
Nice.

Andy & Chris (43:48.545)
Well, yeah.

Kunal Thakker (44:00.784)
and it’s something we do in Tooth Club as well actually. we sit down for dinner together every night, at least four nights in a week, we sit down and have dinner together. But actually in Tooth Club we have this thing, concert called Fat Fridays, which we’re now changing if you’re not allowed to use word fat, right? So as you get bigger, I’m getting all these like, need to change the word fat. So Foodie Friday or something else that they wanna do it. But the idea of that is, one lunch time a month, we buy lunch, everyone sits around and it’s that philosophy, families that eat together stay together.

Andy & Chris (44:19.597)
You

Andy & Chris (44:26.317)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (44:30.315)
Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (44:30.968)
And in this challenging world where we’re moving so fast, it’s hard in my own family life. But it’s equally, it’s hard in my practices because people work part time. You know, we’ve got this whole Zoom concept now or Teams concept actually just bringing together and we don’t have an agenda either. So for those foodie Fridays or fat Fridays, there’s no agenda. Just chill and eat. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s all about eating unhealthy food.

Andy & Chris (44:35.872)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (44:40.247)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (44:44.589)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (44:48.749)
have to call it fact Friday.

Andy & Chris (44:56.205)
Good, good. We’ve got to the time where we’ve got two very serious questions that we need to ask you. The first one is if you were flying a wall in a certain situation, who would be there and what would the situation be?

Kunal Thakker (45:01.167)
Yep.

Kunal Thakker (45:10.896)
Cheers.

Right now, I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the White House. Obviously, Trump’s just gone in. I think, yeah, I’d love to see what conversations are going on behind the scenes. He spoke to Putin yesterday. He’s had kind of…

Andy & Chris (45:16.993)
Hahaha!

Kunal Thakker (45:30.778)
Prime Minister of Israel in. So I think that will be really interesting to see what’s going on in the White House and the craziness of it all and his McDonald’s being delivered for his daily dinner or whatever it is. just, yeah, I think that’s, I think that’d be a really interesting place to be right now to see what’s going on.

Andy & Chris (45:38.209)
Yeah.

Yes.

Andy & Chris (45:45.644)
Yeah Yeah, I bet I bet working in his team at the moment especially Elon had popped in Yes, yeah Elon Elon He’s 12 kids. I read just now he’s got 12 children. Has he? Yeah, he’s got like loads of different various wives. Yeah, it said something like 12 children I thought really is that right? I was gonna have to fact check that Wow, I don’t know. He’s got a son called X, isn’t he?

Kunal Thakker (46:03.498)
gosh. yeah, but the US politics now is having such a play in the UK. and, and I think, and, and, but even in dentistry, right. So I follow a lot of dental clinics in LA and it’s amazing to see the inspo, right? Like, you know, we are, we’ve got some way to go. We’ve got some way to get there. And I guess you guys been out to Orlando, right? So you probably have had more of an insight in it. It’s just me on Instagram, looking at these really nice celebrity LA clinics.

Andy & Chris (46:10.663)
yeah.

Andy & Chris (46:16.311)
Mm.

Mm.

Yeah.

Andy & Chris (46:31.979)
Yeah. I think their whole you saying about service. I think their whole approach to service and what excellence looks like in the US is very different. But interestingly enough, unless they’re part of a DSA, they don’t really understand their finances either. It was fascinating. It was really fascinating. We thought they’d all be on it, but they were saying, you’re part of a DSA, you really have no idea that they’re exactly the same as most dentists here. They make enough money. Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (46:45.712)
Right, okay.

Andy & Chris (46:59.541)
And that’s the one measurement. make enough money so it’s okay. But it’s not as much as we used to make. No. And the follow-up question, Kunar, is if you could meet somebody, who would you like to… Living or dead? We always say living or dead. And you can sit down and have a glass of something with them.

Kunal Thakker (47:03.332)
Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (47:16.304)
You know, I’m gonna go US again, right? I wanna meet Elon Musk, right? Because the guy, the guy is nuts, right? He’s absolutely bonkers. He’s fearless. Like he just puts things out on X and he’s just absolutely fearless. Like the resilience, know, resilience is amazing to see. And that’s the thing, he is nuts. I don’t particularly like him. I question the fact that I have a Tesla based on some of what I read of him. And I don’t think I particularly like him as a character, but whatever you say,

Andy & Chris (47:20.077)
there we go. He is bonkers. is.

Andy & Chris (47:41.717)
Hahaha.

Kunal Thakker (47:46.29)
he has revolutionized the electric car industry. He really has, and he’s made something amazing. He’s grown seriously rich, but he’s a great business. he’s able, his business doesn’t rely on him. He can go off and go to the White House and do other things, yet the business is still operating as it should. And so I think he’s nuts. So I’d like a day in the life of a young man.

Andy & Chris (48:01.738)
Mm. Mm.

Doge.

Andy & Chris (48:11.021)
Mm.

It would be interesting. You said an interesting thing that I don’t particularly like him, but I think that’s actually really important. think from a social media point of view, I think it is important that we do follow people that we don’t like, because I the danger is otherwise we just tune in. All of the same. All of the same views, thoughts. And I think listening to people who we don’t like or we don’t share the views with is actually quite good. It’s important to get balance. Because it doesn’t mean because we follow them, we like them. And think there’s a, often there’s a misunderstanding

Kunal Thakker (48:24.261)
Yeah.

Kunal Thakker (48:34.703)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Andy & Chris (48:42.945)
because you follow somebody you like them. I think you can follow people you don’t like, but still learn from them.

Kunal Thakker (48:48.912)
And so as an example, I follow Nigel Farage, right, in the reform party, right? And I always have this thing, you know, is there a little bit of racism in there? You know, I can’t really vote for reform because there’s a little bit of racism. But you know, if you put that to a side, some of the stuff that he’s saying, right, yeah, you know, is, I think, what people are thinking. yeah.

Andy & Chris (48:51.566)
No

Andy & Chris (49:06.263)
Some of the policies are not that bonkers.

Kunal Thakker (49:09.04)
And it’s not PC, and it’s not middle ground, but there is an opinion. And I think absolutely right, we have to listen to the things that we don’t want to listen to, to have a true reality of the world.

Andy & Chris (49:17.581)
Yeah. Yeah. If, if, if only to reinforce the things that are important to us. Yeah. You listen to the other side, at least it gives balance. I think just tuning that out and not having it across your timeline. think that’s, that’s arguably more than prison. You close it is. is. It’s been an absolute joy. It’s fabulous. It’s been a very, very enjoyable conversation. We could talk for hours.

Kunal Thakker (49:40.208)
I’ve loved it, thank you.

Andy & Chris (49:41.55)
But we can’t, can’t. Yeah, no, thank you very much. And yeah, all the best with continuing to grow Tooth Club. I’m sure we’re be seeing a lot more from you and your beautiful pink flowers and your pink practices around the place. Brilliant, look after yourself, cheers. Cheers, Kenil. Ta-da.

Kunal Thakker (49:54.32)
Absolutely. Thanks Andy. Thanks Chris.