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Show Notes

Ben Barter has never drilled a tooth in his life, but he’s spent more time in dental events than most dentists. He joins Payman as co-founder of Dental Assembly, the latest venture in a career built entirely on getting corporates and suppliers into the same room, first at Open Rooms, then Dental Forum, and now running his own show.

In between, there’s a properly strange detour: a price comparison app for beauty products, built with zero knowledge of beauty or technology, launched into a global pandemic, and later pitched successfully on Dragons Den. Ben talks candidly about what actually convinces an investor to back two people with no relevant experience, and the gut feeling he ignored right before a bus full of a hundred people failed to turn up in Dubai.

There’s a decent amount of shop talk here too, on why fun is a business strategy rather than an afterthought, and why splitting an event by practice size might be the most underrated idea in dental networking right now.

In This Episode

00:00:45 – Introduction

00:01:00 – Life running dental events

00:09:45 – Getting into events

00:12:55 – Lessons from Open Rooms

00:15:45 – Starting Skin during Covid

00:21:15 – Going on Dragons Den

00:26:20 – Raising money for the first time

00:28:30 – Launching Dental Assembly

00:33:00 – Structuring the events

00:37:35 – Why fun matters

00:48:45 – Touchpoints beyond the event

00:50:55 – Blackbox thinking

01:01:45 – Favourite resource and book

01:04:40 – Fantasy dinner party

01:08:05 – Growing up and life outside events

About Ben Barter

Ben Barter is co-founder of Dental Assembly, an events business connecting dental groups with suppliers, and previously spent nine years at Open Rooms and Dental Forum. He also co-founded Skin, a price comparison app for beauty products that secured investment on Dragons Den, before returning to dental events full time.