A squat trades goodwill cost for ramp-up risk: you pay nothing for patients because there aren't any yet. Done well it's the cheapest route to ownership. Done naively it's eighteen months of payroll with an empty book.
Guide · Evergreen — kept current
Buying an existing practice means paying for goodwill but banking income from day one. A squat means no goodwill — but a build and fit-out bill, equipment, staff hired before revenue exists, and months (realistically a year or more) of building a patient base. The right comparison isn't "which is cheaper" but "which do the numbers support in this location with your following?" A dentist with a strong local reputation and a visible site starts a squat with real advantages; a buyer relocating to a new area usually shouldn't.
Budget honestly for: premises (lease premiums, rent-free negotiations, planning use), fit-out and build (routinely the biggest line, and the one that overruns), surgery equipment, IT and software, CQC registration (England) and compliance setup, marketing from before day one — and working capital: the salaries, rent and your own drawings for the months before the practice washes its face. Under-capitalising the ramp-up is the classic squat failure; the build gets funded, the eighteen months after it doesn't.
Dental-specialist lenders fund squats, but they fund modelled squats: a month-by-month cash flow through the ramp-up, patient-number growth assumptions you can defend, a break-even point, and evidence you've priced the downside (slower growth, higher build cost). We build these plans with founders — realistic enough to survive credit committee, honest enough to protect you from your own optimism.
Once open, track monthly: new patient numbers, diary utilisation, average treatment values, plan sign-ups, and actual-versus-plan cash flow. An empty Tuesday in month three is a data point to act on — adjust marketing, hours, mix — not a reason to panic. The founders who struggle are the ones who stop looking.
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The build and fit-out is usually the largest cost, followed by equipment — but the figure that decides success is working capital for the ramp-up: salaries, rent and your own drawings for the months before the practice covers its costs. Fund the whole journey, not just the build.
Yes — dental-specialist lenders actively fund squats for credible applicants, but they lend against a properly modelled month-by-month plan with defensible patient-growth assumptions and a clear break-even. A strong personal following in the local area materially strengthens the case.
It varies with location, mix and marketing, but plan conservatively in the twelve-to-twenty-four-month range and treat anything faster as upside. The practices that hit trouble are those that funded only the build and assumed the diary would fill itself.
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