Mission
To leverage technology and world-class service to empower dentists to run a healthy practice.
Our Story
The year was 1996 and our founder, Dr. Pat Cassidy, his wife Donna, and their 3 kids, were on route to the mountains of North Carolina for a family vacation. Pat and Donna had decided to pick a “winner” from 3 new business ideas they had come up with, while the kids took turns harassing one another.
One of the ideas stemmed from a solo practice startup attempt in Vancouver, British Columbia, a few years prior. Unfortunately, the business struggled and eventually failed despite his best efforts. How could that have happened to a guy who had placed first in his 4th year graduating class at dental school? Dr. Cassidy was determined to dig deeper to answer that question, not wanting to experience such a personal and professional setback ever again.
With the humility and perspective gained from the practice startup, Dr. Cassidy became immersed in studying the business of dentistry trying to uncover the factors that increase likelihood of success — and what pitfalls to avoid. One of the most powerful insights for him was the mistaken and often unconscious belief coming out of dental school that academic and clinical excellence provided a sure path to business success. Simply not true. No amount of clinical expertise or knowledge will overcome poor business practices. Sadly, it seemed that struggling dentists tended to suffer in silence instead of seeking help from successful colleagues.
One fateful day he was addressing one of the business challenges of growing his new practice in North Carolina — sorting through dental catalogs of the big retailers such as Henry Schein (HSIC) and Patterson Dental (PDCO), along with flyers from numerous smaller dealers and manufacturers, trying to find best pricing. In that moment he realized that dentists could cut supply costs dramatically if all product information was in an electronic catalog, where dentists could save money by shopping across all vendors at one time. That insight turned out to be the winning idea on the 1996 trip, made official with the incorporation of the new company in August 1st, 1997.
The original idea was simply to create a website with the best selection of professional dental supplies. In subsequent years aspirations have evolved, and in addition to best selection, our goal is to provide the very best online service in the dental industry, with lowest possible pricing, industry leading transparency and ease of use. Net32 allows you to reduce your overhead significantly. That’s not all of it, but it sure helps.
Net32 today
Net32 was founded to be an advocate for dentists. Dr. Cassidy believes that if we share our knowledge, stories, and what we’ve learned we will all improve. The core of Net32 is dental supplies and our community centers around the purchase, care, and use, of dental products with over 55,000 product reviews and over 10,000 vendor reviews — by dental professionals.
It must be mentioned that Dr. Cassidy believes that his wife Donna, President of Net32, is equally if not more, responsible for the success of Net32, and that there is nothing more powerful than her and the Net32 team’s commitment to helping dentists build, grow, and maintain healthy practices.