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Office Visit: Dr. Conor Perrin

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Office Visit: Dr. Conor Perrin 

Dr. Conor Perrin shares the highs, lows and lessons he’s learned in practice—and shows off his stylish California office

by Kyle Patton, Editor
photography by Christina Gandolfo

Dentists spend most of their working hours inside their own practices, so they usually don’t get many opportunities to see what it’s like inside another doctor’s office. Dentaltown’s recurring Office Visit profile offers a chance for Townies to meet their peers, hear their stories and get a sense of how they practice.
Dr. Conor Perrin, an ADA Design Innovation Award finalist, has combined his passion for aesthetics with a desire for independence.

“I wanted the freedom to be able to treatment plan the way I wanted,” he says. “I wanted the freedom to not have to beg for time off. I wanted to be in control of my life and not have to hustle to make money for someone else.”

In this exclusive Q&A, Dr. Perrin shares insights from the challenges of managing a startup, his unique approach to practice design, and how he is navigating today’s competitive Orange County market. He also opens up about the highs and lows of practice ownership, including strategies that have helped his practice thrive.


Office Highlights
NAME:
Dr. Conor Perrin

GRADUATED FROM:
University of Southern California

PRACTICE NAME:
The Tooth Co. 
Irvine, California

PRACTICE SIZE:
1,850 square feet; 6 ops

TEAM SIZE:
3
How did you find your way into dentistry?
My road to dentistry wasn’t exactly straightforward. As a child, I didn’t know I wanted to be a dentist. I wanted to dig up dinosaurs for a living—obviously that didn’t pan out—but I set myself on becoming a physician in high school. However, I took an AP Art History course my senior year of high school and have always had a passion for art beyond the sciences, so I decided to major in that at USC while completing my other pre-med classes. While completing my studies, I had a friend at USC’s dental school who had me check out what he was up to. I was immediately drawn to how dentistry is truly a mixture of engineering, science and art. This ignited in me a desire to tilt my career path, where I then applied to USC’s former Pathway Program (Dental Hygiene + DDS) that you begin in undergrad. I was fortunate to be accepted into it and began the program the next year.


You were a finalist for the ADA Design Innovation Awards in the new builds category. What are the design and functional elements of your office that you’re most proud of?
I absolutely had a vision for what I wanted to create, so I was fortunate to have a talented team surrounding me. We all ran various ideas past each other and ultimately decided on structuring the office to make it feel like an upscale hotel lobby, with more of a showroom feel toward the front and a separate back office. The purpose behind this is that when patients walk in, we don’t want them to hear confidential financial conversations, phones constantly ringing or anything that could lead to stress or a feeling that the office is way too busy. We want them to feel like VIPs.


Where did the inspiration come from in regard to your office design?
When I was thinking about the design, I wanted to do something that was incredibly different from what you typically see. In the past five to seven years, a lot of the new builds dominating the market are all white marble modern spaceships. They’re very beautiful, but I wanted my space to seem less cold and sterile, with a feeling of warmth and more casual sophistication. That’s how the colors, the finishes and the overall feel came to be. No one likes going to the dentist, so we want to make this as pleasant of an experience as possible.

Since I wanted the office to focus on cosmetic work like veneers and bonding, I knew it needed a more upscale look to stand out, especially in my area of Orange County. When designing this “Tesla Showroom” front area, we knew we had to add that wow factor to the finishes in consultation room.
Admittedly, you’re still learning the business side of the practice. What practice management changes have you made over since you started and why?
Oh geez … this is something that changes monthly. Recently I joined an online consulting program. It’s been incredibly helpful in terms of putting together a practice dashboard that has all my metrics, how to calculate them and how to keep your employees accountable with KPIs. The program emphasizes only choosing a few quarterly goals and trying not to overwhelm yourself with too much at once. When you have too many fires to put out, none of them get any water. Being the person in charge of a start-up practice is so anxiety inducing, and he offers many strategies like meditation and reviewing affirmations.

Additionally, one of the things that we now do every morning is what we call a “morning opportunity meeting.” We have a white board that goes over what we produced and collected the previous day, what’s coming up on the schedule today, and our monthly run estimate. This helps keep the team incredibly goal oriented. In the beginning months of my practice, I was working with another consultant, and she was very helpful in terms of establishing a lot of general systems to be followed in our office. I think it’s important if you don’t have business or management experience to hire someone with the skills to show you how to be a successful leader.


Short-term goals of yours focus on clinical growth. What are you aiming to do and why do you feel that is so important early in your career?
With a start-up, it’s so tough. You’re always trying different marketing modalities—it’s kind of like throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks. I’m hoping we get to a point soon where I’m able to find consistency with patient acquisition. As for my long-term goals, I want to have all five operatories in use with three hygienists five days a week. Then, maybe I’m performing solely cosmetic cases because my passion is with composite and porcelain veneers. Once to twice a month I would have specialists—such as an endodontist to complete root canals and a periodontist to do implants and gum surgeries—rotating through the office. In the long-long-term I would love to bring this business model to a different city … potentially somewhere like Scottsdale, Dallas or Nashville.


A lot of your marketing is accomplished through Instagram. What tips or advice do you have for dentists who might not be making the use out of Instagram or other social media platforms?
We had a lot of luck with Instagram, but if I’m giving my honest opinion … I find social media to be a mixed bag. One of the things I don’t love about Instagram/TikTok is that it takes so much time to make the content. I’m a bit of a control freak with how the finished product looks, so I tend not to delegate this. To anyone getting started on Instagram for their office, I would highly recommend that they either use a virtual assistant to help with editing or something like ChatGPT to help with ideas for captions or content. It can be a major time drain so I wouldn’t put all your eggs into Instagram or TikTok alone. There are a lot of other ways to acquire patients more quickly, and a substantial following with major organic reach can take years to accomplish, if ever. I’ve hired content creators or social media managers but they end up being too expensive and underperforming, so I always go back to doing it myself.

I also recommend being cautious about Instagram’s algorithm. It will often bury your content if you use repetitive hashtags. Additionally, the videos I pour the most time and effort into sometimes get no reach or engagement, while the throwaways get much more traction. I’m still figuring it out! I would agree that you should market for what you want to bring into the office, but you must highlight what sets you apart. Even though I’ve done lots of education videos, I would steer clear of these and focus solely on operative type stuff as the educational content is a dime a dozen these days. I don’t mean to sound disenchanted, but you’ll definitely need to increase ad revenue to generate true leads, and I would absolutely focus on specialized procedures with ads rather than going after a general patient. It’s easier to capture people at the bottom of the search funnel rather than those who might not be looking.


What’s your message to associates who want to start their own practices?
One of the factors that quickly pushed me towards ownership was the fact that I wanted freedom. I wanted the freedom to be able to treatment plan the way I wanted. I wanted the freedom to not have to beg for time off. I wanted to be in control of my life and not have to hustle to make money for someone else. A lot of classmates I keep in touch with say that they still don’t feel ready, that they need more time. Here’s the thing: after a year or two in practice, you’re going to have the skills and the speed to be able to do most procedures that are required to own a successful dental office.

Many people are afraid to walk that plank and think they’ll eventually develop operational confidence in an associateship, but until you’re an owner, you’re never going to have fully developed your leadership potential. Once you take the leap, you’ll realize it isn’t so bad and you’ll incrementally level up each month. To this day, there are many things I’m still learning about with ownership. But to develop these skills and embark on the road to reaching your potential, you’ll need to swim into the deep end.


Tell us about your area, the nearby competition and how you position yourself and your practice.
Part of the reason I chose this area of Irvine is that it’s very centrally located. It’s a quick feed from South County, Newport Beach and Laguna. However, Irvine has multiple dentists on each block which makes competition incredibly tough. I also don’t have visibility from my location as we’re in a medical building. Irvine proper has many insurance-based offices that serve the city’s young, corporate-employed population. We’re reaching out to these companies to increase employee awareness of what makes us unique. Many of our ideal patients also reside in Newport Beach. Newport also has many dentists, but many are near retirement age and have offices that haven’t been updated in 30 plus years. We’ve begun to attract some younger patients from this area. When we highlight the technology that modern dentistry offers, they are wowed, leading to an increase in referrals.
Top Products
SprintRay_Conor-Perrin_Office-VisitSPRINTRAY PRO 55S ^
Great for printing models for mockups, whitening trays and temporaries for full mouth cases. I also do veneers on the machine. The setup and software are incredibly easy to use, and it really makes my workflow more efficient.

ITERO LUMINA
This scanner helps me streamline my exams by focusing on four areas that the patient needs to know about: overall smile, bite, gum health and tooth health. I’m able to go back and forth, referencing the scan and the real-life photo next to it.

3M SOF-LEX DISCS
I use these all the time for fillings and they are so great for creating the right contour around your marginal ridge. There’s no way to get the proper contour without these. Also amazing for anterior work in smoothing the composite after curing.

AQUACARE
An air abrasion system that helps enhance bonding by increasing surface area in your prep. I also love it because it helps clean off unsupported enamel quickly and also cleans temporary cement off the prep immediately.

GC A’CHORD
By far one of the best composites I’ve used. It polishes and blends with the natural tooth color beneath it remarkably well and I love using it for both anterior and posterior cases.


What’s your hot take in dentistry?
Crowns are outdated and often overprescribed. In today’s dental world, crowns are being used far too often as a one-size-fits-all solution. As modern dentists, we need to rethink their necessity. The truth is, many dentists are quick to prescribe crowns for cases that could be better treated with more conservative methods like inlays, onlays or even direct composite restorations. These options not only preserve more of the natural tooth structure but also are less invasive, reducing the need for extensive drilling and the associated risks of tooth trauma and nerve damage.

Crowns are often overprescribed because they are seen as a durable solution, but that durability comes at a cost. Removing significant amounts of healthy tooth structure to place a crown can weaken the tooth in the long run, making it more susceptible to future problems like fractures. Plus, with newer, stronger bonding materials and techniques available today, we have the tools to create restorations that are just as durable without compromising the tooth’s integrity.

The financial incentive for dentists to recommend crowns cannot be ignored either. Crowns are a high-ticket item in most dental practices, leading to a potential conflict of interest where patient care might take a back seat to profitability.


How do you think dental schools could better prepare the next generation dentists?
Dental school is fantastic at teaching us how to be excellent clinicians—we learn how to handle just about any dental procedure with precision. But when it comes to the business side of things, there’s a huge gap. Most of us go into dentistry with the dream of owning our practice someday, but the reality is that we’re often not given the tools we need to make that happen successfully.

Think about it. Running a dental practice isn’t just about filling cavities or placing crowns. It’s a full-on business, and that means dealing with everything from managing finances, to marketing your services, handling HR issues, understanding insurance and even something as simple as managing cash flow. These are all crucial to running a successful practice, yet many of us graduate with little to no training in these areas.

What I’d love to see is dental schools integrating more comprehensive business and operations training into their curriculums. It doesn’t need to be overly complicated, but a few solid courses on financial management, marketing, leadership and the other basics of running a practice could make a world of difference. Even hands-on experiences, like internships with established practices or simulations of running a practice, would be incredibly valuable.

It’s not just for those of us who want to own our practices. Even if you’re working as an associate or in a group practice, having a strong grasp of the business side allows you to make more informed decisions, advocate for yourself and understand the broader context of the profession. In short, dental schools need to recognize that modern dentists are not just clinicians—we’re also entrepreneurs and leaders.


What was your most humbling experience in dentistry? Likewise, what has been your proudest moment so far?
Honestly, the most humbling experience for me was when I first set up my own practice. In dental school and during my associateship, everything was laid out for me. You focus on your patients, do the work and then you go home—your day ends when you walk out the door. But when you’re the one in the driver’s seat, owning the business, it’s a whole different ballgame.

I quickly realized how much I didn’t know about running a practice. Getting patients through the door wasn’t as simple as just putting up a sign and expecting them to come in. There’s a massive learning curve when it comes to marketing, understanding cash flow, managing staff and even the nitty-gritty of insurance. You have to wear so many hats that it can feel overwhelming at times.

There were days when I questioned whether I’d made the right decision—times when the phone wasn’t ringing as much as I’d hoped, and I had to figure out why. It’s not something they teach you in dental school, and it’s definitely not something you fully grasp until you’re in the thick of it.

But that experience taught me resilience and the importance of constantly learning and adapting. It made me a better dentist and a stronger business owner. It’s been tough, but seeing the practice grow and knowing that I’ve built something from the ground up is incredibly rewarding. It’s a reminder that success doesn’t come easy, and it’s the challenges that shape you the most.

My proudest moment was completing my first full-mouth veneer case. From the initial consultation to working closely with the ceramist and scheduling multiple appointments, it was a true collaborative effort. Seeing the patient’s reaction when he finally saw the result was incredibly rewarding. It was a long process, but ensuring he was thrilled with his new smile made all the hard work worth it. That experience really reinforced why I love what I do.


Do you have a favorite patient story?
I don’t have any standouts that I can think of, but I had a patient come in whose wife saw one of my fliers and forced him to come into the office to fix his smile. I could tell he did not want to be there. He had fractures and cavities everywhere, and it was awesome being able to work with him each week and see his demeanor change until we completed his case. Toward the end both he and his wife came in for the final reveal of his veneers and his wife cried, then he did too. There’s something so rewarding about being able to change a person’s life like that, to give them a new sense of purpose and confidence.


What’s an inexpensive (under $500) investment or purchase you’ve made that has made the best impact? What high-dollar investment has given you the best ROI, either in terms of actual money or just improving you or your practice?
One of the best investments I’ve made for under $500 is the Fixlite camera flash system by Calin Pop. It’s an expensive camera flash diffusion tool, but the difference it makes in the quality of my dental photos is incredible. The lighting it provides is perfect for capturing detailed, professional-grade images, which are crucial for both patient communication and case documentation. Better photos mean clearer explanations for patients, which helps them make more informed decisions about their treatment. It’s been great for me on Instagram too as my photos highly stand out amongst the competition in my region, and I have gotten consults from patients who specifically mention the quality of my photos.


Give us a snapshot of your life outside of dentistry.
Life has been a bit chaotic the past year with getting the practice up and going, but things are falling into more of a rhythm. During the week I’m usually laying low around here, hiking in Laguna and Newport, riding my bike around Back Bay and playing Pickleball at the racquet club. I’ve also been trying to work on my cooking skills, as I do takeout too frequently. On the weekends I’m usually back up around where I lived in Venice Beach. I love being around Abbot Kinney (a popular shopping and restaurant/bar street in Venice) and am usually having dinner and drinks around there when catching up with friends. I’m also an avid skier and try to get as many weekends in as possible in the winter. Lastly, I’m also into scuba diving, and have worked up a few certifications to be able to do some cooler dives while traveling. I’ll occasionally dive off the coast here but even in the summer our water is chilly.
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September 2025
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