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In this edition of the critical mass business show, Host Rick Franzi interviews the president and CEO of Biolase incorporated. The show takes a deep dive on John Beaver’s career and his transition from the solar industry to the dental lasers industry, how his company is changing dental practice with the trending laser technology which is fast sweeping across the U.S dental industry and the world.
John beaver brings a wealth of experience spanning over 25 years to Biolase, he had a successful career as an accountant with Mosanto, Pioneer and Borden Chemicals and then went on to work with Silicor Materials, Silicor Materials is a global leader in the production of solar silicon, during his successful career as CFO of Silicor Materials, he was responsible for the company biggest run rate of growing from zero to $100M within 12 months.
BIOLASE, Inc. is a medical device company and global market leader in the manufacturing and marketing of proprietary dental laser systems. With over 41,200 laser systems sold to date in over 90 countries around the world, BIOLASE lasers are designed to provide clinically superior, patient-friendly results compared to those achieved with traditional instruments. The company enables dentists to elevate their standard of dental care and improve patient outcomes through laser technology.
John Beaver Joined Biolase as a CFO in 2017 and rose to the position of CEO/ President, he had this to say about why he choose to work with Biolase and why the company chose him
“Well, as I mentioned, when I joined Biolase, one of the things that I think attracted them to me and certainly attracted me to them was the opportunity, I felt to get involved in a lot of aspects of the business. Yeah. So, I think my experience has been manufacturing from day one. So, whether or not it was chemicals, solar Silicon and solar cells or dental lasers, it was all manufacturing, making something. I think what also intrigued Biolase was the growth phase that we went through in my solar company going from zero revenue to $100 million run rate revenue in a year. So that high growth and that’s certainly what we expected and expected for Biolase. I think that intrigued them and also the fact that as a CFO at the solar industry, in the solar industry and also in the chemical industry, I kind of was maybe more well-rounded than some people coming out of finance. I’ve been involved in marketing, commercial manufacturing, kind of run the gamut, as you do during start-ups, right”.
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Biolase produces two types of laser for the dental industry, this includes the All-Tissue lasers and the soft tissue lasers. The company currently dominates the all tissue laser market with over 60% market share under the WaterLase Iplus and Waterlase Express range. The company also produces and markets the soft tissue lasers which includes the Epic Pro, Epic Hygiene, Epic X and Epic 10 range.
John Beaver had this to say about his company’s success in the dental lasers industry “So from an all tissue laser standpoint, as I mentioned, we are the leader in the industry. We sell about 60% of these type of lasers to dentists worldwide. We sell in the US with direct commercial organization, direct sales organization and we sell in over 80 countries worldwide through distributors and so for Waterlase, the all tissue laser has over 80 FDA cleared indications all the way from treating periodontal disease, to healing sick implants to taking your kid to get a cavity restored without having a shot or the drill, kind of less pain, less shot dentistry for anatomy in a less invasive way. So, it’s all around providing what we believe is really the gold standard of care and dentistry, less invasive nature of the procedures and when you look at the body, the mouth is the last part of the body that the lasers haven’t taken over as a gold standard of care”.
John Beaver believes his company is at the early adopter’s phase for Biolase laser technology and is quite optimistic the market is only covered about 10% and the technology will explode in the coming years as more dentists switch to lasers. He had this to say “Yes. I will tell you that adoption is always slower than you think, and then it becomes an overnight success 20 year in the making. It’s amazing. What I’ve learned is really I’ve studied a lot about the technology adoption curve and when you look at that, it really doesn’t matter what industry. That’s really where we made I think the biggest strides at Biolase over the last few years is changing the company to really address that early adopter segment of the population, which is what we’re in now and then if you look at those change curves, once you get about halfway through that early adopter segment, penetrating with technology, it really becomes exponential growth”.
COVID impacted biolase growth as the dental industry essentially shut down, however the company used the opportunity to organize over 300 webinars for dental professionals to educate practitioners about their range of lasers and demo the products. This quick pivot enabled the company to quickly bounce back post-COVID as they had a lot of potential leads off of those webinars. John had this to say about the COVID impact on Biolase and how they responded. “One of the advantages that we had, though, and certainly didn’t realize it at the time. But looking back on it, we quickly pivoted as dental offices were shut down in the spring and early summer of 2020 to doing a lot of webinars. I mentioned that education is so important to this segment that we’re trying to introduce the technology to and we had over 300 webinars during about a three-month period, and we touched about 20,000 dentists, which was tremendous educational, showing what the technology can do both on the soft tissue and all tissue space. Now what that allowed us to do is once we could get back into office, we had a significant number of marketing qualified leads.” John believes Biolase has fully bounced back from COVID and the company has now surpassed pre-COVID revenues.
John Beaver’s vision is to raise a generation of kids not afraid of going to the dentist, and the team at Biolase continue to pursue mass market adoption of laser technology in the dental industry. John’s ultimate goals are to accelerate the adoption of lasers to become the gold standard of care in dentistry. “The advantages in laser treatment are significant. Lasers are less invasive, provide higher levels of safety and often allow quicker treatment – all of which allows the dental patient to receive a positive and healthy experience”
John Beaver is passionate about his work at Biolase and he had this to say about his company’s impact in the community and his vision for Biolase laser technology in years to come “if kids aren’t afraid to go to the dentist and teenagers aren’t, young adults aren’t. Adults aren’t. Right and so, we get them early and so, I’m very passionate about providing Orange County with better dental health care for children. I’m on the board of Healthy Smiles for Kids of Orange County, and we’ve donated some lasers to them and training and so forth. I love that they’re getting that training, but from a vision at Biolase, it’s all around accelerating that adoption curve. Ok. I know this is going to happen. There’s no doubt in my mind that every dentist will have a laser in their office 100 years from now”
Host / Podcast Bio
Ric Franzi works exclusively with business owners and leadership teams of firms with between 5 and 250 employees. Ric mentors business leaders to live a better life through the peer groups and EOS implementations he leads.
Ric is one of the nation’s foremost experts on CEO Peer Groups®. His work has been featured in national media such as Inc.com, CNBC, American Express Open Forum, and the local publications Orange County Register and Orange County Business Journal. He is the author of the landmark book Critical Mass The 10 Explosive Powers of CEO Peer Groups, the first ever book written about the value of CEO Peer Groups® . His second book, The Power of CEO Guiding Principles, is now in its third release. The book features over 100 CEOs sharing insights into their guiding principles.
Ric chairs CEO Peer Groups® in Orange County, California, and is the host for the internationally broadcasted internet radio show Critical Mass Radio Show. He is a sought after keynote speaker for middle market companies and professional associations across North America.
This podcast was brought to you by Critical Mass Business Talk Show, Orange county’s longest running business talk show. You can listen to the full podcast here or your favorite podcast app.
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Guest Bio
John R. Beaver was named President and Chief Executive Officer of BIOLASE on February 22, 2021. Previously, John served as Executive Vice President and CFO, and he was later promoted to EVP, Chief Operating Officer and CFO on August 30, 2020. Prior to his role as EVP, COO & CFO, John served as Interim President & CEO of BIOLASE, ending on August 8, 2018. John joined BIOLASE as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in October 2017. John brings substantial leadership and technical experience in finance and business management in both public and private companies.
John holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin and is a Certified Public Accountant.
