Product Objectives & Initiatives
Five product objectives define what we're trying to achieve. Eight initiatives organise the work. Specific problems within each initiative drive execution. If we solve the problems, the initiatives deliver. If the initiatives deliver, the objectives move.
Solving problems across these objectives drives adoption, retention, and growth. Every initiative maps to one or more objectives. Every problem within an initiative has a direct line to measurable impact. Nothing is built without a reason.
Product Objectives
01
Provable ROI
Visible time savings and case acceptance at practice level — evidence the buyer can see.
Provable ROI
Patient Packs
02
Value From Every Consultation
Notes and patient education delivered together, throughout the day — not one or the other.
Product Usability
Platform Performance
Patient Packs
03
Trusted AI Notes
Clinically accurate, specialism-aware — ≥95% accuracy, <2 min editing.
Notes Accuracy & Clinical Workflow
Guided Setup
04
Bulletproof Recording
Every consultation captured, every time — 99.9% uptime, zero silent failures.
Session Capture
Platform Performance
05
Fast Self-Serve Activation
New users reach value without hand-holding — first consultation within 48 hours.
Guided Setup
Product Usability
How It Connects
Objectives
What we're trying to achieve. Measurable, outcome-focused. These don't change quarter to quarter — they define what success looks like.
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Initiatives
Coherent workstreams that drive the objectives. Each initiative groups related problems and scopes a clear area of ownership.
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Problems
Specific things that are broken or missing. Solving these is what moves initiatives forward and delivers against objectives.
Session Capture
From the moment a dentist thinks about recording to the moment they have a confirmed transcript — nothing breaks and nothing requires effort.
This initiative covers the entire recording lifecycle: pre-session setup, in-session confidence, and post-session confirmation. The goal is to make every consultation captured, every time, with zero cognitive overhead for the clinician. This is the foundation — if capture fails, nothing downstream can deliver value.
Problems We're Tackling
Three documented product problems from our workshop and user research sit within this initiative's scope.
Problem 1
Service Reliability
When Chairsyde has a service outage, the entire pipeline fails — transcripts aren't uploaded, there's no automatic recovery, and the dentist has to contact us to report it.
Problem 2
Recording Confidence
There's no clear, persistent indication that recording is working. Silent failures happen without alerting the user, which means dentists don't trust the system is capturing.
Problem 4
Transcript Fail-safe
There's no local backup or recovery when connectivity drops. A single outage can destroy an entire consultation's record.
"Sometimes both were turned on, timer running, but not recording. I got many empty notes because I opened Chairside before turning the mic on."
— Alistair, GDP
"Sometimes my laptop goes into hibernation and the transcription is lost. The internet disconnects accidentally. I lose the whole transcript."
— Ihsaan, Clinical Director
Initiative Scope
Pre-Session — Zero Friction Start
- Simplified mic setup — Dentist knows their audio is ready in seconds, not minutes wasted pairing and troubleshooting
- Pre-session audio check — Confirms the mic is detecting speech before recording starts, not just "connected"
- Mic status memory — System remembers which mic this dentist uses in this room and auto-selects it
- Wrong device warning — Flags if recording would use the laptop mic instead of the external mic before the session begins
- Session metadata capture — Collect key context before recording starts: consultation type (new patient, recall, treatment), which practice the patient is registered at, and other inputs that improve notes accuracy and reporting downstream. Values remembered and selectable so it's seconds, not data entry
In-Session — Recording Confidence
- Persistent recording indicator — Visible across every screen in Chairsyde so the dentist always knows capture is working
- Live audio level feedback — Visual confirmation that speech is being picked up, not just that recording is "on"
- Recording interruption alert — Active, unmissable alert if audio drops or mic disconnects mid-session
- Local audio buffer — Audio cached locally so connectivity drops don't destroy the recording; syncs automatically when connection resumes
- Session state persistence — Laptop hibernation, tab closure, or page refresh doesn't kill the session
- Cross-tab recording control — When the dentist leaves the Chairsyde tab to work in Dentally or another system, a persistent picture-in-picture widget stays visible with recording status, audio level feedback, and pause/stop controls — so they always know it's working without switching back
Post-Session — Confirmation & Handoff
- Capture confirmation — Immediate, unambiguous confirmation that the full session was captured with duration shown
- Failure notification with recovery — If capture failed, tell the dentist what happened and offer recovery from local backup
- Automatic retry and sync — Failed uploads retry automatically without requiring dentist action
- Direct failure alerting — If transcription or upload encounters errors, the dentist is notified immediately through an active alert (not buried in the UI) so they can take action while the consultation is still fresh, rather than discovering the failure hours later
Initiative Boundary
In Scope
- Session start workflow and UX
- Mic and audio device management
- Recording status and confidence indicators
- Connectivity resilience and local fail-safe
- Session capture confirmation
- Service recovery and error handling
- Chrome extension recording experience
Out of Scope
- Notes quality and clinical accuracy
- Template customisation and personalisation
- PMS note formatting and transfer
- Animation content discovery and playback
- Organisational accounts
- Patient follow-up and communication
Core Outcomes
Trust in the System
Dentists stop maintaining backup workflows because they believe Chairsyde will capture everything. Trust is the prerequisite for habit formation.
Recording Confidence
At every point during a consultation, the dentist knows recording is working. No silent failures, no empty sessions discovered after the patient leaves.
Reduced Friction
Starting a recording becomes a single action within the dentist's existing PMS workflow, not a separate multi-step process.
Resilience
Connectivity drops, laptop hibernation, and Wi-Fi instability no longer destroy consultation records. The system recovers automatically.
Clearer UX
Recording status, mic selection, session state, and errors are all immediately obvious and unambiguous.
Foundation for Everything Else
Notes quality, animation delivery, ROI measurement, and practice-level intelligence all depend on consultations being captured reliably.
Guided Setup
From first login to a personalised, ready-to-use Chairsyde — without needing CS to hold your hand.
This initiative covers the first-run experience: collecting clinician context, recommending the right templates and content, and curating a personalised homepage. The goal is to get it right for 80% of users out of the box. The remaining 20% who need deeper customisation are handled by CWS/CSM — but the product does the heavy lifting, not people.
Problems We're Tackling
Five documented product problems sit within this initiative's scope.
Problem 5
Consultation-Specific Templates
Generic templates rather than ones aligned to consultation type. Dentists outside the default get poor output.
Problem 8
Template Customisation
Getting a template right requires weeks of iteration. Most users give up before reaching value.
Problem 11
Personalisation
No way to tailor Chairsyde to feel like "my account." Every dentist starts from a generic baseline.
Problem 17
Specialism Tailoring
One-size-fits-all rather than tailored to implants, ortho, endo, cosmetic.
Problem 19
Self-Serve Onboarding & Learning
Every new user requires manual hand-holding to reach value. Can't scale without proportional CS headcount.
"A couple of months. And also a lot of the time the notes that it generated initially I just didn't really end up using."
— Alistair, GDP
"I've reached a plateau with the software because I haven't engaged you guys. The playlist I don't know how to do properly yet."
— Ihsaan, Clinical Director
Initiative Scope
Clinician Profiling — Tell Us About You
- Specialism selection — Dentist identifies their focus so Chairsyde configures itself around how they actually work
- Consultation type preferences — Capture which appointment types they see most to prioritise the right templates
- PMS identification — Know which system they use so output formatting is relevant from day one
Guided Configuration — We Set It Up For You
- Specialism-specific template recommendations — Pre-built templates matched to their specialism, ready to use immediately
- Animation and playlist curation — Recommend key videos and playlists for their specialism
- Guided template selection — Walk through choosing and previewing templates, with ability to refine later
- Quick-start content packages — Bundled sets per specialism that give a working setup in minutes
Personalised Homepage — Your Chairsyde
- Curated homepage — Reflects the dentist's specialism, preferred content, and recent activity
- Quick access to key actions — Start recording, access animations, view consultations from one place
- Progressive setup prompts — Guide through remaining steps without overwhelming on day one
Initiative Boundary
In Scope
- First-run onboarding flow
- Clinician profiling and specialism selection
- Specialism-specific template library
- Template and content recommendation
- Guided animation and playlist selection
- Personalised homepage redesign
- Progressive setup prompts
Out of Scope
- Template builder and deep customisation
- Notes generation quality
- Recording workflow and mic setup
- Organisational accounts
- PMS integration
- Ongoing personalisation over time
Core Outcomes
Self-Serve Activation
New users reach their first consultation without a CS walkthrough. Onboarding goes from months to minutes.
Personalised From Day One
Chairsyde feels built for this dentist's specialism. Reduces the "this doesn't work for me" dropout.
Faster Time to Value
Usable templates and relevant content immediately. First consultation within 48 hours of account creation.
Reduced CS Dependency
CS shifts from manual onboarding to high-value support. Business scales without proportional CS headcount.
Content Discovery Solved at Source
Right animations and playlists surfaced during setup based on specialism. No browsing required.
Homepage That Earns Its Place
The homepage becomes the launchpad for daily use rather than a dead screen dentists skip past.
Platform Performance
The platform is fast, reliable, and resilient — so dentists never notice it and never lose work.
This initiative covers the underlying infrastructure, speed, and resilience of the Chairsyde platform. If animations buffer, transcripts vanish, notes take too long, or the service drops without recovery, nothing else matters. The goal is a platform dentists can trust to work every time, without thinking about it.
Problems We're Tackling
Problem 1
Service Reliability
Outages kill the pipeline, no automatic recovery. We discover failures when users complain, not when they happen.
Problem 6
Notes Generation Speed
No measurement or guarantee of generation time. If the dentist is waiting, the workflow breaks.
Problem 9
Animation Playback Reliability
Loading delays, buffering, unreliable TV mirroring. Dentists skip videos rather than risk dead air.
"It takes like five minutes just to get it to start off on the TV. I haven't persevered with trying to get that bit right."
— Urvin, Orthodontist
Initiative Scope
Service Reliability — We Know Before You Do
- Uptime monitoring and alerting — We detect outages before users report them
- Automatic service recovery — Failed pipelines retry and self-heal without manual intervention
- Incident visibility — Internal team has real-time platform health awareness
- Connectivity resilience — Platform degrades gracefully on poor Wi-Fi rather than failing silently
Notes Generation — Ready When You Are
- Generation speed target — Notes within 30 seconds, measured and monitored
- Progress visibility — Dentist sees generation status rather than waiting blind
- Failure handling — If generation fails, immediate notification with retry option
Animation Delivery — Instant Playback
- Content delivery optimisation — Animations load and play instantly, not buffer while the patient watches
Core Outcomes
Invisible Infrastructure
Dentists stop noticing the platform. No buffering, no waiting, no failures. Technology disappears behind the workflow.
Instant Notes
Notes ready by the time the dentist is. No waiting, no broken workflow.
Animations That Play
Videos load instantly. Dentists use them because they work, not avoid them because they might buffer.
Resilience Over Wi-Fi
Poor practice internet no longer destroys sessions. Graceful degradation, not silent failure.
Measurable Quality Baseline
Accuracy, speed, uptime, and playback all measured and tracked. Decisions on data, not anecdotes.
Product Usability
Dentists can find what they need and do what they need without learning how — through clear navigation, consistent design, and reduced cognitive load.
This initiative owns the structural UX layer that every other initiative builds on: navigation, information architecture, design consistency, and learnability. Today, moving between features feels disjointed, content is hard to find, and dentists need months to learn. This initiative makes Chairsyde intuitive enough that learning time collapses and creates space for new capabilities without adding complexity.
Problems We're Tackling
Problem 10
Animation Workflow & Cognitive Load
Using animations mid-consultation requires too much multitasking. Dentists skip content they know is valuable.
Problem 11
Personalisation
The platform doesn't adapt to how they work. They have to adapt to it — and most don't.
Problem 14
PMS Friction
Copy/paste into PMS with formatting mismatches. Product sits outside the primary system.
Problem 19
Self-Serve Onboarding & Learning
No in-product guidance, no progressive disclosure, no contextual help. Platform assumes you already know how.
"I spend enough time making sure the mics are charged and connecting. By the time I've got all that done, I don't have time to do that."
— Urvin, Orthodontist
Initiative Scope
Navigation & Information Architecture — Everything In Its Place
- Coherent navigation structure — Moving between features follows a clear, predictable pattern
- Consistent layout and hierarchy — Every screen uses the same spatial logic so dentists build muscle memory
- Content discoverability — Animations, playlists, and templates findable through search and contextual surfacing
- Live content recommendations — Animations and playlists suggested in real-time based on the consultation transcript, so when the dentist is discussing teeth whitening the relevant playlist surfaces automatically
- Architectural space for growth — Navigation accommodates new capabilities without bolting them on
Design Consistency — One Product, One Language
- Design system foundation — Unified component library so everything looks and behaves the same
- Visual consistency across features — Notes, animations, history, settings share the same design language
- Interaction patterns — Common actions work identically everywhere so learning transfers
Learnability — The Product Teaches Itself
- Contextual guidance — Tooltips and inline help at the point of action
- Progressive disclosure — New users see what they need now; advanced features reveal over time
- Product tours — Guided walkthroughs for key workflows that teach by doing
- Reduced cognitive load during consultations — Mid-consultation workflows require minimal attention
Core Outcomes
Learning Time Collapses
Adoption goes from months to days. The product is learnable through use, not CS sessions.
One Product, Not Five
Features feel like parts of the same product. Transferable familiarity across every area.
Lower Cognitive Load
Mid-consultation actions require minimal attention. Dentists stay focused on the patient.
Content Gets Used
Animations and playlists are findable and accessible in context. Used because they're easy to reach.
Room to Grow
New features have a clear home. We add capabilities without adding confusion.
Design Decisions Scale
Shared design system means consistent quality and faster delivery because patterns exist.
Provable ROI
Make Chairsyde's value measurable and visible — so the dentist knows it's working and the person paying can justify the spend.
This initiative makes Chairsyde's impact quantifiable rather than anecdotal. The product doesn't track time saved, consultations completed, or treatments accepted. Without data, every renewal is a leap of faith. This builds the evidence layer that turns belief into proof.
Problems We're Tackling
Problem 18
Proving Chairsyde's Value
No objective way to measure ROI. Principals have no dashboard. Purchasing decisions based on anecdote.
Problem 12
Practice Workflow Alignment
Chairsyde serves the dentist in isolation. The principal can't see adoption or value across their team.
Initiative Scope
Clinician-Level Value — Show Me My Impact
- Time saved per clinician — Calculate and display estimated time saved per day based on consultations recorded and editing time avoided
- Patient education impact — How many patients were shown educational content, which animations were used most, and how Chairsyde is helping them inform and educate their patients
- Case acceptance visibility — Surface how many consultations included animations and how that correlates with treatment uptake, so the dentist can see Chairsyde's role in helping patients say yes
- Usage tracking — Consultations recorded, notes generated, animations shown — visible to the dentist so they can see their own engagement over time
- Notes acceptance rate — Track how often notes are used without significant editing as a proxy for trust and quality
Practice-Level Value — Show The Principal What They're Paying For
- Practice dashboard — Aggregated adoption, usage, and value across all clinicians
- Clinician adoption visibility — Who's using it, how often, how deeply
- Case acceptance correlation — Animations shown vs. treatments booked, at practice level
Evidence for Sales & Retention — Arm The Commercial Team
- Exportable ROI evidence pack — Downloadable summary for budget justification or DSO pitches covering time savings, patient education, and case acceptance
- Benchmark data — How does this practice compare to similar practices on Chairsyde
Core Outcomes
Value Becomes Visible
Dentists see the full picture — time saved, patients educated, cases accepted. Not just efficiency, but impact.
Patient Education Has Numbers
Dentists can see how many patients they've informed and educated through Chairsyde. The clinical care story is provable.
Case Acceptance Has Numbers
Animation-to-treatment link moves from anecdote to data. Strongest commercial argument proven.
Principals Justify The Spend
Evidence-based renewal conversations rather than persuasion-based. Data at practice level, not just individual.
Sales Gets Proof
Exportable evidence and benchmarks for DSO pitches. Demo-and-prove, not demo-and-promise.
Expansion Unlocked
Measurable ROI makes expanding to more clinicians a business decision, not a gamble.
Notes Accuracy & Clinical Workflow
Notes are clinically accurate, formatted for the right PMS, and aware of the patient — so the dentist trusts the output and it lands without rework.
This initiative tackles the quality and fit of what Chairsyde produces. Notes sometimes hallucinate, merge multiple consultations, don't match the PMS format, and treat every session as if the patient is new. This introduces a patient entity, PMS-specific output, and consultation-aware notes generation.
Problems We're Tackling
Problem 3
Transcription Accuracy & Trust
The transcript misinterprets clinical terminology, tooth notation, and dental-specific language. The output isn't reliably accurate to the conversation, so dentists can't trust it as a clinical record without manual review.
Problem 7
Notes Accuracy & Trust
Notes misrepresent or hallucinate content. Dentists must review every line. Once trust is lost, it's very hard to win back.
Problem 14
PMS Friction
Output doesn't match each PMS's formatting. Dentally, SOE, R4 all need different structure. Last mile creates friction.
Problem 15
Patient Entity & Continuity
No persistent patient entity. Returning patients get merged transcripts producing inaccurate notes from multiple sessions.
"I'm quite particular about my notes. I've got a way of doing it. I've got a template that I use. It's not quite right on the last edit."
— Urvin, Orthodontist
Initiative Scope
Patient Entity — Know Who You're Seeing
- Persistent patient record — Each patient is a distinct entity with linked consultation history
- Consultation isolation — Each session generates notes from that session only, not merged with previous
- Patient context for notes — Can reference history without merging it. Continuity without contamination
Notes Accuracy — Say What Was Said, Nothing More
- Hallucination reduction — Notes only contain content from the transcript, not fabricated information
- Clinical terminology accuracy — Tooth notation, procedures, drug names represented correctly
- Accuracy benchmarking — ≥95% target tracked per specialism with feedback loop
- Edit tracking — Monitor what dentists change to identify systematic gaps
PMS-Specific Output — Fit The System They Use
- PMS-aware formatting — Notes structured to match Dentally, SOE, R4 conventions
- Field mapping — Output maps to specific PMS fields rather than producing a single text block
- One-click transfer — Formatted notes land in the right place in one action
Core Outcomes
Dentists Stop Rewriting
Editing becomes minor corrections. Median edit time below 2 minutes. Time-saving promise delivered.
Trust Holds
No hallucinations, no merged consultations. Dentists trust the output because it only contains what was said.
Notes Land Clean
Output matches the PMS format. No reformatting. Chairsyde feels integrated, not bolted on.
Returning Patients Work
Chairsyde knows who the patient is and what happened last time without corrupting current notes.
Accuracy Improves Continuously
Edit tracking creates a data-driven feedback loop. Systematic fixes for highest-impact gaps.
Workflow Friction Disappears
Last mile goes from multi-step copy/paste to a single action. Product ends where the dentist needs it to.
Practice-Level Workflows
How does Chairsyde support the people beyond the dentist — the TCO, the practice manager, the principal — and become part of how the practice operates?
This is a discovery initiative, not a delivery initiative. We know Chairsyde serves the dentist in isolation. We don't yet understand the practice workflow well enough to design solutions. This initiative is about learning what the handoffs, visibility needs, and coordination gaps actually look like.
Problems That Point Here
Problem 12
Practice Workflow Alignment
Handovers and shared context for case acceptance and coordinated communication don't exist. The product breaks at the practice level.
Problem 13
Practice Governance & Compliance
No audit trail, data ownership, or access controls. Compliance-conscious practices and DSOs won't deploy.
What We Need to Learn
Dentist → TCO Handoff
- What does the TCO need to see after a consultation to do their job?
- How does this handoff happen today without Chairsyde?
- What's the cost of a failed handoff?
Practice Manager / Principal Visibility
- What does the principal actually want to see?
- How do they assess whether Chairsyde is worth paying for?
- What governance requirements exist that we're not meeting?
Practice-Level Coordination
- When a patient sees different clinicians, what continuity is expected?
- How do practices coordinate care communication today?
- What does "Chairsyde as a practice tool" look like?
Initial Hypotheses
TCO Visibility Drives Case Acceptance
If the TCO can see what was discussed and shown, follow-up becomes targeted — increasing treatment conversion.
Principal Dashboard Reduces Churn
If the payer can see adoption and value, renewal becomes a data decision rather than a gut feeling.
Governance Is a DSO Gatekeeper
Compliance-conscious orgs won't deploy without audit trails and access controls. Binary blocker.
Practice Staff Roles Increase Usage
If a nurse can handle setup or prep, dentist friction drops and recording frequency increases.
Not Prioritised
Patient Packs
We already built post-consultation patient communications. They don't work. The business has moved on to new features rather than fixing the ones that could deliver the most value.
Patient Packs exist in the product today. They are supposed to deliver post-consultation summaries, education links, and follow-up communications. In practice, they're unusable. Rather than investing in making this feature work — a feature on the critical path between consultation and treatment acceptance — the business has deprioritised it. This document names that decision and quantifies what it's costing us.
What Patient Packs Should Deliver
The feature exists. The value proposition is clear. The execution is broken.
Exists Today
Post-Consultation Summary
Branded summary sent to the patient — what was discussed, treatment recommended, animation links. The feature is built. It just doesn't work well enough to use.
Unrealised Value
Follow-Up That Converts
Timed communications that address objections and prompt decisions. Infrastructure is there. Execution isn't.
Unrealised Value
Animation Links for Patients
Patients review animations at home, share with family, make informed decisions. Clearest path from consultation to acceptance.
Unrealised Value
The Patient Touches Chairsyde
Only feature where the patient experiences the product. Brand visibility, referral potential. None of it is landing.
Why This Matters Strategically
The Pattern
- Clearest example of feature-first thinking — we built Patient Packs, shipped them, moved on without ensuring they work. The feature exists on a pricing page. It doesn't exist in a dentist's workflow.
- Strongest ROI argument left on the table — case acceptance is the number one commercial argument. Patient Packs close the loop. They're broken.
- No competitor does this well either — a working Patient Packs feature would be category-defining. We built it first and let it rot.
Commercial Impact
- Case acceptance stays anecdotal without follow-up — can't close the loop between animation shown and treatment booked
- Patient Packs are already in the sales pitch — selling a capability that doesn't deliver is worse than not having it
- Provable ROI depends on this — Patient Packs generate downstream data: open rates, click-throughs, bookings
Cost of Continued Neglect
Selling Something That Doesn't Work
Every customer who tries Packs and finds them unusable loses trust — not just in Packs, but in Chairsyde's promises.
Case Acceptance Can't Be Proven
Path from consultation to treatment is invisible. ROI stays anecdotal. DSO pitches rely on "trust us."
Animations Have No Afterlife
Highest-value content shown once, in-chair, never seen again. Educational value evaporates.
The Pattern Repeats
Moving on from broken features to new ones creates accumulating half-finished capabilities and a perception of low quality.
What Would Need to Change
- Acknowledge shipping ≠ delivering value — Patient Packs exist. They don't work. That distinction matters.
- Dedicated investment in fixing, not building — Design, engineering, and content work to make Packs usable.
- Patient entity must work first — Initiative 05 (Notes Accuracy & Clinical Workflow) is a prerequisite.
- Patient-facing quality standard — Different standard of design, tone, and accuracy than clinician-facing tools.
- Integration into consultation workflow — Packs generated automatically, not requiring separate dentist effort.
Patient Packs are a built feature that doesn't deliver value. This document records that the business has chosen to deprioritise fixing them. The cost is measurable: broken case acceptance attribution, a capability we're selling but not delivering, and a pattern of shipping features without ensuring they work.
Deferred
Self-Serve Individual Licences
Individual dentists should be able to find Chairsyde, sign up, pay, onboard, and reach their first consultation without ever speaking to Sales or CS. We can't do this yet — and the cost of not doing it is growing.
As Chairsyde repositions to sell into practices and DSOs, individual licences (implantologists, cosmetic dentists, solo practitioners) remain a significant market segment. Today, every individual licence goes through the same expensive sales and onboarding process as a practice licence — personalised calls, CS hand-holding, manual setup — at a fraction of the revenue. The margins don't work. This initiative would introduce self-serve registration, payment, and onboarding for individual licences, allowing Chairsyde to serve the mass market without the cost structure that makes it unsustainable.
Why This Matters Strategically
The Commercial Problem
- Individual licences consume disproportionate resource — Sales gives them dedicated calls, CS provides full onboarding, but the price point doesn't support that level of touch. Every individual licence sold at current cost-to-serve erodes margin.
- It blocks focus on the UCP — Time Sales and CS spend on individual licences is time not spent on practices and DSOs, which are the primary growth target. Individual licences are cannibalising capacity.
- Competitors own this space by default — Digital TCO, Kiroku, and other lower-priced tools win individual dentists because they're easy to start. Chairsyde requires a sales call for the same thing. We lose before we compete.
The Strategic Opportunity
- Self-serve unlocks a volume channel — Individual dentists who would never book a sales call will sign up if they can do it themselves. This is incremental revenue that currently doesn't exist.
- Individual licences become a pipeline for practice sales — An implantologist who loves Chairsyde becomes an advocate inside their practice. Self-serve individual adoption seeds bottom-up practice adoption.
- It frees Sales and CS for high-value work — If individual licences are self-serve, the commercial team can focus entirely on practices and DSOs where the deal sizes justify the effort.
What This Would Require
Product
Self-Serve Registration & Payment
End-to-end sign-up flow: account creation, plan selection, payment, and activation without any human involvement. Stripe integration, licence management, billing portal.
Product
Self-Serve Onboarding
The Guided Setup initiative (06) is a prerequisite. Individual dentists need to reach their first consultation within 48 hours without CS contact. The product must teach itself.
Product
Licence Management
Individual users manage their own subscription: upgrade, downgrade, cancel, update payment, view invoices. No support tickets for billing changes.
Experience
Product Must Be Good Enough to Sell Itself
Self-serve only works if the product delivers value without hand-holding. Session Capture (01), Platform Performance (02), Product Usability (03), and Guided Setup (06) are all prerequisites.
Why It's Deferred
- The product experience isn't ready — Self-serve registration without self-serve onboarding just creates unsupported users who churn. Guided Setup, Product Usability, and Session Capture need to land first.
- Engineering capacity is committed — Building registration, payment, and licence management is significant scope. It can't be absorbed into current initiatives.
- It doesn't serve the primary growth target — The 2025 focus is practices and DSOs. Individual licences are important but secondary to the UCP.
- It becomes dramatically easier once other initiatives deliver — Flawless session capture + simplified usability + guided setup = a product that can survive self-serve. Without those, self-serve just accelerates churn.
Cost of Deferral
Sales & CS Capacity Drain Continues
Every individual licence keeps consuming the same resource as a practice licence at a fraction of the revenue. The margin problem compounds as individual enquiries grow.
Competitors Win Individual Dentists
Dentists who want to try a tool today, not next week after a sales call, will choose the one they can start immediately. That's not us.
Bottom-Up Pipeline Doesn't Build
Individual dentists who could become practice advocates never start because the barrier to entry is a sales process designed for a different buyer.
Revenue Left on the Table
The volume channel for individual specialists — implantologists, cosmetic dentists, orthodontists — remains closed. Incremental revenue that requires no sales effort doesn't materialise.
Self-serve individual licences are deferred because the product isn't ready to support them, not because they lack strategic value. As Initiatives 01, 02, 03, and 06 deliver, the prerequisites fall into place. This should be revisited once the core product experience is strong enough that a dentist can sign up, set up, and succeed without ever talking to us.