Always

Disrupting Dental Ordering

Always is a dental start-up providing everyday disposable dental items in one singular package.

Role: Lead the charge with designing the service.

Context

The founder, Dr. Lok Tsang, envisioned an Amazon-like platform for dental clinicians, aiming to make dental ordering more efficient.

The goal was to see if a marketplace would strike the right chord with other dentists. Armed with a small budget and timeframe, we set out to prototype a new type of service within the dental industry.

Act I

The Story Behind the Story

Structuring our interviews with JTBD

Our first goal was to understand how clinics manage their products and to go (quickly) understand the problem space. Since budgets were limited, we focused on our attention on small to medium sized clinics and centred around the ordering space.

  • User interviews with dental owners and admin staff.

  • Surveys to assess ordering habits.

  • Field studies to observe real-world workflows.

  • Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) mapping to identify core tasks related to inventory management.

Over a few weeks, we visited, spoke with and did some reading up on the ordering of practices, habits and needs behind clinics. We used the scaffolding of the Jobs To be Done to help guide our interviews and flesh out the problem space in a structured way.


Here's (some) of what our participants said..

Act II

Problems.. Defined

Insights

We

Time-consuming – Clinics spend 5+ hours per month managing inventory.

Disorganised – Orders are placed across multiple vendors, each with different pricing, availability, and processes.

Storage-limited – Small clinics lack space for bulk ordering, forcing frequent restocking.

Price-driven – The lowest price dictates supplier choice, often at the cost of convenience or quality.

Unpredictable – Backorders disrupt clinic operations, yet clinics often aren’t informed until it’s too late.

Not a dedicated role – Ordering falls on practice nurses or admin staff, whose priority is cost efficiency rather than operational optimization.

Adapted workarounds - Despite recognizing these inefficiencies, clinics have adapted workarounds—whiteboard tracking, manual spreadsheets, and reactive ordering—making change adoption difficult.

"How might we streamline dental supply ordering to reduce time spent, prevent stockouts, and align with the cost-conscious behavior of clinics—while ensuring trust in a new system?"

"How might we streamline dental supply ordering to reduce time spent, prevent stockouts, and align with the cost-conscious behavior of clinics—while ensuring trust in a new system?"

Act III

Thinking inside the box

Rather than building a direct competitor to the dominant billion-dollar gorilla, we considered the supplementary issues surrounding the ordering process. We focused instead of designing a service that bundled all the most used, common items and delivered them on a schedule.

  • Bundling the most commonly used disposable products into a single package.

  • Subscription-based ordering to reduce the time spent placing frequent orders.

  • Automating product recommendations based on clinic size and usage patterns.

Core Hypothesis

By shifting from a manual, repetitive ordering process to an automated, subscription-based model, clinics could save time and reduce ordering errors.

Key Insights That Guided Our Idea:

  • Clinics consistently reordered the same 6-8 disposable products.

  • They placed orders every 2-4 weeks.

  • Limited storage meant orders had to align with real-time needs.

Act IV

Validating

To validate our hypothesis, we sought out participants that were responsible for ordering for their clinic.

Our testing goals were aimed at first usability, and then following up with talking through the desire for such a service.

  • Created a prototype ordering system with predefined product bundles.

  • Conducted usability testing with a small group of dental clinics.

  • Iterated based on feedback over a 2-week period.

Key Learnings from Testing:

  1. Initial Bundling Sizes Confused Users

    • Users struggled to compare bundle pricing with individual product costs.

    • Solution: We introduced clearer pricing breakdowns.

  2. Uncertainty Around Order Quantities

    • Clinics found it hard to estimate their required stock levels.

    • Solution: We developed a "wizard" tool to guide clinics through the ordering process based on their patient volume.

  3. Pricing Structure Was Unclear

    • Users hesitated to commit without knowing whether they were getting the best deal.

    • Solution: We tested different pricing models and improved transparency in cost comparisons.

After iterations, the ordering wizard significantly improved the user experience, with clinics reporting a clearer understanding of their needs and the value of bundled purchases.

We didn't stray too far from conventions of online ordering. Rather, we wanted to confirm that potential users could understand this relatively new business model

Key Learnings from Testing:

  1. Initial Bundling Sizes Confused Users

    • Users struggled to compare bundle pricing with individual product costs.

    • Solution: We introduced clearer pricing breakdowns.

  2. Uncertainty Around Order Quantities

    • Clinics found it hard to estimate their required stock levels.

    • Solution: We developed a "wizard" tool to guide clinics through the ordering process based on their patient volume.

  3. Pricing Structure Was Unclear

    • Users hesitated to commit without knowing whether they were getting the best deal.

    • Solution: We tested different pricing models and improved transparency in cost comparisons.

After iterations, the ordering wizard significantly improved the user experience, with clinics reporting a clearer understanding of their needs and the value of bundled purchases.

We didn't stray too far from conventions of online ordering. Rather, we wanted to confirm that potential users could understand this relatively new business model

Outcome

Final Takeaways

While the concept showed promise, achieving competitive pricing without significant capital proved challenging. The client ultimately decided against scaling due to the inability to take on large amounts of debt or investment to get to scale. Ultimately, while the design and research was sound, the lack of positive feedback from the prototype pivoted to other opportunities. Most startups don't get to the fabled land of PMF, but many spend millions trying. Personally, I'm glad we were able to leave no one wondering.


  • Provided clear insights into dental clinic purchasing behaviors.

  • Helped inform alternative business directions.

  • Earned a Good Design Award for Best in Class Design Strategy.