Biteline Takes A Bite Out of the Dental Gig Economy

Dental offices struggle to fill their staffing schedule with hygienists and dental assistants. When a staff member is sick or needs to stay home, they often must find their own replacement for an upcoming shift.

There’s no central hub to go and find the right fit for the clinic, so they often end up using expensive staffing agencies.

Barclay McFadden first heard about this problem when literally in the chair in his dentist’s exam room, waiting for a very tired hygienist to begin his cleaning.

McFadden and colleague Will Naso found that this is indeed a big issue that leads to time-consuming temp recruiting, appointment cancellations, and inconsistent quality.

“The market as a whole is losing over a billion dollars in staffing to try to solve this issue,” Naso tells Hypepotamus.

“The existing solutions are pretty much an internal rolodex of contacts and staffing firms charging high fees to get someone in the dental office.”

Naso and McFadden created Biteline to bring the dental community under one hub for staffing needs, from a quick fill-in job to open full-time roles.

The free platform allows vetted dental professionals to create a profile, add their availability, and receive alerts for relevant job openings — temporary, part-time or full-time — based on their work experience.

They launched their first iteration in 2017, onboarding over 1,000 users and receiving nearly 500 job postings.

Then in 2018, Biteline closed a seed funding round, which they used to re-work the product, turning it into a mobile-first platform that incorporates job postings, job seeker profiles, and a review system for both parties.

“The reviews inject accountability into the marketplace. Right now, the dental industry is very communal and loves to network,” says Naso.

“But if you’re hiring someone for a day or two, it can be tough to verify the quality of the candidates and their credentials.”

The platform now services hundreds of professionals across 600 dental offices in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, where the company is based. They are now planning for expansion.

“We’re focused on the market-building at this point. The biggest issue with these marketplace applications, especially in a niche industry like dental, is you have to have both sides onboard,” says Naso.

In the future, Biteline will transition into a B2B model where employers pay for job postings, similarly to LinkedIn.