The founders of medtech startup T33 Dental explain how they prioritized developing a sustainable company from the earliest stages, and how other entrepreneurs can do the same.
For twins Daniel and David Lundberg, founders of medtech company T33 Dental, sustainability is much more than a buzzword. It’s an approach to life, and to entrepreneurship. “Sustainability is important for us because our goal is to leave this world a better place than we found it,” said the Lundbergs. “Our objective is to have the largest positive impact on oral health while minimizing any negative impact we have on the environment and otherwise.” Their dental medtech company has dual goals of improving oral health for all and creating a more sustainable manufacturing process.
Current products, such as toothpaste, whitening strips, and topical applications of fluoride at the dentist’s office, only provide medicine to the tooth’s surface, limiting their ability to prevent and treat decay. Common treatments for cavities—decay that extends through the tooth’s enamel layer—involve digging out the decay with dental instruments and drills, eroding the tooth’s structure, and using fillings or crowns to replace the lost material.
The Lundbergs’ innovation is a reusable device that rapidly delivers medicine directly into tooth enamel, a more effective way to prevent and treat tooth decay than topical application. Deeper application of medicine into the enamel is more successful at preventing decay and can slow or replace the need to dig out decay; whole, healthy teeth are stronger than those with fillings and crowns.
With their focus on both medical device innovation and sustainability, the Lundbergs and T33 Dental were a match for VentureWell’s programming for early-stage STEM entrepreneurs. “Since the beginning, Daniel and David have been great about ensuring they’re in close contact with customers and stakeholders, hearing what is important to them,” said VentureWell Senior Program Officer Patrick Beattie.
Our objective has always been to make any new dental treatment safe and effective while also minimizing waste and paying attention to sustainability from day one.
With help from Beattie and the rest of the VentureWell team, the Lundbergs are building a sustainable business model in every way: a functioning startup that can sustain itself as a business and that takes into account its impact on the planet and climate change. “We’re grateful for these programs that helped educate us on our responsibility in this respect and on the ways in which we should be thinking about sustainability as entrepreneurs,” they said. “It was important to us to focus on sustainability from the get-go.”
We sat down with Daniel and David Lundberg to hear their top five sustainable business strategies for innovators and how to build a sustainable startup from the ground up. They chose to answer our questions as a team.
Startup KLAW Industries leveraged customer discovery in order to determine their sustainable invention: a process that reduces the carbon footprint of concrete.
Build sustainability into customer discovery and learn about industry-specific needs.
The Lundbergs began their entrepreneurial journey in medtech by visiting dental offices. It was there that they came to understand the sheer volume of plastic and other medical waste generated by an average dental practice. “Obviously, some waste was impossible to avoid to ensure a safe and sterile environment, but anything excessive was not only environmentally irresponsible, but it could potentially add more cost to any item,” said the Lundbergs. They spoke with dental staff members who expressed their concerns over the waste their products were generating and learned about their ideas for how to significantly lower their carbon footprint.
“It soon became clear from speaking with potential customers that minimally wasteful medical products are a common unmet desire,” said the Lundbergs. “Since then, our objective has always been to make any new dental treatment safe and effective while also minimizing waste and paying attention to sustainability from day one.”
Identify the impact your product and its components will have on the environment.
Once the Lundbergs realized there was a market need for a more sustainable product, they conducted research into current trends and identified the most common pitfalls of their competitors, such as the potential release of toxic and heavy metals during the manufacturing process. “We understood from the beginning that any product we brought to market would have a disposable component,” said the Lundbergs. “Right away, we began working to design these components with the lowest environmental impact.”
They targeted three goals for every design: Produce it using environmentally sustainable materials, use the smallest amount of materials during production, and make a reusable—rather than disposable—product. Articulating these goals ensured that they stayed attuned to the sustainability of their product design throughout the process of refining it.
Conduct reviews to ensure your product design achieves your sustainability goals.
For the Lundbergs, their work developing a more sustainable medtech company didn’t stop at the design stage. They conducted multiple in-depth reviews of their finished product and its components. “We found additional negative impacts that were less visible,” they said. “We needed to design around those, too.”
They were also able to identify areas of production where material was being wasted and opportunities to substitute in more sustainably sourced components.
Don’t assume your startup can’t afford to be sustainable—sustainability may save you money.
The Lundbergs have found that building sustainability principles into T33 Dental has made their startup more financially viable, not less—and added to its appeal among customers. Their deep research into material and manufacturing costs helped them find options that were both more sustainable and less expensive. Their attention to cutting waste also cut costs.
“The steps we’ve taken to make our products as sustainable as possible will ultimately result in lower raw material and manufacturing costs,” the Lundbergs said. “And we’re producing a product that dental staff members feel better about using.” This creates a competitive advantage for T33 Dental compared with their competitors who don’t take sustainability into account.
Dig into the research for your industry and your startup.
Results will vary for different startups and different industries, but as the effects of climate change disrupt the planetary environment, considering the environmental sustainability of an innovation may be better and better business. Starting out with sustainable materials and processes may save time in the long run as well, compared with scrambling for replacements when unsustainable items become unavailable.
The Lundbergs wouldn’t do it any other way: “For us, the process of including sustainability in the products we’re building has been an overall positive experience.” Recently, they raised just over $600,000 from SAFEs (Simple Agreement for Future Equity), both from angel investors in the dental industry and from PillarVC. Their medtech startup success underscores a real need for impactful products that don’t harm the environment.
Learn more about T33 Dental’s entrepreneurship journey and what’s next for the company.
T33 Dental participated in VentureWell’s E-Team Program, both Stage One (Pioneer) and Stage Two (Propel), which provided them with $25,000 in grant funding, as well as the Aspire Medtech investor-engagement program, which trained them in investor engagement.
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