Meet Brian Mans
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer | Foundation Dental Transitions
He spent a decade learning
exactly how DSO buyers think.
Now he uses it for you.
Brian Mans has personally led more than 300 transactions across 26 states, co-founded a DSO from scratch that grew to 114 practices, and executed a $214 million private equity exit.
He left the buy-side because dentists deserved someone who understood the game from the inside and was fully, exclusively on their side.
He’d seen deals that worked beautifully and deals that quietly hurt people who deserved better. The difference was rarely the price.
- 300+Transactions led
- 26States
- 114Practices at exit
- $214MPrivate equity exit
You don’t need to be ready to sell to talk through your options.
Watch Brian Tell His Story.
Brian shares how he got into dental acquisitions, what he learned buying practices, and why he now represents sellers. Nine minutes, in his own words.
Chapter 1
Pekin, Illinois
Brian Mans grew up in Pekin, Illinois, a small town outside Peoria, and spent most of his youth wanting to get out and do something with his life. He wasn’t sure exactly what that something was yet.
He went to Eastern Illinois University and got a sports management degree he’s never once used. Out of school he took a job in accounts receivable, a sales role, and built up a decent business. He also started teaching himself marketing because he was tired of cold calling and wanted people to call him instead.
Then he met a girl in Robinson, Illinois, a town in the middle of nowhere. Her son played t-ball. Brian would show up at the games, talk to the other parents, and when they asked what he did for work, he’d tell them. They’d duck away.
He found out those parents were the people not paying their bills. The ones getting calls from his company.
He started looking for something else. Heartland Dental’s home office was about an hour away, and they had an opening for a marketing consultant. Brian didn’t have a marketing degree, hadn’t worked in dentistry, and wasn’t sure he was remotely qualified. He interviewed anyway.
On the drive home from the interview, he’d already made up his mind. Whatever they offered, he was taking it. He was going to the top.
They offered him $31,000 a year. He’d made more than that in college selling Schwan’s ice cream from a yellow truck for beer money.
He took the job.
“I had this oh-shit
Brian Mans
moment. This is not
what I want to do
with my life. This is
not who I want to be.”
Chapter 2
What Pat Bauer Said
Brian spent his first two years at Heartland as a marketing consultant, building custom campaigns for practices. Because he had no preconceived ideas about how dentistry worked, he asked dentists the uncomfortable questions that turned out to be the right ones.
The campaigns consistently produced 400 percent ROI or better. He had his sights set on VP of Marketing.
Then one day Pat Bauer, Heartland’s president at the time, knocked on his cubicle. Brian didn’t even know the man knew who he was.
Brian recalls:
I need to see you in my office. I go in. Giant office. I sit down. He says: I want you to consider joining our affiliations team. I said: what is that? He said: I want you to fly around the country and buy dental practices for us. I said: Pat, how in the hell do you buy a dental practice? He chuckled and said: you’re a smart guy. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. He got up and walked out.
Brian sat there alone in that giant office thinking he’d just been promoted to chemical engineer.
He spent the next six months at Heartland’s corporate office in Effingham bothering everyone who would talk to him. Every department. Every role. What do you do? How do you affect an acquisition? How can I help you? His boss told him to go bother people. He bothered people. They didn’t like it. He didn’t care.
Then they gave him a territory. Twenty-six states. They told him not to freak out because Heartland was only in three of them. The rest were listed under his name so dentists in those markets would know Heartland was coming.
The phone started ringing from all 26.
For the next two years he was a human ping pong ball, flying from Indianapolis to Orlando to Greenville, then ending the week down a two-mile driveway in southern Arkansas to meet a two-million-dollar practice owner. Different practices, different markets, the same conversation.
He loved the dentists. They became his social life. He talked to them more than he talked to his best friends. They were down-to-earth people who viewed their practices as their babies, and he felt the weight of what a transition meant to them every single time.
“It did not matter where I was. Suburban Chicago or rural Arkansas, I was talking to the same person. Dentists who had built something they were proud of, who were walking into one of the most important decisions of their career, and who were doing it with no real idea of what they were getting into or who was actually on their side.”
Brian Mans
Chapter 3
The Bet on Himself
Toward the end of his time at Heartland, a private equity firm out of Chicago reached out. They wanted to build a new dental support organization from scratch with the right people from the major platforms. They wanted Brian.
He said no. He’d just flown on Dr. Rick Workman’s private jet to Arkansas with his wife to close a deal. He didn’t know how to explain leaving a billion-dollar company for a startup to his family.
A couple of years later, in August 2014, they called again. They had nine people identified. They were having a dinner in Chicago. Would he just come meet everyone? He drove four and a half hours and went in with no expectations.
“I got to the meeting and met a bunch of people who all had the same thought in their head: if I had a bag full of cash, I could actually give these dentists exactly what they want, need, and deserve. I don’t usually agree with everyone at a table. That night I agreed with everyone at the table.”
Brian Mans
In October 2014, Brian became the second person to join Elite Dental Partners. He also invested his entire life savings.
There was no backup plan.
The three most important women in his life, his wife, his mother, and his grandmother, all thought he was making a terrible mistake. He told them he loved them. This train was rolling. He hoped they’d jump on.
By December of that first year they had four or five practices. By the end of 2015 they had around 25. The snowball started rolling and didn’t stop. Elite Dental Partners grew to 114 practices across multiple states with over $100 million in revenue. In June 2018, the group completed a majority recapitalization at $214 million, a little over 14 times EBITDA, one of the highest multiples in the industry at that time.
- 114Practices
- $100M+Revenue
- $214MMajority recapitalization
Brian’s bet on
himself paid off.
He also rolled $500,000 of his exit proceeds back in to do it again under new ownership. Two years later, during the pandemic, the new buyers took the company in a different direction and ran it into the ground. Brian lost every dollar he’d reinvested.
He walked away with significantly less than he’d planned. And a lesson he says he’ll never forget.
Through everything he’d built and everything he’d lost, one thing never left him: the dentists were getting less than they deserved, and nobody had built a real system to change it.
Chapter 4
Switching Teams
Over a decade on the buy-side, Brian had worked with and analyzed more than 5,000 dental practices. He’d seen deals that worked beautifully and deals that quietly hurt people who deserved better.
He’d seen teams thrown into chaos, cultures collapse, and sellers walk away from the most significant financial decision of their lives with quiet regret, not because they sold, but because the deal didn’t reflect what they actually wanted.
In the deals that troubled him, dentists weren’t walking into the transaction with anyone who truly held the complete picture on their behalf. Their CPA handled taxes. Their attorney reviewed documents. The broker managed the introduction and showed up at the closing table.
Nobody owned the full process from valuation through integration. Nobody was accountable for the promises that evaporated after the ink dried.
“I kept thinking: if I could be fully on the dentist’s side of this, not just facilitating the
Brian Mans
transaction but actually protecting the outcome. I could give these people what they want,
what they need, and what they deserve. That thought wouldn’t leave me alone.”
At some point, he realized he didn’t want to be the guy on that side of the table anymore.
After the Elite chapter closed, Brian made a decision. He was done being the buyer. He was switching teams.
He and Dr. Jim Arnold built Foundation Dental Transitions.
Chapter 5
What Brian Brings to
Your Side of the Table
Brian knows how DSO acquisition teams think, where they find leverage, how they structure terms, and what drives their valuation of a dental practice. Everything he learned on the buy-side, he now uses for you.
He knows the buyer’s playbook.
When a DSO buyer’s development director walks into the room with their analysts, their attorneys, and their integration team, the dentist on the other side has someone who’s sat in that chair. Someone who’s run that process. Someone who knows exactly what the buyer is looking for, where they’ll probe, and how they’ll try to shift terms once the letter of intent is signed.
He builds the case for your value.
The financial model built for your practice is the same private equity-grade analysis the institutional buyers use: eight zones, 250+ analytical views, examining every dimension that drives or suppresses your value. Every finding is used to maximize your position before a single buyer sees your name.
He manages the whole process.
Brian runs the whole process from the first conversation through integration. Every stakeholder coordinated. Diligence managed. Re-trading attempts neutralized before they gain momentum. Legal process directed. He doesn’t consider the job done until the dentist has crossed the finish line the way they deserve.
When you sit across from a DSO, you’re not just walking into a conversation. You’re walking into a system that was built to protect them. Brian’s entire job is to make sure you’re protected inside it.
See Our Process“I spent a decade learning how buyers think. Every deal I did, every dentist I sat across from, every term I structured. I was learning what it would take to truly protect the person on the other side of that table. Now that’s my entire job.”
Brian Mans
By the Numbers.
- 300+M&A transactions
personally led - 5,000+Dental practices
worked with and analyzed - 26States of
acquisition experience - $60M+Practice revenue
personally acquired - $100M+Additional deal volume
through his team - 114Practices built at
Elite Dental Partners - $214MPrivate equity
exit
Ready to Have Brian
in Your Corner?
Most dentists who reach out aren’t ready to sell. They’re weighing an offer,
thinking a few years ahead, or trying to understand what they’re actually
looking at.
Start with a conversation about your practice and what you want next. If
waiting puts you in a better position, Brian will tell you.
A private conversation. No obligation to move forward.