Ponteo.
is ready.
The product is built. Credentialing, contracts, HIPAA, availability — all live. The next question isn't whether to launch. It's how.
Ready is not
the same as right.
In a market where applications can become obsolete in less than 90 days, the most expensive decision a founder can make is locking in core features before real users have touched them.
Beta is not a delay. It is the discipline of listening before scaling. It is how Ponteo earns the right to launch with momentum — instead of with explanations.
Listen first.
Ship fast.
Then scale.
Capture real signal
Lab testing surfaces the bugs the team can imagine. Real users surface the ones that actually matter — and they surface them within hours of touching the product.
Prioritize ruthlessly
A feedback intelligence layer captures every signal in real time, separates critical friction from cosmetic noise, and routes only the things that matter into the development sprint.
Ship in the same week
A dedicated engineering pod under direct management means fixes ship in days, not quarters. Users see their feedback land. Trust compounds. Momentum builds.
Earn the launch
By the end of 90 days, Ponteo doesn't launch on hope. It launches on evidence — backed by validated unit economics, repeat behavior, and a product the market has already shaped.
Two parallel tracks.
One outcome.
Beta and Engine run in parallel from day one. Not because we want to do more — because doing them sequentially would waste ninety days of pipeline warming and risk launching to an empty room.
The Beta
Product Validation in Market
Run the marketplace in NY/NJ/CT with real specialists and real practices. The engineering pod works in parallel — fixing, refining, hardening based on real user behavior.
Does the product actually work in market?
The Engine
Trust & Demand Infrastructure
Build the website. Implement the CRM. Activate the brand voice. The day Beta succeeds, pipeline is already warm and demand is ready to convert.
When the product is proven, will anyone be ready to use it?
If we wait until Beta validates the product to start building the demand engine, we lose ninety days of pipeline warming and brand trust. The parallel track means the day Beta concludes successfully, we don't start marketing — we accelerate marketing that's already in motion.
Most marketplaces
spend a year proving
they're credible.
Ponteo doesn't have to.
Dr. Jason M. Auerbach is one of the most operationally experienced and publicly recognized figures in the dental specialty world today. His involvement collapses the credibility curve from months to days.
Dual-certified through the National Dental Board of Anesthesiology. NYU College of Dentistry, DDS with honors. SUNY-Downstate residency, Chief Resident. Repeatedly named to NJ Magazine's Top Dentists.
Built one of the most recognized oral surgery groups in the Northeast since 2007. Multi-location, multi-surgeon, deep referral network across NJ.
The Northeast's leading surgeon-led OMS platform. 25+ locations across NY, NJ, CT, PA, VT. $77M credit facility. Backed by RF Investment Partners and MedEquity Capital.
One of the most-followed voices in dentistry globally. Regular contributor to Dental Economics. Featured across Becker's Hospital Review, Group Dentistry Now, and the leading industry podcasts.
When Ponteo enters the tri-state market with Dr. Auerbach as its Founding Clinical Voice, the question stops being "who are you?" and becomes "how do I get in?"
- Named Founding Clinical Voice on the Ponteo website and platform
- Specialist network letter to the tri-state OMS, anesthesiology, and broader specialty community
- Featured Ponteo content through @bloodytoothguy organic posts during the 90-day Beta
- Two to three short-form video pieces produced by Digital Culture
- Strategic advisory input on specialist-side product, vetting standards, and credentialing
Scoped at ~8–12 hours across the 90 days. Digital Culture handles all production, ghostwriting, and coordination.
Concentrated.
Defensible. Real.
These are the targets the engagement is built to deliver — and the criteria that trigger the Year One commitment.
Six workstreams.
One integrated team.
Four workstreams run on the Beta track. Two run on the Engine track. The engineering pod sits across both. Senior accountability throughout — no agency layers, no translation tax.
Specialist Acquisition
Recruiting 100 specialists through credibility, not advertising.
Dr. Auerbach's network as primary activation channel. Specialty-segmented LinkedIn campaigns. State board verification pipeline targeting under 48 hours from signup to active status. Concierge onboarding for the first wave.
Practice Acquisition
Converting 25 tri-state practices from legacy staffing.
Hand-selected sub-markets — Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bergen, Essex, Westchester, Fairfield. First-mover incentives. DSO pipeline seeding for Year One. Each practice onboarded with a dedicated point of contact.
Sales & Booking Activation
Turning interest into 120+ completed bookings.
Daily marketplace operations. Matching, facilitating, escalating friction into the dev sprint within 24 hours. Repeat-booking engine. Weekly commercial validation reporting — the data that proves the model holds.
Analytics & Liquidity Monitoring
The data layer that proves Beta worked.
Lightweight dashboard tracking fill rate, time-to-match, repeat-booking rate, NPS, supply utilization. Cohort analysis by signup week. V1 readiness assessment delivered at day 90 — investor-grade.
Conversion Infrastructure
High-conversion website. Brand voice in market.
Production-grade build on Next.js. Dual conversion architecture — specialist and practice paths. Live by Week 6. Dr. Auerbach featured. Two-track messaging framework. Social proof captured throughout Beta for V1.
CRM, Pipeline & Demand Engine
HubSpot configured. Every signal captured.
HubSpot scales cleanly into Year One — zero rebuild. Specialist and practice pipelines configured. Website ↔ CRM ↔ Platform integration layer. Attribution model live by Day 90. The CAC data that funds V1.
Capture the signal.
Prioritize ruthlessly.
Ship in the same week.
The single biggest risk in marketplace Beta is that real users find what testing missed — and there's no system in place to act on it. Beta with a passive feedback model is just a slow walk to disappointment. This is how we operationalize listening.
Capture
Every interaction tracked. In-app feedback, support tickets, concierge call notes, behavioral analytics, NPS pulses. Every signal lands in a single intelligence pool — nothing falls through.
Triage
Daily synthesis separates critical friction (blocking bookings, eroding trust) from cosmetic noise. Signal is tagged, scored, and routed to the right workstream within 24 hours of surfacing.
Prioritize
Weekly grooming with the engineering pod. Critical issues enter the current sprint. Strategic patterns inform the V1 backlog. Cosmetic noise is documented and parked, not chased.
Ship
Bi-weekly sprints. Users see their feedback land in days, not quarters. Trust compounds. The platform improves visibly. Beta becomes the highest-velocity period of product development Ponteo has had.
This is what separates a Beta that produces a launch-ready platform from one that produces a list of complaints. Listening is only half the work. Acting on what we hear, fast, is the other half — and it's the half most teams underbuild.
A dedicated team.
Under one roof.
Six engineers, fully dedicated to Ponteo for the 90-day Beta. Managed by Digital Culture. Working in lockstep with the GTM team. One invoice. One accountability line. The team that makes "ship in the same week" actually possible.
Technical Lead
Sprint planning, architecture decisions, code review. The senior voice on what gets built and how.
Backend Developer
Platform stability, API performance, third-party integrations. The reliability foundation.
Mobile Developer (iOS)
Specialist app, booking flows, push notifications. Native-quality on the device most specialists use.
Web / Admin Developer
Practice-side admin interface, internal operational tools, dashboards. The control plane.
QA Engineer
Regression testing, real-user flow validation, bug triage. The safety net that lets us move fast without breaking trust.
PM / BA
Backlog grooming, Digital Culture liaison, documentation. The connective tissue between strategy and ship.
Three coverage areas during Beta
Bug fixes & hotpatches — anything surfacing in real user flow, prioritized within 24 hours of report.
UX / feature iteration — driven by the feedback intelligence system, shipped in the same sprint cycle.
Integration hardening — Stripe, calendar sync, credentialing services. Live-traffic resilience.
Three phases.
Both tracks. Lockstep.
Specialist recruitment via Auerbach network. Dev pod sprint zero: stabilization, hotpatch backlog. Concierge onboarding standup. Feedback intelligence system live by Week 2.
Website design and build kicks off. HubSpot CRM configured. Auerbach video and content production begins. Brand voice in market by end of phase.
Practices come online. First bookings completed. Friction logged daily and prioritized into dev sprint. Repeat booking flows activated. Target by day 60: 15+ practices, 60+ specialists, first 50 bookings.
Website live by Week 6. CRM capturing all inbound. Auerbach organic content live on @bloodytoothguy. First social proof captured from Beta users.
Repeat behavior emerges. Marketplace economics validated against the model. Target: 25 practices, 100 specialists, 120+ completed bookings. V1 readiness assessment delivered.
CRM pipeline reporting and attribution complete. Pipeline warmed with V1-ready demand. Brand voice has produced documented credibility lift. Engine ready for V1 acceleration.
What it takes.
What it builds.
What it earns.
Pricing held at $399,000 for engagement simplicity. Payment terms: $150K at kickoff · $125K at Day 30 · $124K at Day 60.
Nothing built in Beta gets thrown away.
Every dollar spent here is permanent foundation. This is the most important commercial point in this proposal.
Website — production-grade, scales directly into Year One. No rebuild.
CRM — same instance, same pipeline architecture, same data. Continues seamlessly.
Brand voice — Auerbach relationship and content infrastructure live into V1.
Engineering pod — same team, same velocity, ready for V1 build.
Pipeline — specialist and practice demand warmed, ready to convert at V1 launch.
Playbook — operational recipe documented, ready to scale to FL, TX, GA, AZ.
If Beta hits the criteria,
Year One commences immediately.
The Year One engagement — $720K, eight workstreams, the full GTM system outlined in the March 2026 Year One Mandate — is structured to begin on the foundation Beta delivers. No rebuild. No onboarding delay. No lost momentum.
Beta is the entry point. Year One is the engine that runs.
Beta
$399KProduct validated. Engine built. Pipeline warmed.
Full GTM Engine
$720KEight workstreams. Tri-state liquidity. Multi-market expansion playbook.
Markets don't shift because
they're ready.
They shift when someone gives them
a better way to work.
That's the opening Ponteo has. Beta is how Ponteo takes it.
How we begin
Prepared by
Eddie Menezes · Tim Shutes
Digital Culture · May 2026