How I Battled Back from Near Bankruptcy

In 2008, I was the owner of a successful C&B laboratory: I had four employees, a good roster of accounts and I had just purchased my first CAD/CAM system. We were producing 15-20 zirconia crowns per day, plus gold, porcelain and e.max crowns and business was booming. Towards the end of 2009, however, the recession began to hit us: things slowed down and I was struggling to make payroll and pay my bills—the payment on the CAD/CAM system alone was colossal.

On top of the financial stress, my marriage imploded and that’s when I nearly lost it all. I was broke, on the brink of bankruptcy and had to move into the basement of my laboratory. I spent my nights trying to figure out how I ended up in this dark basement, sleeping on a mattress on the ground. Then things got worse: two of my key employees, including my ceramist, quit and took some of my accounts with them.

Overcoming that period was the biggest challenge of my life. Yet no matter how...