This startup leader is revealing entrepreneur answers (and they’re listed in the table of contents)

Aligning the stars as a forward-looking founder and business owner isn’t easy, Maria Flynn noted, so she wrote her own guidebook.

“Entrepreneurs are my tribe of people,” said Flynn, a serial founder and regional digital health leader. “And I was telling the same stories over and over again, so I started to write them down. I realized there’s a book in here somewhere although I didn’t exactly know what it looked like. It was a bit of a puzzle putting these pieces together.”

She released “Make Opportunity Happen” earlier this year.

The founder and CEO of Ambiologix, Flynn knows starting a business can be a lonely journey, she said, expressing her hope the book can let other entrepreneurs know they have a friend.

“I hope the stories resonate with people and provide actionable plans and things they can do. There’s no right way to do this,” said Flynn, who also serves as advisory board chair of Digital Health KC. “I think a lot of times when we read or hear people’s stories, they’re fans of one way to raise money; one way is to handle equity within your company; one one way to do a lot of things.”

“There are a lot of ways to success, but people get overwhelmed by all the different paths that they can take,” she continued.

The book — which Flynn worked on for years — focuses on the stories of three entrepreneurs who didn’t receive much support in the beginning of their journey: Dr. Julio Palmaz, who invented the first successful heart stent; Melanie Perkins of Canva; and James Dyson of Dyson vacuums, she noted.

“It’s very difficult — that’s the common theme — and then they were wildly successful,” Flynn said. “They have this common struggle to get people to walk with them and believe in what they are doing. Then you see these great headlines and you think the stars align for them but not for you. But it’s a lot of work aligning the stars.”

From the archives: Community Builders to Watch: Maria Flynn engineers a future where KC’s digital health legacy rivals its football

Check out a Startup Hustle podcast interview featuring Maria Flynn and serial founder Matt Watson below, then keep reading.

Flynn — who also led Orbis Biosciences, which exited in 2020 — also details in the book 40 short methods to make opportunity happen in the entrepreneurial world that she’s learned, themed around execution, support system, adapting, and perseverance.

Maria Flynn, Ambiologix, Digital Health KC

“An example would be urgency builders — because I would think a lot at Orbis: ‘How do I get the other party to go faster? How do I build this urgency to get this done?’” she added. “So it’s five pages and then a template. You can go to the website and download the template and make it relevant to what you’re working on.”

Working with Digital Health KC the past couple of years, Flynn said, is a great example of making opportunity happen by taking the entrepreneurial skill set and putting it in the not-for-profit space.

“You see where you need to go and start taking action to get there,” she explained, noting priorities around raising funding, building teams, and putting structure around goals.

Flynn especially recommends the book for early-stage entrepreneurs, she said.

“This is when you have an idea and you need to get started,” she continued. “Who are the people that you need to surround yourself with? How do you think about making progress and goals? How do you think about how you tell your story?” 

Feedback on the book so far has been positive, Flynn said, noting she’s heard that it includes practical advice and is a quick read. She plans to reach out to college and high school entrepreneurship teachers to see how it resonates with those groups.

“When you hear people say, ‘I just looked at the table of contents and this is what I needed to know right now,’ that’s really why you start doing a project like this,” Flynn said.