Banking on KC – Maria Flynn of Ambiologix
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Maria Flynn of Ambiologix: Mentoring the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs
Kelly Scanlon:
Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Maria Flynn, the founder and CEO of Ambiologix and the former CEO of Orbis Biosciences. She's also an author, speaker, board member and entrepreneurial champion. And she has a brand new book out called Make Opportunity Happen. Welcome, Maria.
Maria Flynn:
Thank you for having me.
Kelly Scanlon:
So many things that are going on. I followed your career, your entrepreneurial journey from the beginning and it's so neat to see that you've come full circle now that you're mentoring entrepreneurs. Let's talk about that full circle. Take us through your transition from being an engineer and an executive to becoming a celebrated entrepreneur in the biotech and the digital health sectors.
Maria Flynn:
So I started off as an engineer and I tell a lot of people in middle school and high school the value of that STEM foundation. So it was a really great place to start. When I was working as an engineer, I realized I really liked where technology and business intersected. So I went back to school at the University of Chicago and luckily one of the companies that recruited there was Cerner, and it was a really great time to join that rocket ship. A lot of great experience. They had a rotational program, so you got a lot of really interesting things to do. And when they talk about entrepreneurship where you're the entrepreneur within the larger company, that's what I got to do there. I had this real urge to go build something from the ground up, so I left not knowing what it was going to be. Which is pretty scary when you're on a nice ride, but you decide to-
Kelly Scanlon:
Sometimes it takes more when you're in a real comfort zone to make that leap.
Maria Flynn:
Right. But I went on exploration. One of the first doors I knocked on was Bo Fishback, he was at the Kauffman Foundation because I thought he sees lots of interesting things and I knew him from Cerner. And it was just, everything's about timing. And he was working with Cory Berkland, they had already incorporated Orbis and they were working on getting the license out of University of Illinois and an angel funding round together. And when those two things came together and it got real, they needed someone to run with this and I joined them. So that was a really fun ride. We had planned to scale the technology, get the customers and then merge it into a larger company. That was the plan all along. Our plan had been to do that in three to five years. It took us 12. It was a really great journey. And then after that, entrepreneurs are my tribe. So I've been finding ways to serve entrepreneurs, coaching, consulting with Digital Health KC, forming that, and then with the book, that's a way to scale myself so I can reach more people.
Kelly Scanlon:
When you talk about Orbis Biosciences, what exactly was the focus of that company?
Maria Flynn:
Pharmaceutical manufacturing technology. So it was a novel way to make the ingredients that go into pharmaceuticals, that you could make them last longer, solve taste problems, process that we would then partner with pharmaceutical and consumer product companies to make their products better.
Kelly Scanlon:
What were some of the pivotal moments? What were some of the decisions that actually propelled that company forward? You said it took a little longer than you thought to sell it, but all along the way there were milestones you were reaching. Talk to us about some of those pivotal moments.
Maria Flynn:
So the most pivotal is the one to start. So the one that Bo and Cory started and then I joined them. What's interesting about that time, so that was 2008, and about a week after I joined them, the news was out that Lehman Brothers was going down. So it was a really eye-opening of like, oh my gosh, what's going to happen here the next couple of years? And we need this money to last us as long as possible because we're going into new territory here. So in those early days, we could apply our technology to a lot of different industries. And so we picked four, pharmaceuticals, consumer products, food and beverage and specialty chemicals. So think of Monsanto, an agrochemical, if you can make that product safer. Our hypothesis was if we could create enough proof of concept in one of these spaces and then license that technology to Monsanto and then keep going.
So one of our big pivot points was a couple of years in, we had just finished a three-month project with Wrigley. So a flavor change in gum. Our partners who had been in the formulation industry for 30 years said, "I wondered if you were going to figure that out." And I had this eye-opener of it's just too much for this team to know about all these industries and the technology. We've got a focus in pharmaceuticals. So a lot of people from the outside, you could look at this and that's obvious that you should focus. It's one of the things that they always tell people is you need to focus. But going back, I would've made that same decision because we learned a lot. There are things that we learned working on gum that we later applied and had new intellectual property for oral pharmaceutical. And you just don't know that. And we also were getting money from all these places at a time that you couldn't raise money. So that was a really key inflection point that we could continue to hone. But looking back, I would've gone through that journey.
Kelly Scanlon:
So you had your success with Orbis Biosciences and then, as you've said, you shifted towards mentoring other entrepreneurs. Initially you were with Techstars Kansas City. What motivated the transition to Techstars, to working with entrepreneurs in general? And what do you find most rewarding about mentoring?
Maria Flynn:
One is to give back because I had great mentors. And a really important part of my story, and when people say, "What's your biggest piece of advice?" I go to mentors and I go to the tribe that's around you and really developing that. But Techstars, they are the largest early stage investor. They've invested in over 3,000 companies worldwide. Unfortunately, they weren't meant to stay in Kansas City too long. And they've recently pulled out markets like Seattle and Boulder, their home.
Kelly Scanlon:
What's the reason for that?
Maria Flynn:
They want to get more focused, like how we focused in pharmaceuticals, can they focus in certain territories that have a very rich investment environment like LA and New York and Boston? And so we do have gaps in our funding structure here in Kansas City. So I was well aware of that, but it also sent me on a journey of it needs to be fixed. So with Digital Health KC, not all the money to be here, but we need an easier way to connect to it. So how do we develop a network, particularly in digital health, where we have such a concentration that we can be known for it, make it easy for people to come in and roll out the red carpet of let us introduce you to the people you should know.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about what Digital Health does.
Maria Flynn:
When I was at Techstars, my vision was take it more into Digital Health because I saw the rich infrastructure and ecosystem we had here. I was a Cerner alum, so I saw this great opportunity of all the... So there was a real opportunity here. I hadn't realized what a concentration that we had. So I'd come back from an investors' conference where I had had this pivotal conversation where I realized people didn't know what we had outside of Kansas City, much less people within Kansas City didn't know all the digital health that we had here.
I'm on the board of BioNexus KC and that's the perfect place to grow things like a Digital Health KC and to catalyze that activity. So we started to write down the number of companies and just grew and grew. We're now over 100 companies in the digital health space, over 25,000 employees. And it goes back to the '70s with Cerner, but it's well beyond Cerner. A lot of great people working in the space never worked at Cerner. So we just have this massive concentration, very similar to the Animal Health Corridor of the people who identified that and nurtured it and grew it. So if you put spotlights on these things and you become known for it, we are a top place to do this. We just need to grow it and connect it, and that's what Digital Health KC does.
Kelly Scanlon:
So going back to the mentoring, had great mentors yourself. How has your entrepreneurial journey, perhaps the way you were mentored, perhaps lessons learned, how has that helped to inform the way you approach mentoring others?
Maria Flynn:
That is a great question. Because there is no one path to success. And so to let the entrepreneur have freedom to get the right path and a big one in that is funding. So a lot of times we'll read these books of this is the funding path you must take. And the reality is there's lots of different ways. So we leveraged the Small Business Innovation Research, the SBIR grants. We had 9 million through that. And after we got our first grant, one of the mentors said, "Well, a grant does not a company make." And looking back, our journey with the SBIR funding was a very healthy, wonderful way to fund the company, but it was not what was seen as the normal or the preferred.
So you can get advice from a lot of people. You have to be careful, buyer beware, because sometimes, particularly if they haven't been in your space or done it multiple times, they just don't know the realities that you have. So my approach in mentoring is to offer space, but then also help them go faster. So if there is an obvious mistake or misstep that's coming, how do I help them get where they want to be? It gets frustrating when you have too many options. So how do you hone it of you could do these different ways, but really A or B is your best chance right now until you have this more information and then you can go from there.
Kelly Scanlon:
You have a new book out, it's called Make Opportunity Happen. And I know a lot of people have been waiting for it to come out. Can you share a little bit about the format of the book and a few of the key insights that might be helpful to our listeners?
Maria Flynn:
So as I looked at all the entrepreneurs that I had worked with, I saw a few key areas that would indicate success. So their ability to execute the support system that they have around them, the ability to adapt and persevere. And mindset I had as a fifth section. And then I realized mindset is woven throughout these. So there's these four, I call them constellations because it's about aligning your stars. And within each of those four pillars, there are 10 short sections that are around five pages, story, some advice, and then a template. And you can go to the website and download the template and it's editable for you. And my thought was, you need to know about all these things, but you don't have time. So I always had a large stack of books by my bedside and not the time to do that.
So can I give people, do they have time for five pages? Because these are important things you're doing, hiring, firing, building a board, fundraising, how do you get started? And then each of those sections has a list of resources. So if you want to get more, some of them are very targeted. I'll say in this podcast, go to this minute. And as I evolve it, I would like to get even more tailored and customized to that. And then some are books, give a curated library. And I think of it as a cookbook. I don't need to know it all right now, but if I want to go make this, let me go jump to that section.
Kelly Scanlon:
Sure. So it sounds like several easily digestible chunks with very actionable types of information in it. Reflecting on your own journey, and it's been very diverse, but when you think about it as a whole, it all makes sense. What's been one of the most challenging obstacles that you faced, and what did you do to overcome?
Maria Flynn:
So I think the most challenging part is just how long the journey is and how many setbacks you get. And that's just part of the game. And I have this picture in my presentation and it's of a cat that's all wet and has been through a lot and is looking at the camera like, "You're kidding me. They say a cat has nine lives and I'm on my 15th." These things happen to you and you just got to keep going. And to put a bow on that, when we were selling the company, it was 18 months into the process, and the date for finalizing was March 31st of 2020. And why I bring up this story is everybody remembers what they felt like in March of 2020. So all that stress of homeschooling and getting toilet paper and cancel plans. And then we were selling our company, a milestone we had been working on for 12 years, and was that going to evaporate?
And it was such a long process, and I would always try to figure out how do I get urgency, align the urgency on both sides of the table to get this done. And then I joke, I found the answer, and it's a pandemic because as soon as that happened, all the lawyers were working very fast. It's like we had sand in our hands that was just how could we keep it in our hands and control something? So it was going to close March 31st and then I got the call about a week before saying, "We need to delay it to April 30th." And so it was just that panic of it's going to go away. And I remember feeling numb after that call, but also chuckling. Of course, we're going through this during a pandemic. Everything seems so much harder than it needs to be. So there's not one seminal event over it, it was just the you get knocked down, you get back up and keep going.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. And what a great image, a wet cat. That is so perfect. And in all the years I've worked with entrepreneurs, I've never heard anyone compare entrepreneurship to that. It's perfect. It's absolutely perfect. You've talked about being mentored yourself and you have been a beneficiary and a proponent of entrepreneurial resources like Pipeline and other organizations and individuals that have helped you along the way. What advice would you give to entrepreneurs today about leveraging those kinds of networks and resources?
Maria Flynn:
So the last section in the book gives a quote from Gru, in The Life of Gru, and it says, "Find your tribe and never let it go." And he's the one with all the minions. And so I was like, oh, each section has a quote, that's the perfect quote about your tribe. And so it can either be through programs like Pipeline, which it's orchestrated for you or you can go do the work and find who is your tribe yourself. It just takes a little more work. But at each point in my life, I can look back and think of that circle that we helped each other keep going. Because generally I do hard stuff and I'm with people who do hard stuff. And so how do we help each other go through that and not quit? And when you get knocked down, we help each other up.
So Pipeline is wonderful. When we joined it, we all thought this is a one-year program. I don't think any of us thought here 15 years later, it would be important to us. And it is. And it's because it's a group of people that have unique experiences and walk a journey like you walk. So when you have things that you think other people won't understand or they'll just think I'm complaining if I say that, but if I call that group of people, they know exactly what I'm feeling and can say, "Oh, I was there. Don't do that. I did that. That was bad. But do this." So that's what's special about finding those people that have shared experience with you.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. And sometimes I hear, and it always used to slay me, that, "I don't have time for that." And it's like this is an investment that you're making and just look at you and the returns you've had. And as you say, it's a group of people who understand what you're going through and that you lift each other up. It's truly an investment to take that time to develop these kinds of relationships. When you look at Kansas City's entrepreneurial landscape today, what changes or what sorts of developments do you hope to see in the future, particularly regarding diversity and investment in the early stage companies, as you were talking about a little bit earlier?
Maria Flynn:
So Pipeline Entrepreneurs has always been important to me and I've been very active in recruiting for a lot of years, even before Digital Health. Say 10 years ago, if we could get one woman in a cohort of 12, we were high-fiving. And now these last couple years, you're seeing over half are diverse. So we've come a long way. A lot of it is do we see ourselves doing these types of things? If there's a driver in some of the things I do, it's because that farm girl can run biotech. And I wanted to show that I could do that and I wanted to help other people come along. So I'm very excited about the diversity that we're seeing in our founders. More work to do as far as expanding the founding team, the boards, the voices that we hear. Do you see representation of everybody in the community at all those levels?
Funding, seeing great progress of more funds here. What I've helped to create as a network, specific for digital health, but a network of 100 investors across the US where we can connect people. So just make it easier. So everybody's creating their own investor list and doing their own research. What if we combine that and people could share, people could introduce to one another? So I think it's easier to tackle industry by industry, but if we can create a framework then cyber security and some of our other areas that we're interested in, can we model that out to get more reach in the investor community?
Kelly Scanlon:
You've worked with lots of entrepreneurs. What common traits do you see in successful entrepreneurs in their startups? And what advice would you give to entrepreneurs who are just starting out?
Maria Flynn:
So I would go back to the book. You have to be able to execute. You have to be able to adapt and persevere and have the right mindset. And I've only heard one entrepreneur stand up and say, "I did this alone." The support system, mentors, your team, your co-founders, your champions, the more friends you have, the easier the journey's going to be. And so that's what I wanted to put down in this guidebook. I've been doing this a long time. So what are some tricks that have really helped me to be successful that can help you to be successful sooner?
I've already talked about mentoring, but find the right mentor, but also be the right mentor. So being a mentor is very fulfilling. So this is not a one-way street. Advice that I've got early on was, "Have a lawyer you can trust, an accountant you can trust, a banker you can trust." And the first two I got right away, my lawyer and accountant, hugely important to me. The banker, it took me a couple tries to find it. And I'm happy to say I am a Country Club Bank customer and they've been really good to us.
Kelly Scanlon:
Finally, how can our listeners connect with you and follow some of the projects that you're involved with and the contributions you're making to the entrepreneurial community and get a copy of your book?
Maria Flynn:
Well, please connect with me on LinkedIn. I have been posting weekly and I am committed to stepping that up with the book. My book's website is makeopportunityhappen.com. You can join my weekly newsletter there. And then there are free templates and links to resources there. And that will continue to evolve. And if you're in the digital health space or even if you're not but you're interested, please check out digitalhealthkc.org. You can see all the companies and all the activities that they are doing. I'm really proud of what that's becoming.
Kelly Scanlon:
Maria, thank you so much for taking this time to be on Banking on KC with us and for all that you have done throughout the years for the Kansas City community, especially for the entrepreneurial community. We appreciate it.
Maria Flynn:
Thank you so much.
Joe Close:
This is Joe Close, president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Maria Flynn for being our guest on this episode of Banking on KC. Maria's journey from working as an innovative engineer at Cerner, one of Kansas City's iconic entrepreneurial success stories, to spearheading biotech breakthroughs at Orbis Biosciences, to writing a practical guide for startups demonstrates how successful entrepreneurs can continue their legacies by significantly influencing and shaping the next generation of entrepreneurs. Maria's commitment to fostering a thriving digital health sector in Kansas City is a testament to the kind of community and business leadership we value here at Country Club Bank. We are proud to support innovators like Maria who drive innovation and economic growth that enhances our community. Thanks for tuning in this week. We're banking on you Kansas City. Country Club Bank, member FDIC.