Charise Flynn, chief operating officer at Dwolla, networks during a Dwolla meetup event last week at Cabaret West Glen. Photo courtesy of Eric Rowley/Juice.
One would think that with more than 100 programmers and tech entrepreneurs crammed into Cabaret in West Glen on Wednesday, March 2, all eyes would have been on the TVs showing Steve Jobs introducing the iPad 2.
Instead, they were fixed on founder Ben Milne and the rest of the Dwolla team as the social payment service presented its newest features, including Dwolla Spots, a geolocation feature that the company hopes will make buying retail goods cash- and debit-free.
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A few days before the announcement and public event, Charise Flynn, Dwolla’s newly installed chief operating officer, said the improvement “really positions us to be first in the market to do something.” Flynn will need to be prepared for the acceleration in growth Dwolla could be headed toward. But the 29-year-old self-starter is no stranger to moving up fast.
Flynn started as a project manager for Nelson Development, where she worked on several central Iowa real estate projects, like e300 Grand and the AP Transfer Lofts. Each development was set up as a separate entity, “so it was like starting two to three businesses at a time,” she said. “I saw this machine of starting businesses.”
After several years, the philosophy and religion graduate decided this entrepreneurial crash course had given her enough of a feel for business that she ventured out to create her own consulting company, c.Results, LLC.
“Everybody thought I was crazy quitting my job in the worst economy ever,” said Flynn. But she knew, despite the climate, it was time to strike out on her own.
Flynn said she’s always been entrepreneurial. She grew up learning the cattle business on her parents’ Odebolt, Ia., farm, starting with a pair of bulls at age eight and expanding her own company to over 20 head within a decade. She continued that entrepreneurial spirit at Simpson College starting a nanny service for Des Moines-area families.
In about 18 months running c.Results, Flynn worked with more than 20 clients, one of them Dwolla. She worked with Milne on business development and project management. He paid her the ultimate compliment by offering her a position at the company.
“It was really an opportunity to be part of something bigger,” Flynn said. Though she enjoyed her work as a consultant, she knew that business would only be able to grow so far. At Dwolla, she said, “the opportunities are really endless – infinite.”
(Left, Flynn networks at last week’s Dwolla Meetup. Photo courtesy of Eric Rowley/Juice.)
Flynn’s job as Dwolla COO includes overseeing the company’s growth road map, and handling some of the business-to-business relationships the company is developing. “In a startup, you wear many hats,” she said.
One of those responsibilities is being a public face for her new employer. “Typically I don’t like these kinds of feature stories,” she said. “Now it’s a little more a function of my job. I try to stay kind of behind the scenes.”
That is going to be harder and harder as Flynn gains notoriety for her business savvy. She was just named to the Des Moines Business Record’s 2011 list of “Forty Under 40” leaders.
“So many opportunities present themselves when you push out into the world,” Flynn said of her own journey.
While speaking to Central College students about a month ago, she asked them, “What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken?” Flynn was puzzled by their responses. “You’re in an entrepreneur class, go take some risks,” she said she told them. “Getting used to that is a good thing.”
Editor’s Note: This article also appears in this week’s issue of Juice magazine. To learn more about our partnership, see our post: “Announcing our partnership with Juice.”
