by Will Knous
Like a lot of the very best origin stories in the worlds of healthcare and business, this one starts with a sandwich board. What you’re picturing in your head right now is correct. The two large, rectangular pieces of wood or plastic connected by strings, draped over the shoulders of someone carrying a message of goods or services, locally available, personally endorsed, and hopefully within walking distance of the sign-wearer, that’s it.
Whether or not this sandwich board actually appears first, chronologically, in the history of Flynn Chiropractic is not particularly relevant. It was certainly the early days of a new business. No, what matters more is the board itself, and what matters most is what it represents to David Flynn, D.C., to the community of Tyler, Texas, and to the 10,000 patients (and counting) that have walked through those doors seeking comfort and relief.
“To get to the sandwich board, first, I need tell you why I picked Old Jacksonville, why I picked Tyler,” says Flynn.
In 2010, Flynn was living and working in Houston for another chiropractor and looking to open up his own place. He had spent a few years in the city, but it never felt like home to him personally or as a potential place to plant his entrepreneurial flag. Originally from outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (don’t hold it against him, please), Flynn has always had a preference for green spaces and the outdoors over sitting in traffic on 610 West. So, when his parents were interested in retiring to the Tyler area and he ventured northward to Smith County to take a look at a few houses on their behalf, he was struck by the scenery, the healthcare community, and the people he met. Tyler appealed to him as a place to build a business and a life.
“This looked the most like home of anywhere I’ve been in Texas,” recalled Flynn. “Then I started looking up the demographics of Tyler, and there was something special going on here that wasn’t going on anywhere else that I was looking. There seemed to be a lot of locally owned businesses. It seemed like a homegrown, local place that kind of takes care of the people that really commit to living and working here.”
Flynn began the due diligence process in earnest, it and “everything just kind of kept pointing to Tyler.” Though there were other cities in the running, only Tyler’s financial community offered a friendly ear when loans were discussed. “I walked into Southside Bank, and they listened to me, to what I wanted to build here, and they said, ‘absolutely no problem – we’ve got you covered,’ which was a breath of fresh air after dealing with folks who almost seemed to be looking for reasons to shut a new business down.”
So, Flynn made his move. He found a great spot on Old Jacksonville Highway and signed the papers.
“That can be a shaky hand signing up for something like that, betting on yourself and your idea,” he remembers, mostly fondly. “But I was going to go forward, no matter what—so let’s do it.”
For the next few months, they built out the office space. Flynn spent time trying to meet people around town across the healthcare community, finding some speaking engagements to share his passion and skills. Then, in August 2010, the office opened up—it was all done. Now what?
“I was sitting there at the front desk of the office with no patients,” he remembers, clearly. “I had met a lot of people, but I didn’t really know anybody in town just yet, and so I thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to grab a sign. There’s tons of traffic out there and they’ve got to see me … so I’m going to go walk the street with the sign.’”
So, for about two months, Dr. Flynn went out there twice a week, in the morning wearing a sandwich board he made. It said, “Pain Fixed.”
“I was in my scrubs just walking up and down the sidewalk. People were honking at me,” he says, with a chuckle. “It felt ridiculous to do it; sort of one of those things where you swallow your pride, but you need business. Your back is against the wall.
“A large loan will do that to a man,” he says, with a bigger laugh.
But then, one day a patient came in and said that he saw Flynn out there and came to check it out. Then, the phones began to ring a bit on the sandwich board days. People weren’t necessarily saying they saw the sign and decided to walk in. But for whatever reason, when he donned the sign, things ticked up a bit.
“You know, maybe the universe heard it, and people started coming my way,” Flynn says. “I started getting a little busier and was able to kind of start growing from there.”
Flynn worked diligently in the space he leased on Old Jacksonville Highway, working on his own (with a valuable office team), and he didn’t slow down. After the clinic closed each day, he went to Chamber events and healthcare expos, trying to connect with other professionals and peers. When the clinic was open, he sat with each patient, listening intently.
“Whoever’s there, sitting in front of me, my job is to take care of that person,” he says. “That’s sort of our mantra. I noticed the town was really receptive to it, and I think, based on that simple idea, the practice grew, grew, and grew … and I found Tyler to be very welcoming. If a friend who owned a business wanted me to come speak to their workers about back pain or how to get over sprained ankles, I was ready to help them out the best way I could. I was finding out that Tyler was, I think, a rare gem in that regard. They were welcoming to a small business coming in, working hard, and contributing to the community. It allowed Flynn Chiropractic to develop quickly.”
Grow they did. August of this year marks the 15-year anniversary of Flynn Chiropractic. They treated their 10,000th patient just last month. They spent seven years in that first office before buying the property and building their new space, still off Old Jacksonville Highway, almost 8 years ago. But as many business owners soon find out, success brings with it new challenges.
“You know, one of the nice parts about growing is that you’re growing, and you’re doing well. The hard part is those hours fill up more and more,” says Flynn. “I realized I was having less and less time to spend with patients, and people were having a harder time getting in to get the care they needed. So, I started searching for someone to bring on; for a chiropractor doing good work, who had the same philosophy on care and community as I did.”
In 2018, after around 18 months of vetting candidates, Dr. Blake Carroll joined the practice. Born and raised in Tyler, TX, Carroll studied at UT Tyler before attending Chiropractic School and was coming back home looking for a place to begin. In Carroll, Flynn found someone who thought about treatment in a similar way, while offering a different skillset. They fit together fantastically, and Carroll really hit the ground running.
“He’s built a fantastic life, coming back home,” says Flynn. “And he’s been very successful here, I think, because he’s very earnest when it comes to what he’s doing for people. When somebody comes in and they have a problem, he’s there to listen, to fix it, to do what he can to help. And that’s exactly the type of person we were looking for because that’s exactly the practice that we want.”
The Tyler community clearly agrees. They’ve been agreeing for the last seven years, and they’ve been so agreeable that Flynn Chiropractic soon ran into a familiar problem. They needed more help again. By now, Flynn Chiropractic was more than just one person. It was a brand. It was something that patients placed value in and that the community has a sense about. Dr. Flynn understands the responsibility that he brings to a business, especially in healthcare. He couldn’t just add another chiropractor, even if they were highly skilled and exceedingly personable. Someone who possessed those attributes and whose care philosophy aligned was important, but someone who understood what is important about a local business was vital.
Dr. Xavier Moffit started at Flynn Chiropractic as a student intern from UT Tyler and worked there for a bit after graduation.
“I think he was asking himself some questions about what his path forward might be,” says Flynn. “So, I pulled him aside one day to talk. I asked him what he thought about becoming a chiropractor, because I thought he would be fantastic. He came in a week and a half later and told me he’d enrolled in Chiropractic School and was starting in three weeks!”
They kept in touch throughout Moffit’s time in school, and after graduation when he was looking to come back to East Texas, Flynn was ready with an invitation to join the practice.
And so, the Flynn Chiropractic family continues to grow, right alongside their patients. They’re treating some of the patients that were there at the beginning. But they’re also treating their families. They’re seeing adults who first came when they were middle school athletes. And then as the young athletes were getting bigger, stronger, faster, all of a sudden, they’re getting married. Some are graduating from college, and they’re fully grown, contributing adults. Patients who were once students treating sports injuries are coming in to deal with the effects of the dreaded “Dad Back.”
Flynn has grown too, building his family alongside his business. He married a local Tylerite, Baylee Brown in 2015, and they have two young daughters, Everett and Merritt.
“I am so totally outnumbered,” Flynn grins. “Seriously though, it’s wonderful to not only see the patients’ lives grow and watch their kids get older, but now the patients are seeing me coming to Tyler, getting married, having kids, and kind of growing up with them. It’s been a fun part of seeing 10,000+ patients. It’s a personal connection there that I think only Tyler has, and you don’t get in other places.
“And truthfully, that connection, for me personally it’s so important, but it’s something that’s absolutely essential to everyone at Flynn Chiropractic. The Clinic has only become what it is because of the people who worked here. A lot of people that worked here over the last 15 years were nursing students, kinesiology students, and other people who wanted to make a difference at work and not just clock in and clock out. I think the patients and the community see that and appreciate it.”
It’s not terribly difficult to see that he’s right. There’s the beautiful offices staffed with welcoming, knowledgeable, helpful staff. There are patients in the treatment rooms and waiting patiently in the lobby. There’s the businesses and healthcare groups that are counting on Dr. Flynn or one of his fellow chiropractors to speak to their team next week. There is the community that sees and supports a local business, built from the ground up, by people who believe in what they are doing and know that they can help.
“I came to Tyler to be the best chiropractor I could be and really show people how good chiropractic can be for them,” Flynn says, leaning forward in his seat. “You know, you meet healthcare providers of all kinds—chiropractors, doctors, physical therapists—and some are good, and some are bad. My goal in Tyler has always been to put a good name to chiropractic care and really show people that it can be massively beneficial. Whenever someone walks in my door, I want to help them however I can. To provide what is best for them to get better here or connect with a specialist if I can’t help them. Is it an adjustment? Is it massage? Is it acupuncture? Is it exercises? Is it stretches? Do they need to go and get injections? Do they need some medicine to kind of get through what they’re going through? We sit down with each person and work to find out if they are in the right place. If they are, let’s get going and let’s get them healed up. And if not, let’s find ways to get you better.”
It really is a simple concept to build a practice and build a business. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to put into action. That requires a steadfast commitment to what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. It demands that you recognize that expertise without hard work won’t be enough. It’s sort of like walking up and down the street wearing a homemade sandwich board when your name is on the lease and the loan paperwork. It is a willingness to be truly personal with your business. “To work hard at work worth doing,” what Theodore Roosevelt called the best prize in life.
“I still have the sign,” says Flynn. “I keep it in storage, just as kind of a reminder, you know.”