The Guest Speaker: Derek Young

Derek Young is a successful entrepreneur and small business promoter. After earning his undergraduate from University of Puget Sound in political science and chemistry. He landed his first professional job for REI as an IT support, but worked hard to promote way up to lead negotiator, and a program manager. However, after ten year of REI he decided to go back in school and pursued his MBA from University of Washington Tacoma. At the times, he started to create small business such as Seasonal View, Exit133, Suite133, and Tacoma Runners, and so many others.

As he mentioned during his speech in the class, Derek has a deep passion about creating small business and inventing new ideas to improving service industry. Where he has a plenty of expertise, and excellent experience for renovating how the companies can maintain a stable health businesses. Derek also explained very clearly, how his strategy of creating something new help him to reach a level where he feels boring or disengagement if he is not making any new business. Which is totally a unique approach how he adopted entrepreneurial mindset that works for him all the time.

Indeed, Derek had been talked so many important stuffs, but there are few takeaways that are necessary to remember all the time. Derek said during the speech “I was and still I am a guy that jumps the cliff and by the half way checks if he has a parachute”  which means if you want to create something do not worry about what will happen next, but start the work right away.  He also said if you want to create something “ it has to be solving a problem that existed and put there to tested” this means, If you have an invention, or you are establishing a new business it has to address issues which needs to be solved, and start to tested it before you deliver to the public.