Mr. Young talked about his career thus far, and has done a variety of different things. He got his undergrad from the University of Puget Sound, majoring in Biology and Politics. After graduation, he took a job with REI, thinking he'd work there for two years but ended up being there for 10. He was hired to do small stuff around the office like filing papers, but worked his way up to lead negotiator. He also moved into working with IT. He also worked on side projects just as a creative outlet, and some of these things ended up getting bigger than his day job. During this time, Mr. Young also got his MBA from University of Washington Tacoma, in 1.5 years instead of two, by taking three classes at a time instead of two. He commented that work-life balance is something he's still working on.
He said that he ended up leaving REI because he reached a point where it was obvious that everyone above him was going to stay in their position, and there was no longer any opportunity for advancement. Mr. Young said his breadth of experience was deliberate. He has an MBA, because in his position, business partners expect him to have one. He also has the IT background, marketing experience, and finance, so he's familiar with a lot of the different aspects of business.
Mr. Young also talked about a number of successful businesses he has started. He made a website to test code that helps organize workplace sports, and he made it available for his coworkers. Someone at Microsoft heard about it, and in one weekend, his site was flooded with new users because Microsoft started doing lunchtime sports. From there, it just took off and when the hard drive failed and the site was down, they made $15,000 just from people sending in money and saying "fix it".
He also started Tacoma Runners, which is a running club that was made into a business because they needed insurance to run in the parks, and it was very expensive. The club has running every week, and has traveled to China and ran on the Great Wall of China, and has made other trips too. They make their business on membership fees, selling products, and sponsorships. This organization was for life experiences, not for making money.
Mr. Young also owns Exit 133, which is a blog for Tacoma politics and news. They cover city hall meetings, local businesses, and other local current events. It has been around since 2005 and has been around for longer than any of the other local reporters. He doesn't personally write much for the blog anymore, but it is still quite successful and bringing in advertising revenue.
Another side project he created for his own use, is a tool that allows him to put in a search term such as a particular brand or a subject, and it will track news, positive and negative feedback and other information from the internet. This tool allowed him to educate himself on public housing issues before he went in to start working with policymakers on this issue. He made the mistake of showing one person 4 months ago, and now has lobbyists and several companies around the world contacting him to buy the tool, and offering money. It was only designed for his personal use, so he'd need to scale it up before it can be usable by others, so right now he's working on hiring people to build a tool big enough to sell.
He also had some wisdom that is valuable for anyone wanting to start a business. He stated that he doesn't like having parners because negotiating with a partner who wants to leave is worse than some of his friends' divorces. He prefers strategic partners and contractors. One student asked how he comes up with business names, and he said that's actually one of the things he does often for businesses who contact him. He and his team use large white boards, and just start drawing a mind map of key words relating to the business, and words that associate with them. Once they have a big map of words, they start putting different words together until they have something they really like.
Mr. Young also mentioned that entrepreneurship is about more than just the money you make from it. There is also value in the life experiences you never would have gotten if you didn't start that business. He told a story about how he had been doing a lot of work in London, and was flying there nearly every week, so when his significant other got laid off, they decided to move there on a week's notice, and ended up living there for a year. After that, they almost moved to Australia but decided against it in the end.
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