We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dan Young a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Dan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us about an important lesson you learned in school and why that lesson is important to you?

I have had over 27 organized years of educational experience — from K to PhD. In that time period, one thing that has continually come up, whether at a young age or in a doctoral program, is the disconnect between education and practical business acumen. To be successful, a person does not have to graduate from college or graduate school. They only need to have an innate desire to learn, access to information, and the ability to test their skills in real-time. I had been an entrepreneurship professor for more than a decade and I was continually frustrated when students were not able to internalize concepts in the classroom setting. These same students, in a very short time period, were able to fully integrate these teachings in the real word when they had skin in the game. This emboldened me to completely recreate curriculum to set students up for success in entrepreneurial learning.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am the Founding Director of the Wharton-AltFinance program at the Wharton School and I am the curator of TEDxWilmington, which is in the top 1% of all TEDx franchises in the country with over 750 speakers and 50 million views on YouTube. As an “edupreneur”, I also created the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) Program at Goldey-Beacom College. the first online DBA class for Wilmington University, the first study abroad program for the Horn Program of Entrepreneurship and the first international internship program for study abroad at the University of Delaware. I received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Marketing from the University of Delaware’s Honors Program and my Ph.D. in Marketing from Temple University. I have done entrepreneurship and executive leadership programs with the University of Delaware, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oxford. I have been an instructor at Goldey-Beacom College, Temple University, West Chester University of Pennsylvania, the University of Delaware, Neumann University and Wilmington University. I am currently the President of Maverick Class LLC, a holding company for a diversified portfolio of entertainment, education, and hospitatlity companies. I have served on the Boards of many local organizations and currently serve as the President of Theatre N at Nemours, President of the Board of Safe Haven Healing, Membership Chairman of the Board of Governors for the University and Whist Club, Board Member of the for-profit corporation Spekciton and an advisory Board Member for the Fresh Start program and Derby Diversity Week at the Kentucky Derby. My ability to create solutions in organizations steeped in bureaucracy and get the best out of people is skill set.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I would like to unlearn the domain on which MOST educational systems are built, which is to create employees. At all levels of school, you begin to realize that most educational systems were built in the industrial revolution and are meant to provide American companies with workers.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best course has been referrals of happy customers/clients. That represents 100% of my business.