A successful engineer by day and an entrepreneur by night, that’s what Derek Ting is.

Derek followed his passion for entrepreneurship and launched FREESTYLE a few years back, a brand with the purpose to help and inspire individuals out there to pursue their own path in life through sharing stories, empowering messages, bold designs, and building a community. But he didn’t stop there.

Without a professional experience in the kitchen or background in culinary, but with a dream of sharing Taiwanese cuisine with more people in the world, he brought Little Ding’s to life.

In an interview with Asian Hustle Network, Derek shared insights into his entrepreneurial journey. Join us as we delve into Derek Ting’s remarkable story, uncovering the secrets to his success and the invaluable lessons he has learned along the way.

DEREK’S JOURNEY BOTH AS AN ENGINEER AND ENTREPRENEUR

I graduated back in 2019 with an engineering degree while working to launch my first real brand/business, FREESTYLE, but I wasn’t always into business or entrepreneurship. Before 2015, I thought that being an engineer was “IT” for me. I thought engineering was everything I wanted and everything I would be doing for the rest of my life so I didn’t even think of any other possibility. 

In 2015 I took on my first internship/Co-op after freshman year at IBM/Globalfoundries which was honestly a dream come true for me (I mean what freshman wouldn’t be excited about an opportunity like that?). Little did I know, that experience would change everything for me but in the complete opposite way I thought it would.

Seeing the energy of the people who were there for 20-30 years made me realize I needed to do something else, something different. That was when I read my first book, started taking stocks more seriously, and started trying out a whole bunch of different ventures/ideas/things. And for those of you who don’t know what you want to do yet, it’s okay to not know, but you won’t know unless you go out and try a whole bunch of different things!

Nothing stuck with me until later in college, which was FREESTYLE, but even then I wasn’t anywhere near launch by the time I graduated so I stuck out engineering as a way to support myself while I go on this journey to figure “business” out.

FREESTYLE didn’t take off how I wanted it to and I slowly learned that business in general and then each industry had their own “game” to play but I knew how important it was for me to continue to go through the growing pains. Experience compounds and business principles transfer over to new ventures so it was important I kept going despite not finding “success” so I could keep learning. I don’t believe that I’d be able to do what I’m doing with Little Ding’s today and at the speed we’re going at if I didn’t keep building FREESTYLE.

It’s been 5 years since I started building an actual brand/business and 7 since I started learning about entrepreneurship and I’m only getting started!

Little Ding’s has been something I’ve wanted to build for a long time and the accumulation of all of my past experiences, knowledge, and network is moving us forward and getting us opportunities at a speed that I couldn’t have predicted. It’s been really cool and super mind blowing but again, this is only the beginning, we haven’t even gotten started yet!

I’m blessed that I am also a full-time engineer on the side because being an engineer (specifically in data and analytics), has helped me develop and refine skills necessary in business but not stressed such as the importance of understanding numbers, metrics, and data pertaining to each aspect of the business. Is it hard to do all of the above? Yeah, my entire life at this moment is just work… but I love it.

PUSHING THE LIMITS

In the process of building FREESTYLE and Little Ding’s, I learned that limits are self-imposed.

I’m a huge dreamer, and I love challenges. The process and hardships of entrepreneurship, which are basically personal development, helped me to discover that every time I pushed myself to what I thought was my limit, I could handle more, and once I realized that the playbook was entirely up to me, I went kind of crazy (in a good way of course).

For example, I launched Little Ding’s in October of 2022. We then did ONE small event in November and ONE event in January. How were we able to handle the largest food events on the west coast, back-to-back weekends, and even introduce a new menu item? Because that’s exactly what we did when we did the Water Lantern Festival, into the first and second Foodieland, the first 626 Mini Night Market, the first We Bridge Expo in Vegas into more and more up to now, where within 8 months of even existing, we are coming for the main 626 events in SoCal!

STAYING TRUE TO THE FLAVORS OF AUTHENTIC TAIWANESE CUISINE

My goal with Little Ding’s is to bring Taiwanese food out to more of the world, and so doing that means the food I focus on has to be somewhat relatable between cuisines such as Taiwanese popcorn chicken, where almost everyone has some idea of what popcorn chicken is, but maybe not necessarily Taiwanese popcorn chicken.

When thinking about new food items to add, I’m envisioning myself taking a stroll through Taiwan’s night markets and seeing which foods are popular that I remember the taste of and would be easily accepted in the States.

When it comes to testing recipes, I gather a ton of different online recipes and lay out all of the ingredients that are being used to figure out what each ingredient adds to the recipe and then slowly test out the ratios until the taste brings me back to the streets of the night market.

I may not come from a culinary background or know a ton about ingredients but I have good taste buds and I can remember taste even if I didn’t know what made it.

The reality is that, it is a LOT of testing and as much as everyone around me enjoys the food I make and the recipes I created, I myself got a bit sick of them because I ate each item that I tested multiple times a day for weeks before I got the recipes to where I wanted them AND THEN I would continue to adjust as I got feedback from all of my guinea pigs *cough* I mean friends, in Vegas.

It’s a bit easier now because I have a team so I don’t have to eat as much of my own food over and over again but it’s still a lot of testing especially to stay true to the flavors of authentic Taiwanese cuisine.

OVERCOMING HURDLES

The more I zoom out, the smaller the stumbles become.

Derek Ting

I love challenges in general so I actively seek them out for us to take on and I think almost every event we’ve done was a challenge because every single one was unique.

But in terms of the challenges we’ve faced where things went wrong or weren’t great for us, a lot of it comes down to the long-term vision and how focused you are on it. We came out swinging when we launched Little Ding’s and crushed our first event. We thought it would be like that for other events too but we were met with two financial losses in a row, one of them being -$2,700 which hurt really bad especially when we’re just getting started and every dollar meant more.

So this is where the long term vision comes in. If I look at the 3-month timeline, we’re absolutely broken. We invested thousands, made some back at the first event, and then dug a deeper ditch with the next two events. If I look at the 6-month timeline, well okay we have Foodieland and 626 Vegas coming up, and we have a good chance of making those losses up at those events. If I look at the 2-year timeline, we should have 1-2 stores open by then with catering clients set and be doing multiple events a weekend.

The more I zoom out, the smaller the stumbles become. Even if they hurt a ton at the time. Another thing I will note is that as a founder or leader, you can’t break… at least not in front of your team. It’s good to be transparent with how business is doing but even in those moments, you have to excite your team.

And there are of course countless challenges with doing outdoor events especially not having done any yourself but those typically come down to how fast you can think on the spot and how well you can adapt to situations which honestly becomes second nature after enough practice.

OTHER VENTURES DEREK IS INTERESTED IN EXPLORING

I have a ton of ideas in my head that I want to eventually build out, including a sister shop to Little Ding’s focused on Taiwanese desserts, a co-working space with incubator access, with access to investors, schools similar to the one founded by the Blue Man Group in Manhattan, universal educational platforms for everyone, and I do want to get into Esports but that one is more of a “for fun” project.

HOW DEREK DEFINES SUCCESS

Success to me has changed a lot throughout the years and a lot of it had to do with the friends I have around me.

Before, success to me was making a ton of money to buy my parents and myself nice things and not having to work anymore. Now, success to me is being able to create without anything holding you back.

Create businesses, opportunities, and experiences for those around you. That’s what I care about and want to do and there’s some debt I have to pay off first but honestly, I think I’ll be successful as long as I can get both myself and businesses in the green because after that, I’ll have some money to do more of the above!

ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OR SKILLS FOR ENTREPRENEURS

The essential qualities or skills I believe every entrepreneur should have or be working on are: communication and vision, humility, adaptability and decision-making, mental fortitude and perseverance, and patience and optimism.

I think the ones I grouped together work hand in hand!

Communication should include vision because your team should always know where you’re going as a company and where they’re going/where they can go within the company. Drop your ego, you don’t know as much as you think you do, and listening can save you time, money, and resources.

Being able to adapt pretty much means making a decision to change on the spot but both are important and practice helps a lot here.

You have to have the mental fortitude to push through because it’s not easy (principles are simple but insanely hard to master).

The last one is patience where you have to be patient with the results of your work since it might not show up for years and that plays in with optimism because you have to see that you will succeed (the “light”) otherwise you might need to re-evaluate your current trajectory.

CONNECT WITH DEREK

IG: 

Derek Ting – @duhricehero 

Little Ding – @littledingscafe

FREESTYLE – @frstyleofficial

Websites/Blogs:

Little Ding’s – littledingscafe.com

Little Ding’s Blogs (Medium) – @littledingscafe 

FREESTYLE – frstyleofficial.com

FREESTYLE Podcast – Spotify

At the helm of Aura, one of the world’s largest mental wellness content platforms, is Steve Lee, the co-founder and CEO with an inspiring story to tell.

Steve’s journey began as an immigrant in the United States, facing the challenges of language and cultural barriers. However, it was his parents’ bitter divorce, entangled in unfamiliar Korean laws, that deeply impacted his life. Witnessing his mother’s mental health struggles, Steve recognized the need for support and the stigma surrounding mental wellness, particularly within the Asian community.

Initially on a pre-med track at UC Berkeley, Steve’s true passion emerged through his involvement in founding non-profit organizations and self-reflection. Together with his brother Daniel, who shared the same vision, Steve embraced entrepreneurship as a means to create a societal-level impact. Thus, Aura was born.

With a grand vision to help a billion people find peace, Aura set out to democratize access to the knowledge and expertise of coaches and therapists. They created a platform that enabled coaches worldwide to record their voices and generate high-quality audio content from the comfort of their homes.

Aura is a revolutionary two-sided platform, comparable to Spotify and Netflix, that empowers coaches and therapists worldwide to create engaging mental wellness content. In contrast to earlier wellness apps functioning as content studios featuring only a limited number of coaches, Aura stands out by offering an extensive range of content and creators.

The platform goes beyond mere curation, with coaches hosting live streams and providing personalized 1-1 coaching sessions, making Aura the ultimate all-in-one destination for individuals seeking mental wellness support.

Aura proudly boasts the world’s largest mental wellness library, encompassing a wide array of topics including sleep, life coaching, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), spirituality, breathwork, and much more. Additionally, Aura has fostered a thriving community where users can engage in live events hosted by coaches and benefit from one-on-one coaching sessions.

The platform’s commitment to offering comprehensive content, live engagement, and personalized support has revolutionized the way individuals access and experience mental wellness, firmly establishing Aura as a game-changer in the industry.

Aura has achieved unprecedented success and garnered recognition from reputable sources. In 2017, Aura was prominently featured in TechCrunch’s launch feature, drawing attention to its innovative approach. The following year, the platform received the prestigious honor of being listed in Apple’s “Best of Apps,” solidifying its reputation as a top player in the mental wellness space. To fuel further expansion, Steve secured significant venture capital funding from esteemed investors such as Cowboy Ventures and SkyDeck.

The impact of Aura’s efforts can be seen in the numbers and testimonials. Users flock to the platform, spending hundreds of millions of minutes engaging in meditation and self-care activities each year. This remarkable level of engagement demonstrates the profound influence Aura has on individuals’ well-being.

Steve extends a generous invitation to those who prioritize mental health to avail themselves of a special offer. By using the code “TOGETHERAHN” at aurahealth.io/redeem, individuals can gain free access to Aura for one year. While there is a limit to the number of available codes due to security measures, Steve encourages interested parties to reach out to him should the code become unavailable. More information about Aura can be found at aurahealth.io.

CONNECT WITH AURA

Website: aurahealth.io

Instagram: @aurahealthhq

Jed is a first-generation Filipino-American who was born in Los Angeles, California and later on moved to San Diego when he was a teenager. He has spent 11 years in the military, serving as a Navy Corpsman for the Marines and later became a specialized X-ray tech. He was deployed to different countries like Afghanistan, Qatar, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, Guam, Palau, and Solomon Islands. It was this during this time that he witnessed the need for better medical care in the world.

He always had an entrepreneurial mindset that started off early in high school, when he created a local clothing brand. This transitioned to his adult life where he continued to make fashionable lifestyle wear mixed with fitness culture.  Although he had a passion for creating merchandise for others to wear, he wanted to create something that would have a deeper meaning and have the ability to help more people. He realized that he could combine his entrepreneurial mindset with his TikTok audience and quickly discovered that he could reach more people.

He started to use his newfound influence to raise awareness about issues that he is passionate about, and that’s when he realized he could do more. 

This sparked an inspiration for him to rebrand his long-time lifestyle clothing line into RADDEPT. With every sale, his company donates 10% to a charity that provides radiological services in underserved communities around the world. His goal is to make fashionable clothing for healthcare workers while also making a positive impact on the world.
Jed is proof that one person can make a significant impact on the world. His story reminds us that even the smallest actions can lead to something greater. We all have the power to create positive change in the world, and it’s never too late to start.

HOW THE MILITARY MOLDED ME AS THE PERSON I AM TODAY

The military helped me mature as a person. People always compare their “10-year transformation,” how they have changed physically, and honestly, mine was a complete mental 180. I grew up as a child of a single mother. We were pretty poor, and at times we were homeless, bouncing around to my mom’s friend’s houses. She worked in the real estate realm, and the companies she worked for were either shutting down or downsizing due to the economy. 

I started rebelling around high school so she kicked me out to live with my uncle in San Diego. He was a prior Corpsman in the Navy and became a solid role model. Eventually, after high school, I worked as a Certified Nursing Assistant for 3 years while attempting to complete the prerequisites for nursing school. I ended up joining the Navy so I could have nursing school paid for when I finally applied.

What was supposed to be a 4 year in and out Naval career, turned into an 11-year career that molded me into the person I am today. I excelled with being able to do the grunt work while developing excellent leadership traits. I used my background to help mentor the junior personnel and still continue that habit to this day. I remain in contact with peers, mentors, and mentees, and they all have a significant impact on my life.

THE BIGGEST BARRIERS IN HEALTHCARE

With my military experience, I have noticed that the biggest barrier to accessing quality healthcare for underserved communities is their access to ancillary services. During my last deployment to pacific countries, I recognized that the host nation’s patients had access to primary care visits and surgeries, but the patients had to pay out of pocket for ancillary services like medical imaging.

If you asked me about the significance of radiology before I ended up in this role, I would have laughed and said, ”They don’t do anything but push buttons.” But after completing school, I learned that Radiology has a significant impact on medical treatment – from early detection for diagnosis to being the eyes in the operating room or figuring out the next step for lifesaving intervention.

This deployment opened my eyes to the fact that many patients outside the United States are seriously prone to a lot of diseases that are uncommon in our country. Healthcare quality (although heavily scrutinized by the media) is actually pristine in America and we are lucky to have all these safety protocols in place.

With my military experience, I have noticed that the biggest barrier to accessing quality healthcare for underserved communities is their access to ancillary services.

jed rodriguez

RAISING AWARENESS FOR ANCILLARY SERVICES THROUGH RADDEPT

The first step I hope to achieve this year is to establish a community with my brand RADDEPT. The power of a community can achieve great accomplishments. My first milestone this year is to give 10% of each purchase to charity. I hope to collaborate with more people to be able to give more.

I plan to shine light on the effectiveness and importance of ancillary services. There is always a spotlight on becoming a doctor or a nurse. I plan on creating relatable merchandise for ALL healthcare workers. I’d like to be able to create products that I could donate to countries like the other ones I have previously traveled to and administered care to.

ONE DAY AT A TIME

My biggest advice for someone who wants to make a positive impact on the world but doesn’t know where to start is to take the first step and go for what they want.

One thing that always resonated with me was “Lay one brick a day and eventually, you would have built a well.” This is how I tackle the majority of my life goals. Small baby steps and take it one day at a time. If I keep focusing on the bigger picture, then it becomes overwhelming. Small daily/weekly goals and all those combined will help accomplish the bigger goals.

Also, surround yourself with like-minded individuals. Have mentors and mentees, everything you learn is important, but it is more important to spread the knowledge to the next person!

My biggest advice for someone who wants to make a positive impact on the world but doesn’t know where to start is to take the first step and go for what they want.

jed rodriguez

CONNECT WITH JED RODRIGUEZ

Social media is super important in today’s society. One thing I have learned from having my previous brand for years was the power of ad spending and email marketing. Now, I realized that TikTok could also act as a running ad, and I plan to maximize social media by influencer marketing and collaborating with other creators in the healthcare niche, in order to drive awareness and change.

Tiktok: jroddynotricch

ig: radxdept

www.raddept.com