\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tArticle Content<\/p>\n
Daniel Chang, the newest Professor of Practice at the University of California San Diego\u2019s Rady School of Management, knows that entrepreneurs need more than an interesting idea to build a business. They need a real customer problem to solve, the courage to hear \u201cno\u201d early and often, and the operational rigor to turn vision into execution. That founder\u2019s reality \u2014 where learning, selling and building happen at the same time \u2014 is what Chang plans to bring into the classroom and into mentoring conversations with Rady School students. After decades of building in industry, Chang says he\u2019s shifting his focus to education not as a traditional academic scholar but as a practitioner \u2014 bringing real-world entrepreneurial experience and industrial judgment into the university to serve society.<\/p>\n
Chang founded AEM in San Diego after starting as a one-man consulting operation in a 1,000-square-foot office in 1988 and grew it into a global electronics manufacturing business with nearly 600 employees worldwide, dozens of patents and products used in everything from cellphones and televisions to satellites and major EV brands. The company\u2019s growth was recognized nationally when AEM was named among Inc. Magazine\u2019s \u201cAmerica\u2019s Fastest Growing Private Companies\u201d three times in the 1990s. This scale story is rooted in deep technical expertise. Chang\u2019s engineering training began in China\u2019s first post-1978 national entrance exam cohort (Class of 1978), where only three students nationwide were admitted to his materials specialization. Chang had already earned a master\u2019s degree in ceramic engineering from South China University of Technology, second master\u2019s degree in materials science from University of Southern California (USC) and went on to work as a scientist\/Group Leader at Philips and later at Kyocera as senior engineer in San Diego, before striking out on his own.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AEM went on to carve out a dominant position in circuit protection for high-reliability and aerospace markets \u2014 its high-reliability fuses are used by NASA and major satellite and spacecraft manufacturers worldwide. Chang retired from day-to-day operations after AEM was sold in 2021 and has remained chairman of the board. Along the way, Chang and his team commercialized several original inventions \u2014 technologies that have been applied across communications, consumer electronics, automotive electronics, energy systems and medical devices.<\/p>\n
As a Professor of Practice, Chang will bring that founder-to-scale operator perspective to Rady where he will give guest lectures, seminars and hands-on mentorship. He will actively support the Sullivan Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur and other campus innovation initiatives with a focus on venture creation, scaling and marketing strategy, product innovation as well as R&D management and investor perspectives \u2014 all while strengthening ties between Rady and the region\u2019s entrepreneurship ecosystem.<\/p>\n
Chang sat down with University Communications to discuss the lessons he\u2019s learned, what he looks for in early founders and how he hopes to help the next generation of Tritons build companies that last.<\/p>\n
If you could give early-stage founders just one \u201cstarting framework,\u201d what would it be?<\/p>\n
My view is very simple: don\u2019t start by talking about your product, your technology, or fundraising \u2014 and certainly not about scaling.<\/p>\n
The first step in entrepreneurship is to clearly understand what market you are entering, what the real demand in that market is and what pain points your customers are actually experiencing. And that alone is still not enough. You must also understand what your customers truly need.<\/p>\n
Entrepreneurship is not about showcasing what you can build. It is about solving real pain points in a way that creates higher quality and greater value. Only after new value is genuinely created does it make sense to talk about how that value \u2014 and the resulting profits \u2014 can be shared with customers.<\/p>\n
But the work does not stop there. Founders must also ask a second question: what resources do I have that allow me to position myself correctly in the market and actually capture and sustain that value?<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the most common mistake you see young entrepreneurs make \u2014 and what should they do instead in the first 6-12 months?<\/p>\n
One of the most common issues I see is that many young entrepreneurs simply do not know what they should be doing during the first six months to a year.<\/p>\n
A lot of people believe that having a technology \u2014 whether invented themselves or acquired \u2014 or having a product, a design, or an idea is enough. It is not.<\/p>\n
During the first 6\u201312 months, the most important task is to clearly and objectively write a business plan. This is not a document for investors \u2014 it is a tool for the founder to understand reality.<\/p>\n
When founders say they\u2019re ready to scale, what has to be true before they should pour fuel on the fire?<\/p>\n
In high-tech manufacturing, products and technology must already be broadly accepted by the market.<\/p>\n
Before expanding production, founders must understand yield, cost structure, break-even point, and profitability thresholds. From my experience, only when there is at least a 50% level of confidence in these core parameters does it make sense to scale.<\/p>\n
Why do you mentor \u2014 what do you personally get out of it, and what do you hope students gain from working with you?<\/p>\n
Mentorship is a natural extension of more than three decades of entrepreneurship. In the early 1990s, I co-founded the US China Entrepreneur Association (UCEA) in San Diego, helping startups grow through shared experience and resources and building an entrepreneurial community that continues to this day.<\/p>\n
I believe in guiding students with structure and perspective, not forcing outcomes. The return is not transactional \u2014 it is internal and lasting.<\/p>\n
What are you most excited about joining the Rady School and larger UC San Diego community?<\/p>\n
What excites me most is the opportunity to share real-world entrepreneurial experience and continue validating that entrepreneurship is a process that can be understood and taught.<\/p>\n
I approach education from a practitioner\u2019s perspective\u2014helping students see entrepreneurship as something that can be analyzed, learned and validated and connecting education with real-world business practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Article Content Daniel Chang, the newest Professor of Practice at the University of California San Diego\u2019s Rady School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28,158],"class_list":["post-472005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}