Whether he’s generating an idea, building a company, or climbing a mountain, Derrick Li ’14 never shies away from the attempt.
Great ideas often come from the simplest questions.
Six years ago Derrick Li ’14 had such a question while sipping Gatorade during
a break at high school football practice: Was there a way to cool that drink in the bottle without ice?
Without a working knowledge of chemistry, Li went home after practice and began researching endothermic reactions—chemical processes which absorb heat from their environment. While still in high school, he started Squeez LLC and patented a sleeve that slips over a bottle or can and, with the pull of a tab, mixes the proper chemicals to cool the beverage immediately.
His idea earned him $20,000 in venture capital and created a spark that continues to fuel his entrepreneurial spirit.
“It was so amazing to work on that project; I’ve never been so passionate about something like that before,” Li recalls. “This was a creative thing, was part of the business world, and I was sort of good at it.”
Li’s approach to life is simple.
“I just try out different things that I find interesting,” he says. “I’ve tried to find my passion beyond college, and I’ve found that in entrepreneurship. Generally speaking, entrepreneurs are very passionate people, and there is a great attraction to that for me.”
That passion was readily apparent to Wabash grad Joe Turk ’89, the president of NxStage Medical Inc. in suburban Boston, who helped steer Li to Crawfordsville.
“He’s always wanted to do something like that for as long as I’ve known him,” Turk says. “You could tell that he would make his own luck.”
Li was accepted by 12 of the 14 colleges that he applied to. Early on, Wabash was not at the top of the list. But Turk and other Boston-area alumni helped turn the tide.
“I never thought I’d come out here to the Midwest, to an all-guys school,” Li recalls, “but alums in the Boston area contacted me, Joe being one of them. They wanted to have dinner and talk about my future. For them to have graduated 20 or 30 years ago and still have the desire to talk about their school, it meant that something happened that was good for them. Something was right.”
He made his first trip to campus during the summer of 2009 for OLAB (Oppor-tunities to Learn About Business), where Li and his team won Best Managed Firm honors. He followed with two more visits during his senior year.
“He is thoughtful, well spoken, very confident and willing to take the road less traveled. I thought he’d be good at Wabash,” Turk says.
When it became time to make a decision, Li says: “I just trusted my gut instinct and came to Wabash.”
The adjustment to college life wasn’t easy. Crawfordsville and Wabash were completely different for a guy who was born in China and lived in California and Andover, MA.
Li pledged Sigma Chi and joined the business and investment clubs. As a sophomore, he went to Alaska on an Environ-mental Economics immersion trip. Still, he considered transferring.
“It was a struggle, but looking back, I’ve changed so much from the person I was as a freshman,” Li says. “I’ve grown up a lot, and the way I think about things and interact with other people has changed, as well. I wouldn’t know who
I was today without Wabash, so I am thankful for that.”
Li’s newfound ability to adjust, interact and thrive on his own did wonders for his self-esteem, especially during his semester abroad in Copenhagen.
“I was thrown into this community where I had to learn the culture and meet new people,” Li says of his time in Den-mark. “I tried to live a normal life and discover what’s good and bad in other cultures and compare that with my own life. That semester changed me. I was a
lot more mature, more open, and more
confident.”
Adding to that confidence were summer internships with Eli Lilly and Co. and Turk’s NxStage Medical. The momentum carried over to his next endeavor, Project Killing Superman, a documentary about the pursuit of interviews with 15 of the world’s most influential people ranging from street artist Banksy to President Barack Obama.
Through their film, Li and friends James Kennedy ’16, Sky King ’15, and Scott Purucker ’16 hope to humanize society’s heroes and attempt to explain what makes each a success. The entire experience is an opportunity for self-discovery.
“I couldn’t find three better people to work with,” Li says. “We dream big. I knew that if we came up with something interesting that had traction, these three guys would go out and do it. By going through the process, we can learn so much. There is no failure in it.”
Christie Byun, the professor of economics who led the immersion trip to Alaska, recalls how Li contributed his insights to issues like the contingent valuation methodology applied to the Alaskan mining industry, yet also threw himself into a hike up Flattop Mountain on the outskirts of Anchorage.
“Derrick was great on that trip,” she said. “He was actively engaged in the entire process.”
No matter the circumstance—generating an idea, building a company, or climbing a mountain—Li never shies away from the attempt.
“I’ve always been someone who feels that if there is an idea in your head, then it is possible,” Li says.
Anything seems possible for Li at the moment. He finished work on his economics degree in December and joined a Boston start up, Greater Good, that produces environmentally friendly beverages in easy-to-recycle paper-based containers. He’s also at the beginning of his Killing Superman quest.
Even now, he’s able to reflect on the value in his Wabash experience.
“This school is for a certain type of person who can push through and be reflective,” Li says. “Wabash has made me a better person and given me the lessons that I’ve needed. I’ve learned that it’s not the cards you are dealt, but how you play them, that matters.”