Derek Haake

An entrepreneur first

Even after I became a lawyer, I still couldn't resist the idea of starting my own company - and I started my practice with the idea that I would help other entrepreneurs. I love business, but what I really love is the start - the planning, the anticipation and most importantly setting the busines up the right way - the first time. We all know that a business plan and an idea are what gets business going, but the bottom line is that 60% of all new businesses fail, and in most of these cases, it is completely preventable. I want to make sure you get your business going properly so your dream is a business and not a statistic.

I have been a consultant, part of a startup or a founder for over 15 years before I became an attorney. While I struggled through the trials and tribulations of starting a business, I always said I would help people that found themselves in my shoes when I was able to - and finally I am able to. As an attorney, I bring my legal skillset and couple them with my business experiences to provide a unique perspective on how to launch, maintain and grow your business.

Education

I started my academic career at Texas A&M University in 1997. However, after the Bonfire tragedy, I withdrew in 2000 and went into the workforce, and found a position as an analyst with ALLTEL. After 5 years, I went back to school to finish up the degree I started. In my first year, I joined the moot court team, and decided I would become a lawyer. I graduated with my BA in Political Science in 2007, and enrolled at the University of Akron School of Law the following fall. In my second year of law school, I decided to also pursue an MBA, and began working as Dr. Raj Aggarwal's Research Assistant in 2009, and assisted him with research for multiple publications, including two published by the Kaufmann Foundation. In 2010, I completed my JD, and the following year, I received my MBA.

Business Career

I started out my business career as a 21 year old college dropout. I was hired as a business analyst, but was placed with a telco upstart called Valor Telecom (eventually it became Windstream Communications). While I was just an analyst, I got to experience almost every facet of a telephone company - and also a startup. I honed my technical skills as I got deeply involved in DB2 and Oracle reporting for the company, but I also worked extensively with the company's collections, customer service, marketing, regulatory, QA and provisioning departments.

After Valor, I started my own SMB VoIP provider in Dallas, we piggy backed off of Level 3 Communications network, but within 14 months, Level 3 ended their offering, and my company failed. However, my team was looking for other opportunities, and we ended up acquire the IP of a business unit of Corning Cable Systems. We formed a company around this IP and filed to take it public. Prior to becoming publicly trading though, I was accepted to three different law schools, and decided I wanted to become a lawyer, so I resigned my position.

While in law school I stumbled upon another opportunity, and developed a software application around the perceived market void. For the next few years, we refined the business model, increased the application's offerings, and eventually were able to win a pair of grants, and were invited to become a portfolio company at an incubator in Ohio. However, after the premature birth of our fourth child, we put the company on hiatus and moved back home to be with family so I could practice law.