How to Conduct Market Identification to Validate your Product’s Value Proposition

Frederick WS Yung, Founder of Smart Start, a company in start-up training and consultancy, is also an Adjunct Professor of the Department of Management, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong.  He has taught business planning and entrepreneurial fund-raising in the MBA Programme of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) as a part-time lecturer from 2014-2017, as well as entrepreneurship in the University of Nottingham Ningbo Campus (UNNC), China, as a Visiting Assistant Professor.  He carries with him more than 30 years of senior management experience in local and overseas marketing, business planning/operation.  As Head of Incubation at HK Science and Technology Parks Corporation, he has nurtured start-ups, coached entrepreneurs in investment fundraising, while running an incubator with over 100 start-ups.Prior to joining UNNC, he headed the Business Incubation Programme of HK Science and Technology Parks Corporation (“HKSTP”) and had incubated more than 300 technology and design start-ups and reviewed over 1,000 business plans. Before his tenure at the HKSTP, he was the Business Services Operations Director of Xerox (HK) Ltd, Chief Executive of Dodwell Business Machines, a Deputy General Manager of Jardine Marketing Services Ltd. and the Regional Field Services Marketing Manager of Digital Equipment Corporation (HK) Ltd for its 11 Far Eastern countries.In 2014, he served in the brain-storming team in the curriculum development of the CUHK Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Theme, and in 2017 as the Industry Representative of the Programme Development Committee for the successful accreditation of the MSc in Entrepreneurial Management of the Hang Seng Management College (now The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong).  Mr. Yung also served as an Assessment Panel Member of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition of University Students of Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan in 2015, 2016 and 2017.  In 2017 and 2018, he served respectively as the Head Assessor for the Software & Apps, and Hardware & Device of the ICT Awards Startup Categories organized by the OGCIO of the HKSAR Government.  He has been on the Admission Panel of the HK Science and Technology Parks Corporation’s Incubation Programme since 2015, and the Venture Investment Connect Programme since 2019.  He is also a frequent speaker in universities, incubators and co-working spaces on entrepreneurship and fund-raising.Mr. Yung was the Honourary Trainer of the Hong Kong Business Angel Network (HKBAN), and is a Certified Programme Facilitator of Kepner-Tregoe’s Problem Solving and Decision Making course and Learning International Limited’s Professional Selling Skills course.  He received his Bachelor of Commerce degree from Loyola College, Montreal Canada and his MBA from University of British Columbia, Canada.