Mina Yoo

Founder, Lulabop

Seattle

Mina Yoo is the founder of Lulabop (www.lulabop.com) and the inventor of the Qliplet. Yoo developed the idea for this modified carabiner as she trained to summit Mount Rainier and realized she could us an extra set of hands. After a two-year design, engineering and manufacturing process, she brought her invention to market via a highly successful Kickstarter campaign. The popular gadget’s 2.0 version – featuring an improved design and functionality - was funded via a second very successful crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

Prior to founding Lulabop, Mina worked as a professor at the University of Washington Foster School of Business and as Visiting Faculty Fellow at Stanford University. During her career as an academic, she taught Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior and Corporate Strategy to executives, doctoral students, MBA students and undergraduates, while researching and consulting on entrepreneurship, social networks and economic development.

Mina was born in Seoul, Korea, and grew up in Dubai, U.A.E., and Jakarta, Indonesia. Moving to the United States, she earned her B.A. in Sociology from Brown University and her dual Ph.D. in Business and Sociology from the University of Michigan, receiving numerous awards including from the National Science Foundation, Kauffman Foundation, the Academy of Management and National Federation of Independent Businesses and earning nationally the Best Dissertation Award in her field with her work on social networks and entrepreneurship.