Leaving the Classroom to Build What Was Missing

Derek Campbell’s story starts with curiosity and motion rather than a master plan. Before software, before leadership roles, before Pumpd, he was a teacher. He earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, focusing on the science of how young children learn. He taught first and second grade, working daily with five, six, and seven year olds. He loved the work. He loved children. He loved watching curiosity spark and seeing how learning actually takes place when the environment supports it. Teaching was never a fallback for him. It aligned deeply with his values.

Derek is a values oriented person, and that shaped how he approached the classroom. He understood how children learn best through structured play, exploration, and engagement that respects their developmental stage. He also understood the responsibility that comes with shaping the next generation. Very early in his teaching career, he made a promise to himself. If he ever found himself in a position where he was asked to teach in a way that conflicted with what he knew was right for children, he would walk away.

That moment arrived faster than he expected. In his first professional teaching role, Derek was handed a curriculum binder that dictated exactly what children needed to learn and how they needed to learn it. The reality inside the classroom conflicted with everything he had studied. Young children were expected to sit still and listen for long stretches of time, despite clear evidence about attention spans and development. Derek saw five year olds more interested in their own hair or the child sitting in front of them than in absorbing lectures that stretched far beyond what made sense for their age.

The conflict was not abstract. It was daily and personal. Derek knew he was being asked to contribute to a system that shaped children in ways he did not believe in. He refused to do that. He left teaching without a plan and without a clear next step. What he carried with him was certainty about his values and a deep respect for learning itself.

One day, while walking through a bookstore, Derek picked up a book titled How Computers Work. That simple moment sparked something unexpected. He became fascinated by the mechanics of technology, first from the hardware side and then from software. He enrolled in classes at a community college, committed himself fully to learning, and eventually earned an internship at American Express. That chapter marked the beginning of his life in software engineering.

Over time, Derek grew into engineering leadership roles. As his responsibilities expanded, his day to day work shifted away from hands on coding. Even while leading teams, he missed building things himself. To stay sharp, he started a side project. That project would eventually become Pumpd, though at the time it was nothing more than a tool he wanted for his own life.

Derek had been writing his own workout programs by hand for years. He understood exercise science and progressive overload. He also saw a gap. Most fitness apps offered one off daily workouts or generic routines that ignored individual goals, schedules, fitness levels, and available equipment. Derek searched for a tool that could generate intelligent, repeatable training plans built on real science. He could not find one.

So he built it.

Pumpd began as a workout plan generator designed for Derek himself. Its core idea was simple and rigorous. Instead of producing a single workout, the platform generates a seven day training plan, known in exercise science as a microcycle. The system accounts for a user’s goals, schedule, experience level, and equipment, then allocates weekly volume in a way that supports continuous progress. The plans are designed to be repeatable and loadable so improvement is built into the structure.

Over time, Pumpd evolved into a full training platform. It added workout history and tracking, with plans for analytics down the road. What made it different was its attention to detail. Volume is distributed based on how many days a user can train. Exercises are selected based on position within a workout and within a week. The platform uses evidence based defaults rather than guesswork. For a given goal, the result is a plan that feels intentional rather than generic.

Derek originally intended to build Pumpd for direct to consumer use. Personal trainers were not part of the plan. That changed organically. Trainers began paying for Pumpd and using it to generate programs for their clients. Derek paid attention. He noticed how people were actually using the product rather than forcing it into his original assumptions.

Pumpd operates on a premium model. There is a free version that allows users to generate one custom workout plan per month, which meets the needs of many people who adjust programs every few weeks. The paid tier unlocks advanced features, including a smart swap function that intelligently replaces exercises while preserving volume and intent. The pricing is intentionally accessible, reflecting Derek’s belief that removing friction matters.

For years, Pumpd remained a side project. Derek worked on it nights and weekends while holding leadership roles elsewhere. That changed after he became a father. During parental leave, he spent more time building and felt a pull he could not ignore. He did not want to look back decades later and wonder what might have happened if he had given it a real shot.

He made the leap.

Derek went full time on Pumpd a little over a year ago, after working on it part time for five years. The decision was rooted in self trust rather than certainty. He accepted that failure was possible, but regret was not something he wanted to carry. Since going full time, the product has seen promising growth, along with new challenges that forced deeper thinking.

One of the biggest challenges emerged around monetization. People were signing up. People were using Pumpd. Some were paying. Derek knew the product delivered value, but not enough users were converting. He realized something critical was missing.

“There was no activation moment,” Derek said.

At that point, Pumpd was primarily a plan generator. Users created programs, then took them elsewhere to track workouts. That extra step created friction. For many users, it was enough to stop them from committing fully. Trainers paid because tracking did not matter to them, but everyday users needed everything in one place.

Derek moved quickly. He prioritized building workout tracking directly into the platform. He brought in help from another developer and shipped the feature. He uses it himself in the gym. The change reshaped how users experienced value and gave Pumpd a clearer center.

Alongside that, Derek invested in observability. He implemented analytics to understand how users moved through the platform, where they engaged, and where they dropped off. This gave him data to pair with intuition, allowing for more informed decisions about growth.

Derek’s building style is fast and iterative. He is candid about shipping changes quickly, sometimes too quickly. He has broken core functionality late at night and stayed up until early morning fixing it. He has adjusted algorithms to improve diversity in workouts, only to discover strange outputs like seven sets of two reps that made sense scientifically but felt wrong practically. Each mistake became feedback.

For Derek, entrepreneurship is deeply tied to learning. That perspective shapes the advice he gives to others considering the path. He emphasizes understanding the true value proposition from the beginning and identifying the activation moment early. Building beautiful features without alignment wastes time and energy.

The best advice Derek ever received came from his father. “Don’t wait in line to give someone else your money.” That idea influences how he thinks about products and payments. Derek believes in removing barriers, making platforms simple, and making it easy for users to say yes. He understands that virality is rare and difficult to recreate. Substance matters more than spectacle.

Pumpd reflects that philosophy. It is built to be straightforward, grounded in science, and respectful of users’ time and effort. Derek continues to evolve the platform while staying anchored in the same values that led him to leave the classroom years ago.

His story is about consistency. Curiosity. Accountability. A refusal to compromise on principles even when the path forward feels unclear. Pumpd is the current expression of that journey, shaped by every chapter that came before it.

We can’t wait to see what his next chapter holds.

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