At a Glance
| Member | Derek Simper |
| First love | Baseball — and he earned real respect on the field playing it |
| Back in the day | Worked his daily job at The Olympic Club — one of the best golf grounds in the world |
| The leap | Bangkok, Thailand — an outside-the-box life a world away from America |
| Became | A dad · a coach · a teacher |
| Venture | Reading Before 3 — the four-stage method that had his son fully reading by age 2.5 · $29, one time, for life |
| His words | "We're not defined by one title or chapter. We're many. We're still becoming." |
| Guiding principle | Grow and inspire others — starting with the smallest people in the room |
Some stories are about arriving. This one is about becoming — and it starts on a ballfield.
Before any of the rest of it, Derek Simper was a baseball player. His first love. The early mornings, the reps nobody watches, the slow accumulation of skill until the people around the diamond started saying his name with respect. He became a genuinely respectable player of the game — and more importantly, he learned the thing every good athlete learns and most people forget: nobody starts good. You become good.
Hold onto that sentence. His whole story runs on it.
Who Is Derek Simper?
Derek Simper is a father, coach, and teacher living in Bangkok, Thailand. A ballplayer by first love and a workingman by habit, his winding road ran through The Olympic Club — one of the most storied golf grounds in the world — before an unexpected turn abroad put him on the path of helping parents with their children. His proof of concept: his own son, fully reading by age two and a half. His venture, Reading Before 3, hands that exact blueprint to every parent who wants it.
Back in the Day: The Olympic Club
Ask anyone in golf about The Olympic Club and watch their posture change. Perched above the Pacific on the edge of San Francisco, it's one of the most revered pieces of golf ground on earth — the kind of place where history hangs in the fog.
That's where Derek clocked in. Day after day, his daily job was at a club most people only see on a broadcast. And here's what matters about that chapter: places like that teach you a standard. What immaculate looks like. What tradition feels like. What it means when every detail on the property says we care about this.
You don't spend your working days somewhere like that and come out the same. You come out carrying a bar — and you measure everything you build afterward against it.
And file the name away. The Olympic Club isn't done with this story yet.
The Leap: Bangkok
Most people live their whole lives inside the first map they're handed. Derek folded his up and got on a plane.
His journey took him to Bangkok, Thailand — an outside-the-box move, an ocean and a hemisphere away from America and everything familiar. New language. New culture. New everything. That's not a vacation; that's a bet on yourself with no return receipt.
And it's in Bangkok that the story stops being about where Derek worked and starts being about who he became. Three titles, none of which hang on a wall:
A dad. A coach. A teacher.
Then came the turn nobody plans. A job in Bangkok took an unexpected direction — and instead of knocking him off course, it put him on one: helping parents with their children. Work that touched something close to home, because by then, the most important student Derek would ever have was living under his own roof.
The Most Important Student He Ever Had
Derek's son is half American, half Thai — a little boy growing up in a multilingual home where English was one voice among several. Plenty of parents in that spot cross their fingers and hope school sorts it out someday.
Derek made it a mission. A strong English foundation, from the very beginning. Not someday. Now.
He didn't buy a curriculum. There wasn't one built for his home, his son, his life. So he did what builders do: he built one. A simple four-stage method — engagement first, then phonics, then letter-sound mastery, then momentum. No workbooks. No expensive gear. Just a few intentional, worthwhile methods, done with love, done daily.
Then the results came in — and they came in early:
By age 2, his son was sounding out words.
By age 2.5, he was fully reading.
Read that again as a parent. Two and a half years old. Most kids that age are negotiating over snacks. Derek's son was reading — not as a party trick, but as a foundation: the skill every other skill for the rest of his life gets built on top of.
In Derek's own words, teaching his son to read is the greatest gift he's ever given him.
What Is Reading Before 3?
Reading Before 3 is that exact blueprint, handed to you. Not theory. Not a credentialed lecture. The real, tested routine a real dad used at his own kitchen table — written down so any parent can run it.
Reading Before 3 · At a Glance
| What it is | The four-stage method Derek used to have his son fully reading by 2.5 |
| The four stages | Engagement · Phonics · Letter-sound mastery · Momentum |
| What you need | No workbooks · no expensive gear · just intention and consistency |
| Built for | Every parent — and especially valuable for bilingual & multilingual families |
| The investment | $29 · one time · "One time fee for a lifetime of success." |
| Where | skool.com — Reading Before 3 |
Notice what Derek leads with when he tells his own story: "a proud dad, no fancy credentials." He says it like a confession. It's actually the credential. The method wasn't designed in a lab to sell — it was built at home to work, on the highest-stakes student he'll ever have. That's the difference between a product and a proof.
And the price says everything about the mission. Twenty-nine dollars, once. For the skill that carries a child through every classroom, every book, every opportunity they'll ever meet. Derek isn't building a funnel. He's building readers.
Derek's mission is growing and inspiring others — and there are three ways to be part of it. Join Reading Before 3 for your own family. Buy the man a coffee at buymeacoffee.com/dereksimper. Or join The Country C1ub through his story — when a new member comes in through Derek's spotlight, half of that membership goes to Derek to fuel the mission. That's how this c1ub works: your story brings someone through the gate, you share in what's built.
The Hole in the Wall
Bangkok holds ten million stories, and the best ones happen in places you'd walk right past. A small, secret hole-in-the-wall spot — no sign worth photographing, no scene, just good food and whoever happens to be there.
That's where Derek was. Alone, getting some food. A few seats away sat another American — also alone, also getting some food. His name was Cameron, and he happens to be the founder of a certain c1ub this story belongs to. The food turned into conversation. The conversation turned into a few drinks.
And then the coincidence landed on the table. The Olympic Club came up — the storied ground where Derek clocked in every day, back in the day. It turned out Cameron knew that ground too, from his own early chapters chasing the game — a chapter or two he doesn't tell in writing.
Same club, known from two very different doors. Neither had any business running into the other — and yet there they were, half a world away, at the same hole-in-the-wall table in Bangkok.
So they had a lot to reflect on, and a lot to talk about. And underneath all of it sat one shared understanding — the kind both men had paid for in reps, not read in a book:
Golf is about progress, not perfection. And it's the little things that make the difference — in golf, in fatherhood, in business, in life.
Some people trade business cards. These two traded the same truth, learned on the same storied ground.
Where The Country C1ub Comes In
The Country C1ub is a private mastermind and global ecosystem of high performers — builders, founders, competitors, and mission-driven people — who connect through elite events and weekly strategy calls, all working toward a 10-year mission of building a world-class, member-owned physical country club. Brick by brick. Connection by connection.
Derek walked in seeking one thing, and he named it plainly: inspiration — for himself and for others. That's the most honest reason anyone has ever given for joining, because it's the engine of the whole place. The c1ub runs on one daily ritual — today we improved because… — and Derek has been living that sentence since the ballfield: become the player, become the workingman, become the expat, become the dad, become the teacher.
His Linktree bio might as well be carved over the c1ub's gate:
"We're not defined by one title or chapter. We're many. We're still becoming."
· Derek Simper
A dad in Bangkok builds a method at his kitchen table. A community on the other side of the world puts a spotlight on it, sends support toward it, and shares in the mission. Nobody achieves great things alone — that's not a slogan here, it's the operating system.
The Dugout: 5 Lessons from Derek Simper
Nobody starts good. You become good.
Baseball taught him the first law of every craft: respect is accumulated, not granted. Reps in the dark, results in the light — on the diamond, at the club, at the kitchen table.
Work somewhere that sets your standard.
Every day at The Olympic Club was a masterclass in what excellence looks like up close. Find the highest-standard room you can get into — even if you're there to work — and let it recalibrate you.
The outside-the-box move is the move.
Everything that matters most in Derek's life — his son, his calling, his method — exists because he got on the plane. The life you're meant for rarely shares a zip code with the one you started in.
Build what doesn't exist for the person you love.
No curriculum fit his home, so he built one. The best ventures aren't brainstormed — they're forced into existence by a problem standing in your own kitchen.
The greatest gift has no wrapping paper.
Derek's proudest achievement isn't a title or a trophy — it's a two-and-a-half-year-old sounding out his first sentence. Give skills, not stuff. Skills compound for a lifetime.
Follow the Mission
- 📚Reading Before 3: the four-stage method, $29 one time — join on Skool
- ☕Support Derek directly: buymeacoffee.com/dereksimper
- 🔗Everything Derek: linktr.ee/Derek_Simper — Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and his Golf and Good(s) shop
- 🏛️Join the c1ub through his story: become a member — half goes to Derek's mission
And if your path ever crosses Derek's — ask him about the ballfield, or The Olympic Club, or the day his son read his first word out loud. Fair warning: you'll leave inspired. That's rather the point of him.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Derek Simper?
Derek Simper is a father, coach, and teacher. His first love was baseball, where he became a genuinely respectable player. He later worked his daily job at The Olympic Club, one of the most storied clubs in the world, before his journey carried him to Bangkok, Thailand. There he became a dad — and after an unexpected turn at a job in Bangkok put him on the path of helping parents with their children, he built Reading Before 3, the method that had his own son fully reading by age two and a half. He is a member of The Country C1ub.
What is Reading Before 3?
Derek Simper's program for parents who want to give their child a strong reading foundation from the very beginning — the real, tested routine he used with his own son. A simple four-stage method built on engagement, phonics, letter-sound mastery, and momentum. No workbooks, no expensive gear, and especially valuable for bilingual and multilingual families. Join on Skool.
Did Derek's son really read by age two and a half?
Yes. His son is half American, half Thai, growing up in a multilingual home in Bangkok. Derek made it his mission to build a strong English foundation from the very beginning — by age 2 his son was sounding out words, and by 2.5 he was fully reading. Derek didn't buy a curriculum; he built one, and that blueprint is exactly what Reading Before 3 teaches.
How much does Reading Before 3 cost?
A one-time fee of $29 — in Derek's words, a one-time fee for a lifetime of success. No subscription, no expensive gear.
How did Derek meet Cameron, the founder of The Country C1ub?
By chance, at a small hole-in-the-wall food spot in Bangkok — both there alone getting some food, which led to a few drinks. Over the meal they discovered they shared The Olympic Club: Derek worked his daily job there back in the day, and Cameron knew the same ground from his own early days chasing the game. They had a lot to reflect on and talk about, bonded by a shared belief: golf is about progress, not perfection, and the little things make the difference — in fatherhood, business, and life.
How can I support Derek's mission?
Three ways: join Reading Before 3, support him at buymeacoffee.com/dereksimper, or join The Country C1ub through his story — half of that membership goes to Derek to fuel his mission of growing and inspiring others.
What is The Country C1ub?
A private mastermind and global ecosystem of high performers who connect through elite events and weekly strategy calls, helping members gain support building their dreams — with a 10-year mission to build a member-owned physical country club. Join at thecountryc1ub.com.
Still Becoming
A ballfield. A legendary club above the Pacific. A one-way flight to Bangkok. A son. An unexpected job that turned into a calling. A method built at a kitchen table that turned a toddler into a reader. And a hole-in-the-wall table in Bangkok where a stranger turned out to know the same storied club from a very different door.
None of those chapters knew about the next one. That's the point. Derek Simper's story isn't finished — by his own account it never will be. He's a dad, a coach, a teacher, a builder, a member. He's many. He's still becoming.
Derek Simper · Reading Before 3 · The Country C1ub · The greatest gift has no wrapping paper.
The Country C1ub Member Spotlight Series celebrates the builders, founders, and mission-driven people who make this community what it is. Nobody achieves great things alone.