EO Charleston Member Spotlight: Donovan Rider

Babe Ruth. LeBron James. Muhammad Ali. When you think of history’s greatest athletes, a certain celebrity status follows. They’re praised, acknowledged and inspiring to the youth who follow their careers. 

Sports are so embedded into our society, it’s easy to see why many child athletes have a phase in which they’re confident they’ll go professional. Still, very few have the passion and determination to turn those dreams into reality. 

Donovan Rider, Lowcountry entrepreneur and owner of Charleston Taekwondo, is one of those determined few. 

Just a Kid with a Dream

Donovan is a South Carolina native, hailing from Orangeburg. Like most kids, he fell in love with a sport, but his sport of choice was more unorthodox than most: martial arts.

“I loved the Ninja Turtles and just wanted to do that,” he said, thinking back to his earliest martial arts memory.

Between the fast-paced action of the popular cartoon and watching the Olympics with his parents at a young age, Donovan made it his mission to get those same cheers he saw on his television.

“We found out that taekwondo, which was what I was doing, was actually an Olympic sport,” he said. “So I fell in love with the sport of it and began training, traveling and competing as a taekwondo athlete.”

The older he got, the more driven he became, modeling himself after Olympic athletes and even changing his diet and sleeping habits in middle school to emulate those Olympians.

“I became obsessed with it,” he said. “I was waking up early, going on runs at 6 a.m., going to school, coming home and working out.”

His persistence paid off, as Donovan became a successful junior athlete—so successful that he accepted an offer to leave high school early and train full-time in Greenville, South Carolina, at just 16 years old.

Rider then joined the military and became a full-time athlete at an Olympic training center for the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program.

“That’s how I really solidified this path as a career,” he said.

He was closer than ever to fulfilling the goals that some only dream about. Then, he hit his first hurdle.

Overcoming the Obstacles

Through all of his training, Donovan participated in trials to qualify for the London 2012 Summer Olympics.

“Unfortunately, in the 2012 Olympic trials, I tore my ACL and MCL in my third fight,” Rider said. “At that point, my day was over.”

Having been in the military for eight years at that point and missing home, the martial artist decided to hang up the gloves for good.

“I moved home to Charleston, but I didn’t really know anyone and didn’t really have much money to get started,” he said.

Still, he had his love for taekwondo. Rider decided this would be how he pursued his second dream.

“Originally, I started teaching taekwondo in a park,” he said. “I’d go around passing flyers to parents.”

Having done a lot in that field, he wanted nothing more than to build the confidence of kids who had that same spark he had at that age. After some time teaching in parks, the athlete eventually transitioned to teaching classes in Mount Pleasant.

“After about six months of that, I really wanted to pursue this and go all in on it,” he said.

In 2012, Rider opened the doors to the first Charleston Taekwondo location. The launch was next to a gym he and a business partner had invested in, doubling Charleston Taekwondo as a productive form of childcare for parents who wanted to work out. Over time, the martial arts program grew larger and larger.

As of 2024, Charleston Taekwondo has nine locations throughout the Lowcountry.

The Next Generation

Donovan had discovered his new passion through this business, shaping the minds of students and returning the favors his mentors gave him as a child.

“They’re just a lot of fun to work with,” he said. “They’re malleable, you can teach them, and it’s pretty crazy how you can have such a positive impact in a child’s life at an early age.”

He knew that a niche sport such as martial arts would pose a bit of a challenge business-wise compared to sports like swimming or gymnastics. But his first martial arts school, which he interacted with at 17, motivated him to pursue his own school years later.

“They were doing well financially. They were doing something they enjoy, helping their community, building confident leaders, but then they made a good living for themselves,” he said. “That was the moment where I was like ‘Man, I really can do this!’”

Donovan says the team plays a huge role in the continued development of the business, with head instructors in each location, operations managers and a loyal student clientele that come back to instruct years later.

One of these students was Torin Teaster, who lived in Savannah, Georgia.

“He would drive twice a week to come train with me, every single week,” Donovan said. “And in the summertime, most kids in high school are thinking about partying or going to the beach. He would literally move to Charleston with me, sleep on my couch for the entire summer months to prep for competitions.”

Teaster would end up making the U.S. National Team for taekwondo and traveling the world, but he’d reach out to Donovan after his professional career to return to Charleston Taekwondo as an instructor. At the time, Teaster’s wife was still in school in Savannah, so history repeated itself.

“For the first two years he worked at Charleston Taekwondo, he drove from Savannah to Charleston every day, five days a week,” Donovan said.

Expansion in a World of Silence

As the company continued to grow, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 brought the world and Charleston Taekwondo, to a halt.

“Our membership base was decimated,” he said. “We lost 90% of our members in two days.”

But like every other challenge Rider faced, he lept over it with determination.

“We pivoted and started teaching online classes,” he said. “Instead of having 20 to 30 kids in a class with our instructors, we were doing Zoom calls one at a time.”

They did private 15-minute virtual lessons with students every day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. throughout the pandemic. Through those challenges, Donovan still had his sights set higher.

“I remember meeting with my team and saying, ‘Not only are we not closing down, we’re going to open another location this year,’ and I think people thought I was crazy,” he said.

Their third location opened in 2020, and they’ve opened six more since then. His vision for the future also includes young entrepreneurs.

“Mentorship, learning, continuous education and building that network,” he said. “Join networking groups. The more people you know that are in the trenches with you that you can connect with, even if it’s just to complain sometimes, is comforting.”