The perils of intrapreneuring

As an entrepreneur during the growth and boom -- and bust -- of the Internet, I have become well acquainted with the perils of entrepreneurship. I describe it to the uninitiated as a lot like the Wild West: the rules are set as needed by those who gather; there's gold in them thar hills; and, make sure you have your gun strapped at all times (there's no HR department or corporate standards to protect you in a start-up).

I have presumed that intrapreneuring would be less perilous, but with less of an upside. But you learn something new every day. To sum up today's lesson: any time you venture to create something out of nothing, some people will go "wow!", some will go "what?", and some will cry "wait!" as they dig in their heels. The question is, in the ecosystem in which you are creating, which voices will win out?

When "wow!" wins the day, there is the most fertile ground for intrapreneurship. If you intrapreneur in a market-leading company, it means you're wowing the key influencers in the market -- because they're in your company. Wowing them means they want to carry the message to their customers (when the time is right), and they create the lift and the life that will give your creation meaning.

When "what?" is the siren song, it means you need to unpack your idea. Maybe you have too much there. You have to figure out where the "wow!" is, and you have to make sure you don't have any "rude cues" in there. Those are the things that signal "there's something about this that makes me uncomfortable." If you can extract the rude cues, you have a good chance of getting to "wow!". Otherwise,...

When "wait!" wins the day, it means there's an incumbency that either needs to be won over or will kill your creation. Wait means "I'm not ready for your creation to be born." It means the new thing you are introducing puts the incumbency in peril. Sometimes, this is a bad thing (be careful not to kill the "cash cow" that funds your intrapreneuring). But other times, this is a good thing, because the cow has hoof-in-mouth and needs to be put to rest -- or it will infect the rest of the farm.

Now entrepreneurs have similar kinds of reactions from their customer: wow, what and wait. But there's usually a big difference. A customer base in a free economy is an open system, while a set of internal customers is usually a closed system. The closed system usually suffers from an inability to reinvent itself to accommodate change. An open system can much more easily accommodate change, because it is intrinsic to the design of an open system.

I don't think there's any silver bullet here, but there is a cautionary note for intrapreneurs: know your audience and where they fall in their response to you. And, know your company's culture to understand whether you can get the wows you need for your innovation to win.