Startups are fragile and they are not the right places to make mistakes - if you want to avoid a fold-up. Flip that over and we will say that startups are equally a good place to experiment and employ all the great ideas you may have - if you want to capture growth and expansion opportunities. But the clause is on having good ideas and knowing when and how to deploy them. With this, we would like to introduce you to one such good idea for startups. It is known as intrapreneurship or, as some business entities call it, “entrepreneurship within a company.” 

Who is an Intrapreneur? 

To be an intrapreneur simply means being in charge of running a project, however, without having to shoulder any of the responsibilities associated with building the project. It is more like having to manage a project on behalf of an entrepreneur, and making all the entrepreneur decisions or playing the entrepreneur role but depending completely on the actual entrepreneur (owner of the project) to source for and deliver every resource needed for the project. 

Understanding the term Intrapreneurship 

The term “intrapreneur” is visually and conceptually related to the more popular “Entrepreneur”. Being so, we could try to understand it even better when we dissect the parent word. Entrepreneur is a word thought to have had its first usage sometime in the 18th Century. It was drafted from the French word Entreprendre which has the one word meaning “undertake”. Relating to this, being an entrepreneur in today’s world will mean that you undertake business-related projects (and solely provide the resources necessary for this). 

An intrapreneur can be part of this business-related project. However, rather than working like regular employees who handle a very specific and relatively smaller portion of the project, the intrapreneur acts like the owner of the project - governing and supervising the entire thing but only waiting for the entrepreneur (or their company) to provide the resources they use. 

Why Startups Should Encourage Intrapreneurship

The sheer nature of the intrapreneurship model or business system makes it relevant to startups that want to build an innovative front. In this section, we will pin down what the advantages of intrapreneurship are and, hopefully, how you can apply this in your startup. 

Potential to Drive Innovation 

Intrapreneurship has gradually changed over the years to become a high-potential advantage-providing tool, and that is happening with smart businesses matching intrapreneurs to projects based on the already determined strengths and interests of such employees and the focus area or details of such projects - unlike the typical case where just any employee is asked to take on a project or role within a business. 

The results of intrapreneurship - whether with matching or not - have been super amazing, especially concerning business innovation and growth. This is simply possible because the system allows a hands-on approach and gives freedom to employee ideas, expressions, and strategies while also presenting a sense of ownership which is both rewarding and motivating to employees driving the innovation process. 

Moreover, the inspiring stories of Ken Kutagari (PlayStation), Richard Montanez ( Flamin’ Hot Cheetos), Davide Costello (Fast & Green), Stéphanie Daru (Soothe ‘N’ Chew), Art Fry & Spencer Silver (Post-It Note), and a bunch of many others proves the one thing many people don’t believe about this system of running projects, it’s high potential for innovation and new business development. 

Achieve a Competitive Business Pace

With intrapreneurship, everything moves a little faster. We mean from identifying opportunities in the market to brainstorming and down to quickly developing and launching products. For instance, if your company has an intrapreneur and a support team on standby at all times, it will be way more likely that they catch the latest trends and news, conduct research or experiments, and test and launch products faster than the company itself would have done. 

This might be a heavy commitment for a newly founded company and it explains why larger companies are often the ones implementing the intrapreneurship system. For a startup, the best way to achieve this competitive business pace with minimal effort is by having intrapreneurs who can work on a wide range of projects rather than just specializing in one direction such as on creative projects or customer-facing projects. 

Better Resource Management 

We mentioned that intrapreneurs are entrepreneurs who depend on actual entrepreneurs for all their resource needs. In addition to this, we have said that companies are now matching intrapreneurs to projects to better inspire their commitment and interest. These two points suggest that there will likely be better resource management in an intrapreneurship. The reason is that resources are provided and/or released by the actual project owner to the intrapreneur and so there could be some form of monitoring in place. This will ensure that available resources are well utilized. Secondly, matching intrapreneurs to projects based on their interests allows them to do what they love doing and even have ownership feel over that, therefore, inspiring them to perform at their best and even properly assign and maintain resources. 

Improves Leadership Skills of Employees

Of course, it is not new to say that there’s a huge relationship between being an entrepreneur and being a leader or requiring leadership skills. Everyone already knows that. And the same thing goes for when moving a base employee to the level of an intrapreneur. Their experience on a project will include making decisions, assigning roles/tasks, monitoring activities and processes, and managing people. All that builds character and judgemental skills which effectively makes them better leaders.  

Challenges of Intrapreneurship within Today’s Startups and Quick Fixes

Intrapreneurship has its unique challenges and this section is where we discuss them, highlighting possible actions and solutions.  

No Mistake Culture:

A no-mistake culture refers to working with the notion that you are not permitted to have any project failures or perhaps to even make any mistakes during an operation. This notion is usually born from the actions of a management team and it creates a heightened and pressured work environment that is unhealthy for everyone involved. That is why, if your team - like many other innovation teams out there - feels like there is no room for a mistake no matter the reason, then that right there is an alert you need to pay attention to. To resolve this challenge within your startup, you will need to reassure your team that they are not in a do-or-die affair. Welcoming the idea of striving to achieve the best result possible while also creating a cushion in the event of a failure works well for this. 

Lack of Employee Motivation:

We are not saying that every single employee out there lacks motivation but as a management in whatever capacity, it is mandatory for you to practice ways in which you can spur up the innovating team. One of the best ideas for motivating the team is introducing games and other forms of relaxational activities such as picnics. Keeping your team motivated brings their minds and bodies to the project. It ensures that nobody feels uninterested or distracted and that everyone enjoys their time on the project. 

Lack of Management Support:

The last things anyone will expect from a business that utilizes intrapreneurship is reports and complaints about inexistent or insufficient support from the top management or the company as a whole. Quite unfortunately, however, this happens. Lack of management support is identified as a pressing issue since the operation of an intrapreneur depends on the supply of resources by a company or entrepreneur (which serves as management) who owns the project they handle. Again, the second reason why this is a serious challenge is that, compared to the other two challenges listed above.

This is the only challenge in which the intrapreneurs themselves cannot take any action to correct it. All corrective actions here must come from the management and if you think that they did not provide support in the first place, then you‘ll be left to wonder what the odds of getting a fix are. Whatever the case, the intrapreneur management can take all or more of these three steps to show their support and keep the intrapreneur operation together.

• Get hands-on with projects: 

The friendly and consistent presence of management among the innovating team is one way to surely express support for intrapreneurs. Whether it’s through monitoring, progress checking, demos, training, or participating in the project, management can successfully tune up intrapreneurs with this approach. 

• Provide Clear Innovation Direction or Expectations: 

Support might come in scarcely if a company or entrepreneur feels like its intrapreneurs are not working in the right direction. That being the case, it is good for management to provide clear innovative directions or expectations. There should be a well-set-up system to consistently but kindly remind intrapreneurs of the necessary considerations they should make before, during, and after every project. 

• Ensure that project processes are well laid out: 

It may be expected that intrapreneurs know how to go about a project. However, beyond this, a company needs to ensure that its project processes are well laid out and explained to the understanding of every employee who will be involved in such projects. Doing so helps to mitigate against errors that could potentially ruin a project or even slow it down or waste resources. In addition, laying out processes can significantly ease project delivery, reducing completion time and increasing output quality. 

Conclusion

Intrapreneurship comes with the idea of letting employees express their initiatives, work on growing a personal project, and be their entrepreneurs all within the company. The model helps businesses boost innovativeness, build employee skills, and foster management participation. Real-life application of this system has birthed popular projects such as the PlayStation. Nevertheless, just as with every other business decision, it is important to crosscheck the impacts and potential of intrapreneurship in your business - before actually moving to implement it.

You could read Ken Kutagari's story to understand intrapreneurship from an employee’s perspective and also see Apple’s story to understand intrapreneurship from an organization’s perspective. With both perspectives handy, and with a good grasp of all we have said about intrapreneurship, you should be on your way to making the most of this business system. 

‍