siliconindia | | November 201819There are ample opportunities, we just need to wake-up the innovator within us to make our fabulous dreams a reality and make an impact in this worldcommitments without much in return. It should be done to follow your passion for world-changing ideas and not for glamour or money. IntrapreneurshipIntrapreneurship is similar to entrepreneurship where you start a new product line or a business unit that brings-in new revenue, but within an already established company. Intrapreneurship reduces some of the risks that entrepre-neurship entails like the access to resources, credibility, and customers. This helps you achieve your goals faster. There are misconceptions that it is not possible to innovate within a mature company. It is hard, but not as hard as starting a new business. There are a lot of examples where great products came out of a big company. Apple's iPhone, IBM Watson, Google Chromecast, and many others are all solid examples of innovations within a mature company. In all the above cases, the individual who took the initiative came out as a champion and was recognized as a leader not only within the company, but also in the whole industry. Intrapreneurship does have its own bag of challenges. As part of CTO offi ce, I have had ample opportunities to build and market completely new ideas within a company. The biggest battle was in the beginning: to sell the idea and to get the marketing and product teams on board. But once everyone agreed to the vision, building & selling the product was much easier because of available resources and already established customer base.The biggest challenge that intrapreneurs encounter is building a product that is completely different from the cur-rent company line, for example, consumer product within an enterprise focused company. In this case, the company culture matters a lot and what kind of risk they are willing to take on your behalf. Companies with modern outlooks like Google, Box, Adobe, Facebook and others have a very encouraging and supportive culture, where they let people innovate in different directions. In these cases, intrapre-neurship defi nitely has its perks, and one should seriously consider it.SolopreneurshipA new concept of solopreneurship is recently becoming popular. Like an entrepreneur, a solopreneur starts a new venture outside the company. But unlike an entrepreneur who builds the team around the new venture, a solopreneur works alone on all aspects of the product from building, marketing, accounting and distribution. It is a pretty val-id option for students who are studying and cannot keep a fulltime job or for a mom who needs fl exibility in terms of time and place to be near her kids. The ubiquitous avail-ability of information, compute power, and customer reach has made it possible to create and grow a valid business from the comfort of one's home. I have witnessed many hobbies growing into successful businesses and reach-ing-out to millions of people across the globe. Depending on different situations and surroundings, one path may work better than the other. The skills that are learned in one are always applicable to other. They all are building blocks to each other. Hence, everyone should consider what works best for them at a given time and keep their creativity going, anywhere and everywhere. There are ample opportunities, we just need to wake-up the innovator within us to make our fabulous dreams a reality and make an impact in this world. Divya Jain
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