'Nothing More Powerful': How to Transform Companies From Within as an 'Intrapreneur,' According to a Microsoft Office and Yahoo! Shopping Cofounder

Jan 15, 2025 05:07 AM - 1 month ago 38377

Entrepreneurship is starting a company. Intrapreneurship is transforming a business from wrong as an employee.

Elizabeth Funk is acquainted pinch some paths. As an early worker astatine Yahoo! and Microsoft, Funk helped pioneer services for illustration Yahoo! Shopping and Microsoft Word. After reasoning online shopping would beryllium a cool feature, she sounded and wrote the first codification for Yahoo! Shopping herself. She was besides a merchandise head connected the early squad for Microsoft Word and portion of the original founding squad that created Microsoft Office.

Elizabeth Funk. Photo Credit: In Her Image Photography.

Now, arsenic the laminitis and CEO of the nonprofit DignityMoves, Funk strives to find Silicon Valley-level disruptive solutions to homelessness, a problem that affected much than 771,800 Americans successful 2024. DignityMoves addresses unsheltered homelessness by processing interim lodging to get group disconnected the streets arsenic quickly arsenic possible.

Related: Challenges Are Opportunities': Reebok's 89-Year-Old Founder Is Launching the World's First Futuristic AI Shoe

Entrepreneur interviewed Funk astir really she displayed intrapreneurship astatine Microsoft and Yahoo!, her attack to problems, and the lessons that she's bringing pinch her to DignityMoves.

You were 1 of the first labor astatine Yahoo! and connected the early squad for Microsoft Office. What was it for illustration moving connected these products?
At Yahoo! we were making it up arsenic we went along. We had nary thought really group were going to usage the Internet, aliases what it could do. I was coming from package (Microsoft), wherever it would return 18 months earlier a caller characteristic thought would beryllium successful users' hands (back past we printed the package connected CDs and shipped it successful packages). At Yahoo! I could travel up pinch a feature, put it retired connected the web, slumber a fewer hours nether my table (a predominant habit), and aftermath up to spot that a cardinal positive group had utilized it, arsenic good arsenic really they'd utilized it. Trial and correction was a basal creation strategy. There was very small downside consequence to putting retired a characteristic to spot if it appealed.

How did you attack problems connected these teams?
At some companies, it was basal that we had very collaborative moving styles. At Yahoo!, we tried to do arsenic galore meetings standing arsenic possible. Once you beryllium for a gathering you're presumed location successful that spot for 60 minutes. Who decided that each issues require precisely 60 minutes to solve? Instead, the personification calling the gathering would pre-socialize the rumor pinch folks individually, constrictive it down to a fewer choices, and ideally the squad would guidelines successful the convention room, statement the pros and cons, and decide. We besides did not judge successful "democracy" successful this environment. If you require unanimity you'll extremity up pinch the lowest communal denominator.

What was Yahoo! Shopping's root story?
In the early days of Yahoo! I was 1 of the only females. I kept reasoning "Wouldn't it beryllium cool if you could shop online?" The guys were wholly not intrigued. So I went to Barnes & Noble and bought "HTML for Dummies" and wrote [the code] myself. I sewage into a batch of trouble– clearly, web coding is not my forte, it was terrible. It besides only had 3 to 4 links (about arsenic galore online retailers existed, astatine the time). But we tried it, and successful retrospect, I turned retired to beryllium right.

Related: Why Embracing Intrapreneurship Will Cultivate Innovation Within Your Company

What proposal would you springiness group looking to make a quality from wrong a company?
If your business exemplary tin support it, usage trial-and-error, "minimal viable product" approaches to research earlier investing a batch of power successful caller features aliases projects.

How do you attack managing people?
As a manager, I believed successful giving each personification their ain area of (almost) afloat authority. Even the astir inferior personification would "own" their mini portion of the business. I judge that the entrepreneurial tone is for illustration a precious elixir — if you could vessel it, you could waste it for $1 cardinal per drop. There is thing much powerful. As a manager, the concealed was to find ways to instill that elixir successful each employee. Magic happens.

What lessons from Yahoo! and Microsoft are you bringing pinch you arsenic a founder?
At Yahoo! we thought that the world net was going to beryllium excessively monolithic for people– they were going to want to enactment wrong their section communities. So we created Yahoo! LA, Yahoo! San Francisco, and truthful forth. It took america a while to recognize that group had only defined "community" by their zip codification successful the past because that was their only option. Now group could specify "community" by a shared emotion of Beanie Babies. The aforesaid seems existent for really group usage the net today: they stitchery successful organization crossed zip codes and borders, agreed by what makes them unique, and what connects them to others.

Related: I Shifted From Founder to CEO 20 Years Ago and Never Looked Back — Here's How to Successfully Make the Leap

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