How to Embrace Intrapreneurship to Innovate from Within

There are a number of characteristics that define an intrapreneur, but in a nutshell, it’s someone who innovates from within a company. Like their entrepreneur counterparts, they have that insatiable drive to create change or bring something new to the table. They still have to validate their ideas, pitch them and sell them, and take on the task of building it. Derek Harju is an intrapreneur at heart. He is the host of The QuadPod, a podcast he launched under the The Rich Dad Network. In this episode I talk to Derek about how he innovates from within The Rich Dad Company, how he landed at the company, what it’s like to work with Robert Kiyosaki, how to pitch innovation within an organization, and why the days of the subject-matter expert may be limited. Derek’s favorite tools for podcasting: Audacity - Truncate the silence feature to get rid of all of the ums, ahhs, pauses, etc. in a matter of seconds (free) Levelator - Sets all audio on an equal volume level (free) Adobe Audition - Derek specifically called out a function called de-clicker that removes all the little annoying ambient noises. Biz Hack: Need a better way to manage and stay up-to-date on your contacts? FullContact pulls in your contact data, and automatically updates them with social profile information and photos. It then syncs the information across Google and iCloud accounts. The free version allows you up to 5,000 contacts. Very cool tool. Check it out. Next week I’m in the Lab with Russ Perry, founder of Design Pickle, a flat-rate graphic design company. We talk about how he figured out how to turn design in a software as service business, successfully shifting gears, and hiring. Be sure to tune! Until then, have prosperous week!