Last week, I learned the word intrapreneur, which describes an entrepreneur who works within another entrepreneur’s company. While I’m not a big fan of labels, the term resonated with me. Without meaning to, I’ve been an intrapreneur for over a decade. This role has taught me valuable skills and lessons along my journey to becoming an entrepreneur, while providing a steady paycheck in one of the most critical investing eras of my life.
Where I Started
During high school and college, I worked for a large national financial services firm. When I moved back to my hometown after college, I snagged the first job that could bring in income to chunk toward my student loans. I ended up working in hospitality for an international hotel chain until I landed a job in engineering, and then one in racing.
Apart from these two early experiences, I have spent my career working for small businesses. While the positions haven’t always come with the best benefits, I’m someone who doesn’t do well conforming to narrow and routine roles. I knew when I started my engineering degree that I had zero interest in corporate engineering. What I wanted to do was play with race cars. And since I knew I didn’t have the capital to start a team, I made it my mission to work for someone else who did. Thus, an intrapreneur was born.
Zoom Zoom
What I didn’t know when I broke into open-wheel motorsports with my first internship is that racing, like any entrepreneurial endeavor, can have tight profit margins. Some teams are expense write-offs for their owners with other entrepreneurial endeavors. I learned a joke around the paddock:
How do you make a small fortune in racing?
Start with a large one.
This joke was funny because my purse wasn’t the one used to make payroll.
Sadly, this adage extends past the world of racing. Here are a few facts about small businesses.
- 20% of small businesses fail within the first year
- 30% fail within the second year
- 50% fail by year five
- Almost half fail due to market demand
- Over a third fail because they don’t have enough capital
I grew up working in the family business, so I witnessed firsthand the money struggles being an entrepreneur can bring. I knew I wanted more financial freedom for myself. So what did I do? I went to work in one of the most unstable job markets around – open-wheel racing. (And when I become concerned about financial stability, I left motorsports for yet another unstable market – aviation.)
After my first Indy 500 experience, I knew I wanted to work in racing. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. I loved numbers and puzzles. After speaking with an industry insider, I knew that marketing degrees were a dime a dozen. So I went into engineering with no understanding of what an engineer did.
Would I recommend this blind leap of faith for everyone? Probably not. Did it work out for me? Yes, but not in the traditional sense.
When I got my first break in the industry, my engineering degree didn’t land me the job. The team needed someone to help with logistics coordination and office management. After years helping my accountant parents, I had the bookkeeping experience they needed. While I eventually added an assistant race engineer role to my credentials, my value came from being the utility player. I had a lot of skills that were useful in several areas of running the racing team.
By the ripe old age of twenty-five, I was an assistant team manager, becoming an intrapreneur without realizing it.
One of the most valuable experiences I received as an intrapreneur is collecting a vast array of skills that aren’t industry specific. Through my two stints in open-wheel racing, I learned plenty of skills to add to my entrepreneur arsenal, including how to:
- Network within an industry
- Write and distribute press releases
- Create graphics and marketing materials in Photoshop and Illustrator
- Run hospitality events
- Manage team logistics and compile itineraries
- Negotiate group pricing
- Forecast company budgets (even businesses need budgets!)
Each intrapreneurial role is different, but each offers opportunities useful in your professional career(s). Often, showing an eagerness to learn is all management needs to take a chance on you. This flexibility has made me a desirable hire even in harder economic times, as I found out in my first career shift.
Pivot! Pivot! Pivvvooooot!
*Insert Ross screaming at Chandler and Rachel here*
I quickly found my place within the racing world, and I loved it. I’ve never been a nine-to-five kind of gal, content in a cubicle with stale recycled air. Give me the smell of ethanol fuel first thing in the morning any day. I could have lived without the tinnitus, but it beat listening to people threatening to burn buildings down if someone touched their stapler.
I thought I’d retire in racing. My grand plan was to move to Indianapolis, The Racing Capital of the World, and buy my great-grandmother’s old house in Speedway, a few blocks from IMS.
Instead, I found myself worried about financial stability. Coupled with a logistics problem of remote work, I faced a heartbreaking decision. After years of long distance with my significant other, I pivoted. (When the opportunity to jump back into racing arose a few years later, I pivoted again.)
I joke I traded one speed demon for another. While working in an aircraft hangar wasn’t as fun as chasing down Amish buggies on the backcountry roads of Ohio, it beat the monotony of Office Space. Once again, I slid into an intrapreneurial role without realizing it.
While I started as a part-time bookkeeper, I quickly expanded my duties to a full-time position. (And then back down to part-time when racing came a calling. And then back to full-time when the racing opportunity ended. Part of being an intrapreneur is being flexible.) While I learned a lot in racing, by the time I was ready to pivot after aviation, I’ve added even more skills, including how to:
- Develop job descriptions and interview
- Onboard and train new employees
- Manage a fast-paced, on-demand service business
- Implement process changes to improve efficiency
- Manage reporting and regulations requirements
- Run a company’s website and social media presence
- Track and manage inventory
- Procure parts
The wonderful thing about being an intrapreneur is that you get to leave your mark and a part of your legacy in the entrepreneurial world. While my name wasn’t listed as an owner for the company, I become a staple with the customers and employees. I crafted my position and duties as I showed value to the owners and the company. This allowed me to expand my skill set not just with each new job, but within each company with different roles and responsibilities.
Trying to do that in a large corporation can be difficult. Working in a small business setting not only made it possible, but it made me valuable. That value equaled leverage and job stability, even in an unstable industry like aviation was during the COVID pandemic.
When I decided to pivot my career a second time, the power of intrapreneurship was humbling and a bit overwhelming.
Pivoting With Intrapreneurial Power
After spending over a decade adding skills to my toolbox, I was unprepared for just how valuable I’d become in the marketplace. I sent out a host of applications to numerous industries in the local area. The amount of feedback and requests for interviews astounded me. I had four job offers within the first week of interviewing.
By becoming an intrapreneur, both unintentionally and then intentionally, I could negotiate and select the best opportunity for me instead of picking the first offer to hit my inbox. This is another key to freedom F.I.R.E. people under appreciate. By being financially covered, I didn’t have to worry about taking the best paying job. I could take the right job. Being able to own your own time, and not just your stuff, is a powerful stance and a wonderful stress relief when job hunting.
During my time in aviation, I’d become serious about pursuing a career as an author. I even took a sabbatical from work in order to complete a DIY MFA in creative writing. Attempting the publishing world in the 2020s taught me that even with a traditional publishing deal, marketing responsibilities fall heavily on authors as publishers cut back on publicity expenses.
So for my next pivot, I wanted to be more intentional. I was an intrapreneur now hoping to become an entrepreneur in the next five years with a massively successful writing career. (A girl can dream!) But I had little experience in marketing or advertising. I also have an almost crippling anxiety of public speaking. Shocking for an engineer and introverted writer, I know.
More than the skill set I wanted to continue to build, I wanted to find something that was less a J-O-B and more a calling. Bolstered by the amount of positive feedback in my initial interviews, I wanted to look for something that I could be passionate about. I didn’t want to have to mainline energy drinks and donuts to get through long days at work. I wanted something exciting that aligned with my values. While aviation was a fitting second act to motorsports, it wasn’t something I was passionate about. While I was working hard toward financial freedom, I knew I was never likely to own a corporate jet.
Was the interviewing process still stressful? Absolutely. I sweated and stumbled through every phone and in-person interview I had. I was terrified jumping into an entirely new career with a start-up I’d never heard of. That a large part of my job description consisted of marketing and partnership meetings made me cold sweat.
But growth is often uncomfortable.
That doesn’t mean we should give up and settle for the status quo. (Be Judy Hopps, not her parents!)
Six months in, I can say it’s been one of the best moves I’ve ever made. Start-ups, it turns out, are one of the best places to be an intrapreneur. You get to be in on the entrepreneurial action on the ground floor. I haven’t had a Case of the Mondays yet. One of my favorite things about being an intrapreneur is each day brings new challenges and new adventures – and each is an opportunity to grow and learn.
Key Takeaways of Being an Intrapreneur
Here are some lessons I’ve learned in the past twelve years as an intrapreneur:
- There’s no real “job stability” (especially in a right-to-work state). There’s risk in working with start-ups and small businesses, but layoffs are a thing at big business too.
- The more valuable you are, the more likely you’ll be the last one out the door if layoffs come.
- You’re never too old to learn a new skill or shift careers.
- You can’t teach someone to care, so showing your employer you care already puts you in the top 1% of your competition.
- If you’re willing to put effort into developing an entrepreneurial company, most entrepreneurs will put their effort into helping develop you as well.
- If you ask, the answer might be no. But if you don’t ask, the answer is certainly a no.
- To be a successful intrapreneur, you have to be aligned with your goals, just like with personal finances. It is much easier to succeed when you are working towards something you value and care about. It is hard to give 100% to a company whose mission you don’t care about or that doesn’t morally align with your values. And it isn’t somewhere you’ll want your legacy attached to.
Considerations For Future Entrepreneurs
I won’t claim to be a titan of knowledge in this realm. After all, I’m still on my journey to entrepreneurship. While I’ve owned my job as a consultant, in the past and currently, I haven’t reached the stepping stone of true entrepreneurship yet.
Given the sobering statistics on small business failures and seeing firsthand the struggles and stressors of owning a business, I shied away from entrepreneurship for decades. As I transition, I am doing it purposefully to give myself the greatest chance of success.
Here are some of the considerations we’ve assessed and put into practice as I look to transition from an intrapreneur to an entrepreneur:
- You have to be aligned with your spouse and have their support. There will be endless long nights of needing coverage on chores and household duties. After 13+ hour days, you’ll sometimes want to do nothing but crash and get a foot rub.
- Communication with your spouse is key. Give them a voice in your goals and dreams. When we realized the greater potential for entrepreneurship The Budget Brigade, David and I sat down and had a frank talk. Together, we agreed I should shift my focus from creative writing as an aspiring author to nonfiction writing here.
- Diversifying your entrepreneurship potential is a lot like diversifying your investments. The more opportunities you have, the more chances exist to succeed. Just make sure you put your greatest effort in where the ROI potential is highest. For example, you wouldn’t want to have an asset allocation that is mostly bonds because they traditionally have lower returns.
- Living a minimalist lifestyle helps tremendously. Investing was key in my twenties and continues to be in this decade. To meet our freedom F.I.R.E. goals, we have a cheap lifestyle well within our means. This also allows us to chase the opportunities we want instead of the ones we need, without stealing from our future goals. I actually took a pay cut for my latest career pivot, because I knew it offered me more flexibility for my entrepreneurial goals.
- Given that roughly 80% of small businesses fail due to lack of cash, debt free is the only way we’re going on our entrepreneurial adventure. We budget a portion of my intrapreneurial income toward my entrepreneurial goals without cutting from our savings percentage, which is permanent inked into our budget.
Conclusion
I’ll be honest: being an intrapreneur or an entrepreneur are both hard work. It’s hardly ever a normal nine-to-five. It can require some compromises of what your ideal “job” looks like. For example, I gave up my three-day weekend for my current opportunity.
It can be worth the sacrifices, so long as you hold to your non-negotiables. Being willing to compromise for an opportunity isn’t to say you can’t have boundaries. I learned perhaps a little too late into my journey you have to have boundaries to prevent burnout.
Being an intrapreneur is great practice to see if you’re ready for the life of an entrepreneur. If you love being an intrapreneur and don’t have any interest in being an entrepreneur, that’s okay too! For my husband to be an entrepreneur, he would have to spend a majority of his time traveling. That isn’t something he wants to do. He’s content with his newer intrapreneurial role and plans to stay there until I hog tie him and force him to work for me full time making spreadsheets and other resources.
Each of our journeys through life weaves along different paths. Take the one best suited for you and your dreams.
Are you an intrapreneur? Is so, how have you grown along with the entrepreneurial endeavor you serve? If not, what’s stopped you?