A colleague of mine goes to Wal-Mart for almost everything he needs. When I asked him why he doesn’t support mom and pop shops more often, he replied, “Wal-Mart is the most successful mom and pop shop that ever existed.”
In other words, big companies were once startups, too, and they got big by doing a lot of things right. I work for a big company, but I’ve always approached my job like an entrepreneur at a startup, which is how I created a business plan that enabled me to run our digital magazine business as a virtual “start-up” inside our traditional company walls.
Having been at a huge multi-national company while trying to launch a new company, I’ve learned how to apply the following practices inside a big company that will work for any new venture.
