In the beginning, no one else understands the intrapreneur’s ideas well enough to make them work. As a result, others say it can’t work. Intrapreneurs thus find themselves crossing organizational boundaries to do what are officially other people’s jobs. When intrapreneur Art Fry, the inventor of Post-it Notes (those now familiar yellow pads with the gently adhesive backs), was told by the marketing division his idea wasn’t wanted by customers, he did his own market research. When manufacturing told him Post-it Notes were impossible to make, he worked out the production technology himself. No problem, no matter how far from his supposed area of expertise as a lab person, fell outside his responsibility, because Art was an intrapreneur.
