Start Within: How to Sell Your Idea, Overcome Roadblocks, and Love Your Job

by Karen Holst, Douglas Ferguson, Shawn Bueche (Illustrator)

Start Within is the playbook guiding through the process of launching an idea within a company and helping to get around the corporate obstacles that will come along the way. Each chapter is packed with a one-two punch: it starts with stories from the trenches (from Amazon to the Department of Education, inspirational stories of what does, and doesn’t work) and finishes with activities for the reader to roll up their sleeves and apply the lessons to their own work.

To launch an idea from within a larger company will be challenging, which is why the book outlines the steps and process to:
Knowing when an idea is worth pursuing
Aligning to company business strategies and objectives
Turning a “no” into a “yes”
Prototyping the idea in stages

Start Within is the essential guide for anyone who wants to innovate within their company, develop their ideas, take ownership of their work, and find real purpose in their work.

Genres: Business

242 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 15, 2020

About the author

Karen Holst is an entrepreneur turned intrepreneur. She co-founded educational technology startup MyEdu, formerly Pick-A-Prof (acquired by Blackboard), and transitioned to intrepreneurial roles within the California Department of Education, IDEO, Autodesk, and teaching about it via LinkedIn Learning.

From government agencies and non-profits to startups and Fortune 500 companies, Karen has worked with organizations of varying sizes and across industries to help their leadership unlock creative potential and empower their employees to innovate. Her expertise in innovation has been featured in TechCrunch, The New York Times, NPR, The Chicago Tribute, CNN, and more.

Karen is a product leader with deep expertise in human-centered design strategies, creative problem-solving, and product innovation. She writes, teaches, mentors, and advises on how to create technology with a broader impact.

Karen and her family split their time living a bi-coastal life: San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, for half the year and Montreal, Quebec, for the other half. Avid marathon runner and 10-mile swimmer, Karen is addicted to taking on new challenges and fueled by curiosity and discovery--every day.

Reviews

[Karen Cornwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you struggled to implement your ideas at work? You are not alone! With the help of Karen Holst you can streamline your process while understanding the variety of pitfalls, so you can lithely step over them instead of into them. She introduces many many tools to ensure your success including: assessing your market, your organization’s readiness for change, and how to get alignment with your stakeholders. This book is a “must read” for Product Managers, Engineers, and anyone who is committed to turning ideas into reality. Like Karen said: “Life’s most satisfying rewards often come from taking risks when the odds seem stacked against you.”

- Karen F Cornwell, author of You Can’t Fix What You Can’t See: An Eye-Opening Toolkit to Cultivate Gender Harmony in Business.

[Alicia Robben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Start Within is a great read for general business tips. I am able to take many of the authors ideas about communication, organization, and listening that I can apply to the work that I do every day at my corporation. This book provided tips about listening and assumptions that I had no read about in other books. The book subtitle discusses how to love you job, but that seemed to be a minor focus in this book. Overall, this is a great book for anyone who wants to improve their idea generation within the workplace!

[Saule · Rating 5 out of 5]

A motivational pragmatic boost to help get those ideas out into the open with success. An easy and enjoyable read! A keeper in your library.

[Yishan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for content, however I don't recommend reading this in one sitting as it may not grab you instantly until your idea has progressed accordingly. I can see myself going back to this as reference material. As an audio book it was a bit tedious to listen to it in one go.