I was emailed the other day by a good friend of mine, Ash Damle.  
I was introduced to Ash by another company a couple of months ago,
and the more I learn about Ash, the more impressed I am with him.  
He recently asked me to vote for his company, MEDgle [1] that is nominated
for the Webware 100 [2] which is pretty impressive.  MEDgle is in some pretty
impressive company, with such companies as Google and Yahoo.  

Ash started his career even before most people start thinking about a career
when they are in college.  His company 2028 was born out of the MIT labs and
his thesis, which was structured around search engine summary.  His product
takes search engine queries and translates them into summaries, so you don’t
have to read an entire book, page, pdf or anything you would need to condense.  
As I spoke with Ash, I learned we had a lot in common.  It seems Ash’s work back
in 1998 was not widely accepted.  He was speaking a foreign language when he
was trying to pitch his idea and product.  It seems like and I to early in the marketing
and pitching of my product to the market and waiting for the market to catch up with
me so I felt his pain.  So after spending a couple of years changing, tweaking, and
relocating to California, it seems Ash has created a niche and a product that has
been recognized by the market.  

In summary, even though Ash was driven through an academic need, and he was able
to build a company from it, his innovation, determination and persistence is what has
taken him this far.  Even though you may be in a corporate role, completing your
day-to-day tasks, you can always add innovation into your current role, or your future role.  
Take a look around at current processes, products, marketing and see what you can add,
change, and improve.  If your first idea doesn’t work, keep pitching, saying no is easy,
as it doesn’t take any work.  But the more you pitch, the more you will be heard, until
eventually someone recognizes your ambition and takes a chance on you.  

If you don’t believe me, just ask Ash how many people have said no to him.