This resonates very strongly with me. Everywhere I work, I find really cool things to invent and business process improvements. Sometimes the biggest impacts these have are at the megacorps due to economies of scale. Often though there's so much friction, overhead, and red tape that it's impossible to get buy-in from team members and managers in the megacorps. This happens even in the best cases where everyone is open-minded and supportive. Sometimes large groups just don't have the excess capacity needed to re-tool. In large companies that don't have the best case cultures, it's nearly impossible to implement improvements or use any cross-team resources (human, physical or digital) to bring an invention to life.
It seems you're absolutely right that a startup is your only option if your idea is a proposed solution to a problem that is outside the mission/domain of (your/any) current organization, and/or if any organizations which would be interested simply can't devote resources and time to developing, evangelizing, and implementing your solution.
However, the risk involved in the process is so damned high. I love working in teams, whether at large megacorps, small contracting groups, or on my own or my friend's startup ideas. I don't love the "burnt relationships, heartache, debt, lawsuits, depression" (as 'irjustin phrased it elsewhere in this thread), that can be associated with startups.
Some startups are well-positioned for co-operative mutual interest VC money (repl.it would be a strange thing to bootstrap). Some startups are fantastic for bootstrapping (Sparkfun/Adafruit), and many could probably succeed just fine doing either (mailchimp, bootcamp come to mind). Still others probably best operate via philantrophic arrangements (OpenStax).
It seems you're absolutely right that a startup is your only option if your idea is a proposed solution to a problem that is outside the mission/domain of (your/any) current organization, and/or if any organizations which would be interested simply can't devote resources and time to developing, evangelizing, and implementing your solution.
However, the risk involved in the process is so damned high. I love working in teams, whether at large megacorps, small contracting groups, or on my own or my friend's startup ideas. I don't love the "burnt relationships, heartache, debt, lawsuits, depression" (as 'irjustin phrased it elsewhere in this thread), that can be associated with startups.
Some startups are well-positioned for co-operative mutual interest VC money (repl.it would be a strange thing to bootstrap). Some startups are fantastic for bootstrapping (Sparkfun/Adafruit), and many could probably succeed just fine doing either (mailchimp, bootcamp come to mind). Still others probably best operate via philantrophic arrangements (OpenStax).