Advice for wannabe entrepreneur from big company

A big company executive who is ready for a change asked me for career advice. He wants to work at a small company.  I told him that he should take a project and start small -- work out of his house. Having a project to work  on that's interesting and takes advantage of his past experiences will be super useful in moving him from point A (big company) to somewhere else. The reason I gave him this advice is that I've found many people -- myself included look for an insight that's the BIG idea -- as if big companies were born out of strokes of lightning in a bottle. I think that may happen, but more often they come from mucking around with ordinary things and putting things in motion. Once things are in motion -- extraordinary things can happen.