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Dona L 0:07 Welcome to another episode of creative distillation. Your host, Jeff and Brad from the University of Colorado, Boulder's Leeds School of Business, discuss entrepreneurship research while enjoying fine craft beverages. Here's another episode from the reversing the arrow conference held at Boulder's beautiful Chautauqua Park in June 2024 this time Brad and Jeff speak with Jennifer and Dev Jennings. Both are professors in the department of strategy, entrepreneurship and Management at the University of Alberta School of Business. They also happen to be the first married couple to appear on creative distillation while enjoying a crisp Prosecco on the porch of the Chautauqua mission house. Jen and Dev talk about a paper they've co written about how starting a business with one's romantic partner tends to lead to stereotypical gender roles translating from the marriage into the business, requiring a special kind of work life balancing to truly succeed. Then Jen tells us about her recent paper examining the gender gap in entrepreneurial self efficacy, and how that plays out in terms of investor confidence, the ability to learn and adapt, and ultimately, a venture's success. The results may surprise you, all of that and more in this episode of creative distillation, enjoy and cheers. Jeff York 1:51 Welcome to Creative distillation, where we distill entrepreneurship research into actionable insights. I am Jeff York, your host, with my co host, Brad 1:59 Brad Warner and Jeff, this is really an exciting day. This Jeff York 2:03 is an exciting day. We are. We are in the first day of reversing the arrow. Brad, have you ever reversed an arrow? I've never reversed an arrow, but I'm actually trying in Wisconsin. Brad 2:14 I was never a bow I was never a bow hunter. No Jeff York 2:17 No When Buzz is bow hunters. Sometimes I think reversing arrow is a really bad thing. If you want to know about reversing the arrow, you'll have to rewind in time and go find the one that says Robert Eberhart. That's the most academic sounding name of anyone. I mean, you know, if you know Bob, you know, and if you know Bob, you know, you know he is and he explains what the heck reversing the arrow is. But we're really excited to be here. We're on the beautiful front porch at the Chautauqua. Gosh, what is the Chautauqua? The mission house at the Chautauqua. Thank you. Producer Joel and the Chautauqua is this amazing place in Boulder, Colorado that we also talked about with Bob in the previous episodes. We're not gonna talk about any more than to say it's a lovely day and we've got some guests. We have two faculty members joining us, two professors. First Brad 3:00 of all, Jeff, just walking before we get to our Okay, um, it's amazing how all these folks know you. I walk in, I'm in this group of, I don't know these folks, and they're all looking at you, and I think that that's gonna make my days. I think that they're gonna be a lot of fun things that are you were amazed Jeff York 3:17 by that the last time I was just, like, making all this up, and, like, nobody actually knew who I was. No, Brad 3:22 I think that there are like 50 of you in the world, yeah. And every once in a while you all get together. That is Jeff York 3:27 kind of close, yeah. So who do we have today? Okay, so we have two professors from University of Alberta, the University of Alberta, School of Business. I get that, right, guys, yes. All right, good. There we go. Really. Really, really on fire. Here, the first person introduces Professor Jennifer Jennings, she's professor in the Department of strategy, entrepreneurship and management, as well as Professor dev Jennings, who is also in the department of strategy, entrepreneurship and Brad 3:56 management. Okay, so this leads to my first question. No, this is, this is the first husband and wife team, I believe we've ever had on Jeff, we Jeff York 4:07 have never has been a wife team. So how does that work? Brad 4:11 I mean, I'm just thinking, I'm thinking Jeff York 4:14 people love each other. Brad 4:15 I understand, I understand that part, but I'm thinking about the working together component of this right as an entrepreneur, I've seen many ventures crash and burn with partners, working as partners, and so is it the same way in academia? Just tell us a little bit of the backstory and how you got here. Dev Jennings 4:31 Well, you might not get the same answer from me as from Jennifer, Jennifer Jennings 4:36 but I think that hits it on the nail on the head right there. I'm waiting for mine, but that's okay. Jeff York 4:48 So this is a change request, yeah. So we're doing a little bit of a different format this week, as we're reversing the arrow and the Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Conference doing these episodes. There's only so many brewers into. Stillers and bartenders we can call in favors from. So getting them to come and, like, just serve their beer to like, three or four people, even if one of them's Brad, tends to be difficult to have happen. So we're just bringing beverages that people ask for, and Jen requested Prosecco, which I know absolutely nothing about, Brad 5:17 so I do so yes. So these folks don't know that I live in the south of France during the summer, and I will talk about rose when Bob gets here. But Prosecco is actually fermented in stainless steel barrels. And where's this from products of Italy? I Jennifer Jennings 5:35 was gonna say my understanding is that this is the Italian champagne, yeah, Brad 5:39 but the French would never say that this is a champagne they would say they're not worthy of this. Okay, so, Jeff York 5:47 oh, thank you. They would say so. The French would say the Italians are not worthy. No, they're Brad 5:51 saying the French are very, very protective of their wines and their wine regions, and they don't believe that anyone, for the most part, makes anything better than they do. Well, sure, right? And but Prosecco was something that's really taken off in the US and Canada as well, I guess. Jeff York 6:06 I've tried to find one made Colorado, and they don't exist. Jennifer Jennings 6:10 Cheers. Thank you. Jeff York 6:14 Cheers, man. Cheers. All right, so we all love you. This is actually nice creative distillation. First, we have never drank wine on creative distillation. Oh, and 60 some odd episodes, wow, never have drank wine. It's good. Well, no, we don't have wine. We had Snoop Dogg's prison wine in California. No, no, I do remember buying it though I was very excited. Joel. Joel thought it was a good idea. And so Wait, I see someone over there in the corner. Wait, what's this? Oh, my God. Oh yeah. Hey. All right, come here. Guest, friend of the pod, Professor, Beth Emery from University of Kansas. What are you doing here? Beth? And what have you come to tell us about? Beth Embree 6:56 Since it's June, I was wondering if you got any sparkle from DB eight. Sparkle Jeff York 7:00 from DV eight. What's that? Beth Embree 7:03 Apparently, it's Dev Jennings 7:03 got a unicorn, fabulous Beth Embree 7:06 that's vodka based and fruit punch with edible glitter inside that you should shake up before you serve. Jeff York 7:12 Well, let's shake it and see what happens. Are you serious? Dev Jennings 7:15 I see the unicorn If you drink this, one of Beth Embree 7:21 the best distilleries, Jeff York 7:23 the home of our very first episode. I believe, Beth, are you planning to offer this to other people during the podcast this week? Busting it right open? Wow, holy cow. Brad 7:35 It has a brown bag shaped bottle. It Jeff York 7:37 might need ice, so I didn't have time to chill it, but I think it's got enough alcohol in it to but I'd be Beth Embree 7:43 curious if someone else wants to try it with me. So deviate, and this is from the Jeff York 7:47 back. It says there, we love deviate, great distillery here in Boulder. They've really upped their branding since we were visiting them. So deviate from the norm. That was their motto then, right? But now they're just like deviate is a queer, kinky and diverse distillery dedicated to making this world a little freakier. And this bottle says made with real fruit, peach, blueberry, pineapple, strawberry and cranberry, as well as eatable glitter. So describe what this looks like, Brad, Brad 8:14 it looks like a teenager's bottle. Dev Jennings 8:21 It's true. Yes, folks. I mean, sparkly is your phone, my Brad 8:24 love and it has a unicorn on the bottle, my granddaughter would love Jeff York 8:27 that. Oh, god, okay, so, so in the glass, this presents as sparkles and pink liquid. Oh, Jennifer Jennings 8:42 my, it looks a little intergalactic. Yes, Jeff York 8:46 that's its own. I think you see intergalactic things you drink too much. Dev Jennings 8:49 Yeah, it's true. Look that is a unicorn. Jeff York 8:52 Wow. That is, I actually taste all those fruits, but not I can't tell Beth Embree 8:57 my part. Don't need to tell you the ones that you're supposed to be tasting. Sure Jeff York 9:01 taste bath and famous on sparkle. What I learned Beth Embree 9:04 when I was researching it is apparently you're supposed to be able to taste cardamon, juniper, blood orange, lavender, coriander, Angelica, rosemary and Cuban peppers. Jeff York 9:18 The Cuban peppers is really strong. I give it a thumbs up. If you're looking for an alcoholic fruit punch full of glitter, go find deviate sparkle. Anyway, back to the Prosecco. This is delicious. The Prosecco Brad 9:29 is great, yes, so tell us about your love for Prosecco. Or, Jennifer Jennings 9:33 how did Yes? How did I develop this? Well, it was imported from one of our new colleagues, Christopher Steele, who was quite a connoisseur of all things good to eat and good to drink. So he introduced it to us, and I haven't gone back since. So Brad 9:50 we can find battles of prosesco. And you're sitting in your home right now, yeah, Jeff York 9:54 so this is what my 17 year old daughter researching Prosecco on the iPhone on the way the liquor store suggested. Nice. There's a shout out for you. Brad 10:01 So how do we get the other thing, though, what is that? Things like, Jeff York 10:05 just showed up and then she absconded away. I'm starting Brad 10:09 to, like, link the conferences with the UCLA and that blue drink that we had, and this, yeah, brainwashed break this. So Jeff York 10:16 this is like, this is like, the brainwash of but this is actually pretty good. I think. What'd you think? Deb, you tasted the deviate, Dev Jennings 10:23 I think better brainwashed than mouthwash. It's good. I mean, shake me, Jeff York 10:30 it's a totally unique beverage. Yeah, Brad 10:32 shake me actually is awesome. Jeff York 10:33 All right. So good. Anything else you guys want to tell us about Prosecco? I gave you the extent my knowledge is what my daughter found out. Well, Dev Jennings 10:40 yeah, but also we found trying them. Now, quite a few that the Italian is quite distinctive, right? I mean, you know, when you've had ones, we've tried those in California. We tried French ones. We've tried some Spanish version. We have tried different Prosecco as well. Have Jennifer Jennings 10:56 we okay? Yes, I just thought they were always made in Italy. No, no, Dev Jennings 11:01 you're telling me go to the go and get the Italian one, right? Brad 11:07 I look at this like a session wine, where you can actually sit out on a hot day and yeah, per second, Jennifer Jennings 11:11 right on, on a covered Yes, this Brad 11:13 is perfect, right? Yeah, yep. I like it, yeah. Jeff York 11:17 I like it too. It's well, very well suited summer beverage. Yes. So we, since we had two people today, we thought we were going to talk about two different papers. But, you know, since you guys, oh, we never answered Brad's question, yes, I'm sorry. Well, I Jennifer Jennings 11:29 think you got a little bit of a sneak preview there. Did you see how chivalrous he was? Yeah, he somebody took out the Prosecco. He immediately said, Oh, let me serve that to Jennifer, right? And he poured my drink and everything. So I think that goes a long way okay, in the relationship, yeah, and Tito kind of transfers over to actually co authoring together as well. Brad 11:53 So are we talking about co authored paper here today? Jennifer Jennings 11:55 No, not today, no, but Dev Jennings 11:57 we've done on whether to go into business with your partner. Brad 12:00 No No kidding, we've Dev Jennings 12:01 written a paper on that. Jennifer Jennings 12:02 We've done that. Brad 12:03 What was the result? Is there a takeaway? Just quickly, we Dev Jennings 12:06 actually found it was pretty good for both with those data, but the woman always had more of a burden. Jennifer Jennings 12:11 Yes, that's true. Yeah, yeah. That one, yeah. And related, research has shown that, typically, in that sort of situation, sadly, they fall into, you know, historically, you know, stereotypical gendered roles, so it's typically the man in the relationship who gets to be the top dog, Dev Jennings 12:31 right? Try to split the housework and everything like that we do in our own relationship, yeah, and the kids stuff. So, yeah, but it's never equal. Jeff York 12:40 Well, yeah, it's really hard because it's a fuzzy line, and it's always hard to figure out who did what. And, you know, it's just, I think that's a pretty good, actual insight already here. Brad, like the idea that, like starting a business with your your partner, a lot of those stereotypical gender roles that we know actually play out, usually in marriage, and are really hard to resist over both sides, also translate into the business. Am I getting it right? Jennifer Jennings 13:07 Typically? That's yeah, what the research shows, yeah, and does Jeff York 13:10 that interfere with, like, the ability for the business to be successful, or the couples to be successful? Or does it, is it just sort of like an unfair outcome? Or what'd you guys think from the research, like Jennifer Jennings 13:19 when I was way back as a doctoral student, collecting data in the Greater Vancouver area, going out around, you know, and talking to folks. And every time I discovered that it was actually a white wife team, I kind of deviated referring to our sparkle drink here, no deviated from the script. The and kind of, and I was just really intrigued, like, Okay, your husband, wife team, how's your marriage doing? Yeah, right, as a result of being in business together. And I remember keeping track, and, you know, we haven't published this or anything, but I remember it was half and half, so half of those couples, you know, were kind of on their way to divorce, or they were still in business, but, like, kind of, but divorced, believe it or not, and then the other half were like, Oh, this is the most amazing thing to be doing as a married couple. And I think that's how Devin I feel about actually being married, academics, like, it's really amazing when it works, right? It's great, right? Like, it's either the best of times or the Dev Jennings 14:20 worst of times, right? Jennifer Jennings 14:24 Yeah, Dev Jennings 14:25 when paper isn't going it doesn't really go right, and it does. It's awesome. Jeff York 14:31 oh yeah, I can only imagine. It's like, really nice having your spouse understand the challenges and the ups and downs, like, of because I mean a lot this whole podcast now, Brad and I are not romantically entangled, but just to clarify, but a lot of this has been me explaining to him and showing him, like other people, some of the challenges actually doing this work, because as an outsider, you look at and you're like, Oh, you wrote a paper. All right, you published it. Well, big deal. Like. You know, 30 page paper, would that take, like, a week or something? And, you know, it's like Brad 15:04 10 years. We've had people 10 years that you now, know. Jeff York 15:09 So it's, I think, is that, that helpful aspect of it, understanding each other? Oh, absolutely, Jennifer Jennings 15:14 it's really great. I mean, if we are working on a paper together, or, you know, a project, or, of course, or whatever. I mean. Can you imagine waking up in the morning and your husband, your partner, has served you breakfast? And not only that, you get to talk about, yeah, right? And then beyond that, exactly, then you get to spend breakfast talking about, like the next section of your paper, right? Oh god, you know what cool analysis you're gonna do next. Sounds like misery. This is academic heaven. Dev Jennings 15:52 Professors. We do have to draw a line now, right? We just draw a line. Oh, yeah. Like when we go on our walk and stuff, we like, Okay, we need to be in the moment. Yeah, sometimes, you know, right? Yeah. Otherwise, just be all this paper that all cerebral. What's going on? Yeah, side of what life is about when you have kids to their demands, but now that the kids are grown, now that you know, they finished university, all of them. It's different too, right? In a way, we have all our co authors who we kind of look after interesting. It's not just about a different family sort of thing. It's a different Yeah, Jeff York 16:31 because you guys both have doctoral students, you're Jennifer Jennings 16:34 trying to get tenure, Dev Jennings 16:36 these things matter. Yeah? No, Jeff York 16:38 it does. It really is. It's, I never quite got that until, like, you start, I don't think you get as a doctoral student, like you can. I just think, like, well, you know, this person's being so nice to me, that's cool, but like, you don't realize, like, the burden you're putting on the person. Because it's like, it's like, watching your kid play a sport or something, right? You're just like, but, yeah, it's hard. I mean, and you feel accountability for taking care of these people and getting them through and trying to help them and and they don't know as much about it, and they is an apprenticeship model. So you know, this is just how it goes, right? All right. Well, cool, let's, let's dive into one of your papers. Jim, so this was that right, just came out in etmp, entrepreneurship, theory and practice, challenging what we think we know, theory and evidence for questioning common beliefs about the gender gap in entrepreneurial confidence to 2023, volume, 47 issue two. Brad 17:29 Okay, so I'll pay the 47.50 No, I know I'm just teasing Jennifer Jennings 17:34 I think it's open access. Jeff York 17:42 Oh, good. This is the new thing. You can like, pay extra to make your paper open access, to avoid the paywall that you're talking about a lot of times. Maybe your institution will pay for that. Maybe you just pay for it. I know people have paid it out of pocket just because I thought it was the right thing to do. So this paper is also with Zahid Rahman, who and please correct me if I'm mispronouncing any names at the Dillon School of Business at University of Lethbridge, and also with Diana Dempsey, who is at the School of Business at McEwen University in Edmonton, Alberta. Jennifer Jennings 18:12 Yeah. So three, three Alberta Canadians. They're co authoring this one, the Canadian boss. Yeah, watch out. So Brad 18:21 you go out to dinner one night and say, Hey, folks, let's do a paper together. How does this collaboration even begin? Oh, Jennifer Jennings 18:27 and this one, Brad, oh, well, actually, it relates to our prior conversation when we were talking about the doctoral students, right? Really. Okay, so these two were both prior doctoral students of mine, or at least I was, you know, on their committee, or at least their instructor that sort of, yeah. So there Brad 18:41 was a late a relationship, some somewhat prior Jennifer Jennings 18:44 relationship, and not only that, at the time of writing this, both of them were early stage so in their career. So Zahid had just landed a job, and so he's under pressure to get tenure. Diana was a little bit further along, also under pressure to get tenure. So it was one of those situations there which I love. Yeah, I really love, like, you know, in those sort of collaborations, no offense, Jeff York 19:06 gotta get Dev through. Yes. Now that would be rough, like, if you were co authoring with your spouse and love you was going up for tenure. Well, we were in Jennifer Jennings 19:21 that situation. Yeah, sure. Like, Jeff York 19:22 they'll off your papers. It's just fascinating. Like, was Yeah, so was that? Like, I mean, how was that, like, was it because you're at the same school at the time? And, like, right? It's like, even harder. Like, what if you don't get it and you've got to move? And, I mean, that's, yeah, that's that sounds very from Dev Jennings 19:39 UBC to Alberta. Okay, so we could be together. I mean, we were together and, oh, okay, we would go Jeff York 19:45 together, right? Yeah? Oh, awesome. Okay, so you guys were already pretty committed Dev Jennings 19:49 to being together. This is, like the love, yeah. We were pretty committed to being together regardless of which, yeah, regardless Brad 19:57 we're hanging out guys, yeah, yeah, right, Jeff York 19:58 yeah. Well. Course, I mean, but that's just, I just was thinking like that be on top of a stressful situation even that much more maybe, although I guess not. If you're just committed, you're like, well, doesn't really matter, Dev Jennings 20:10 right? Yeah, still, it wasn't easy. Yeah, okay, Jeff York 20:15 if the case is so strong, it's like, let's just go with the paper. Jeff, get back to so these are former doctoral students, former doctoral Jennifer Jennings 20:25 students, and now, yeah, in their first jobs, trying to get tenure. And I think I might have brought the idea to them. I really can't recall, okay, but what we were really intrigued with was really, there is quite a large body of evidence out there, like other research that you might have had to pay a lot of money to read if you were to university story. And what that research was showing was that when you're looking at studies of entrepreneurial self confidence, right, or entrepreneurial self efficacy, ese, okay, for short, what you find is that women tend to exhibit a lower level of ese than men, so they tend to be less confident, on average, in their entrepreneurial ability than men. And this is so the research you're showing in many countries around the world, data, it emerges even really early, like in adolescence. This is showing up adolescents, university students, showing up within older like adults beyond University, even showing up amongst entrepreneurs themselves. Brad 21:31 I see it all the time. Yeah, the first book that I have anybody that I work with Read is called creative confidence by the Kelly brothers, and it's, it's, I don't know if you've heard of this, but before, but it's great, and I think it helps people to recognize the things that you were just mentioning, right? Because a lot of times, people don't even know that that's happening within them. And I think that that's, I think it's a great insight, yeah. Jennifer Jennings 21:54 So we weren't so much upset or whatever with these findings. Of course, these are just the findings. These are the facts. What we were sort of annoyed with, perhaps that's a bit too strong of a word, but I'm going to use it anyway, was how that sort of fact was being portrayed. Okay? And so how that fact tends to get portrayed is that, because women have lower entrepreneurial self confidence than men, therefore women are under confident in their entrepreneurial ability. You see that slight Jeff York 22:31 little shift? Yeah, so one is just like a finding of like there is this difference between gender that we find. The other is a critical assessment that there's something wrong, wrong with women Brad 22:44 under right, but under confident might be a good thing sometimes, right? Jennifer Jennings 22:48 Absolutely. And that's also what annoyed us was, well, first of all, Jeff, what you picked on, like, Hold on here, that's kind of, I think, under knowing what you just said, there is kind of presuming that the men are, first of all, the appropriate yardstick, and that the men have the appropriate level of entrepreneurial competence, that there's nothing wrong with men's ESC right. Hold on. Maybe there is right. Maybe the men, on average, are over covid. So if women are falling short, then perhaps, perhaps women actually have an accurate level, a more accurate level, sure understanding of where their real entrepreneurial ability lies. And actually, it's the men who are overconfident. But there's that tendency always, right, especially in entrepreneurship, because it's such a stereotypically masculine field to think, ah, you know, whatever the guys are doing, that's the appropriate yardstick, right? To measure the women it gets. So there was that that we were kind of a bit perturbed, a bit Sure, but we were also perturbed about what you're saying over there, Brad, is that, well, hold on, maybe actually exhibiting an accurate level of entrepreneurial confidence? Maybe this is Brad 23:56 a good thing, right? Where is the baseline? Where's the accurate baseline? I should say, right, yeah. Jennifer Jennings 23:59 Maybe, you know, if overconfidence, okay, that might be good to give you enough hooch spa, is that the word I can never say that word to get you started, like, you know, okay, I'm gonna go and launch this thing. Okay, yeah, overconfidence might be good for that, but maybe beyond startup, having an accurate level is better for your long term survival. So kind of for both of those reasons. That's why we were a little bit annoyed about the typical portrayal and the associated recommendations that went along with Jeff York 24:34 that. Yeah, because you could sing that that leads to all sorts of bad outcomes and teaching and coaching accelerator program, and you're like saying, Well, we know that women are under confident, quote, unquote, therefore you know they're not being we need to boost them up and make them more confident. That's gonna make people believe in it more. And I'm gonna coach these people to do this and and given we know from research, the preponderance of coaches and people that are running these programs. And investors and professors as well are male, right? They're gonna be like, buying into that probably even more quickly, because it's like, oh yeah, of course, my gender is at the proper level of confidence, right? Jennifer Jennings 25:11 Absolutely. And that is bang on like. So the common, you know, implication after portraying the women as underconfident is exactly that, okay, so then the advice goes out to the practitioners, the accelerators, these sort of things. It goes out to the policymakers. Hey, you know what we've got to fix women. They have this problem. They are deficient, right? They've got this problem that needs fixing, and so we need to put together these programs or these policy initiatives, whatever, right, that are mainly focused on fixing women and bumping up their entrepreneurial confidence. But does that Brad 25:47 really anyone's listening, right? I mean, to me, there's a deafness involved here. Yeah, right, that first of all, over when I think about overconfident entrepreneurs, I think my alarms go off that this is really dangerous, because, first of all, I know how hard it is. I think we all know how hard it is to be successful, and sometimes overconfidence leads to uncoachability, right? Jennifer Jennings 26:10 Absolutely. And that's what one of our when we looked at like the the second part of our sorry was, well, the first was, part was, you know, okay, let's see whether this is really the case, right? Whether the men are overconfident, where the women are actually, accurately confident, rather than under confident. That was kind of the first part. And then the second part of both of our studies was around, okay, so what does it make it? Does it have behavioral implications? Yes, and you hit on one of the first ones that we looked at, which was, okay, these people with these different levels of confidence. Is that associated with their likelihood of asking for information, knowledge about, Hey, how did I do actually on that task? And if they didn't do well, are they then likely to go off? And if there's an opportunity for them to find out how they could have done better, will they actually say yes to that opportunity. And what we found, I think, exactly with, in line with what you're saying, Brad, is the overconfident folks, men or women, right? The overconfident folks, when there was an opportunity there to learn further about how they did and how they could have done better, guess what did they take it? Right? No, no. Right. But the accurate confident, accurately, confident, and the under confident folks, yeah, yes. I want to know more, Brad 27:24 right? Actually, see it all the time in practice where, and this is a generalization, but so I don't mean to overgeneralize, but the men come in and they say, Oh my God, here, this is my venture. I'm going to change the world. I know I can do it. And whatever you have to say, it doesn't freaking matter, because I know I'm going to do it, yes. And the women come in and they think this is a really interesting process. I'm not sure if I fit here, right. I mean, right, this, this acceptance. And then they they actually do the correct research, or understand what problem they're solving, and go through the the process, and they surprise themselves that, oh my god, I'm now a CEO. And they find that really surprising. Once they embrace that, though I see kind of this life changing event happen in their head, and then they're off to the races, yeah, Jennifer Jennings 28:10 and now that they've done the research initially, because perhaps they were a little uncertain, but they've done that research, and so that brings their ability level up. So now they are portraying right, like, the more accurate level of Brad 28:25 crime. But I'm also thinking about VC success with women entrepreneurs. Do you have some data for that? Not Jennifer Jennings 28:32 on this particular city, but like, yeah, I can tell a little bit about kind of the other outcome variables, if you want. So above and beyond, like whether they were likely to, you know, follow through on an opportunity to learn more. So what else did we look at? So we looked at like, we gave them scenarios, like as if they were an entrepreneur, yes, and let's say there was, you're getting feedback on your initial product idea, for example, and things aren't looking so good now, right? You're getting some customer feedback. I welcome to the world, right? Yeah, exactly, right. And so what are Jeff York 29:06 shows these customers don't know what they're talking about. I'm an engineer. I mean, Brad 29:13 10 times a day, right? Oh, my God, all day, every day. Jennifer Jennings 29:19 Yeah, we see it so exciting to hear that like this, academic research is resonating those of you you know who are on the street, right? And so exactly what we found there is that the overconfident, they get the feedback and doesn't matter, they don't pay attention it, they continue to plug more money in, right? So escalation of commitment to what now appears to be not so good idea, right? So escalation of commitment, even prior to Yeah, right, even prior to that, the overconfident ones were more likely to start up their venture in a industry context that was totally unfamiliar to them. Of course, so they didn't have experience in it, and they hadn't done that research that you were talking about Brad. And they were not only doing that, they were going in with a ultra innovative, high risk product. These are those sort of statistically significant and Brad 30:15 the more overconfidence you are, and combine that with very, very bright people, leads to disaster? Yes, I mean, like big disaster. Jennifer Jennings 30:22 Well, I'm really kind of happy to hear that, because, of course, our study couldn't show that we were just dealing with scenarios. What would you do if you were in the situation? And that's certainly a limitation of it. We didn't have the actual behaviors, right? So it's really validating for me, Jeff York 30:36 experiments or survey. Jennifer Jennings 30:39 It was a mix that one one study was a lab experiment at a university, and the other study was in Canada, and then the second study was online surveys with general population the UK and US, and that was more scenario based, yeah, in both cases, though, they were given an actual like Entrepreneurship related task to do first, right, to assess, remember, because we got together talking about, yeah, so in the the lab study, the students were they had to do a task around sorting criteria that could be used to evaluate an entrepreneurial opportunity into, okay, are these actual criteria that you think VCs use versus not, okay, right? And so kind of assessing, really, their entrepreneurial opportunity knowledge, right? Jeff York 31:30 Acumen? Jennifer Jennings 31:30 Yeah, exactly that was in the one the online study in the US and the UK with the general population. That one was a business idea generation task, interesting. So they were given, you know, a technological innovation. And now, hey, go up, come up with as many ideas you can, and then we had coders rate those very cool, yeah. I mean, those are two Jeff York 31:51 very generalizable, empirically generalizable samples, because the way you're doing that much more so than a lot of other methods would well, to me, at least those kinds of things tend to lead to the insights where you're like, okay, yeah, that probably does apply in almost most situations. Thanks, Jennifer Jennings 32:06 Jeff, yeah, we thought it was really important to make sure, like, across the studies, we gave the different types of entrepreneurial task, right? So that somebody could, you know, from the real world, couldn't criticize us, going, Well, really, you only give them one type of task, really, and it really isn't all that relevant a task, right? Brad 32:22 Or it's a lab and it's not real, yeah, exactly. Jeff York 32:24 So what do we think? Like, let's try hominin, like, what is the actionable insight we give, like, to female entrepreneurs from this? I can think of some things, but rather, hear what you think. Jennifer Jennings 32:35 Jen, okay, well, I'm interested in what you think as well, to be honest. Jeff, if you want to start or I and then, and then, maybe I'll correct it. That's perfect. So, Brad 32:50 first of all, this isn't a surprise to me, but it didn't come from my entrepreneurial career. Came through my academic career, watching the writing, yeah, teaching, because, because the the pool of people that I've been able to work with is much larger than anecdotal evidence, right, right? So for me, everything you say makes sense, but also one offs are really hard, right? There's always an outlier out there. So it's, so it's, it's very hard to judge, but I do know that in the venture capital world, even though women are maybe 2% of venture capital finance, their success rate is substantially higher than men. The ones that are actually get the financing. So I think that that's really important. And I think it's a fact that we should be yelling from the rooftops, absolutely. Jennifer Jennings 33:35 And I think what this study is showing to and why we should be yelling that from the rooftops is that our research, which would suggest that that's because those women, they probably got that VC funding for one of the reasons, being that they were, you know, they presented themselves as confident, right? But in the women's case, that's because they deserved to be exactly right, right? Because they can back it up actually, they're actually their entrepreneurial capability, yeah, would suggest that they actually do have what it takes, that that confidence that they're projecting is real. That's right, yeah. So exactly, that's one of the main messages, as you just said, Brad, that we want, would love to, you know, scream from the rooftops, absolutely. Yeah, yes. Cool. Jeff York 34:20 What do you think? Jeff, Oh, the other one I was honing in on is for like, because, yeah, we because, you know, we try to find actual insights, not just for entrepreneurs, but for teachers and, yeah, policy makers, and literally anyone who's not an academic. I think this has great insights for teaching. Because, like, I've been teaching entrepreneurship for like, 13 years now, I guess maybe 14 years. So my tendency, I guess, early on, was when I would see I would try to boost up, because I used to teach for engineers. That was the first entrepreneurship classes I taught. They tend to be less boisterous, quieter people all the time, not to be stereotypical. But you see this if right teach in the engineering school and then you teach in the business school, you will see different types of people in general, not all, but in general, definitely. And you try to, like, bolster them up and get like, Hey, you got to be really good. And I'm thinking like, as I'm saying or thinking this, I'm thinking like, well, if we know the finding is true that women tend to present as less confident, and they probably do in this context, we know that's true from the findings. Was I like honing my tendencies even more towards my female students to try to build them up more? And was I, like, doing that in a way that was actually disrupting what they intuitively were probably doing better, which is doubting their ideas at the at the ideation stage, like we weren't trying to, like, go out and do a pitch and raise funding. We were trying to do ideation and go test and learn, and at that point, I think teachability and learning and the willingness to pivot and to adjust and to actually listen to others is so much more important than confidence, exactly. And Jennifer Jennings 35:51 I guess, yeah, and I love it, Jeff, like the takeaway you have there, and the only tweak so I'm not going to correct you, I'm just going to tweak it a little bit for the PBA. Brad 36:00 Correct them all you want. I'll sit here all day and listen Jennifer Jennings 36:04 the little tweak I would have there would just be to take away the gender aspect. Because, you know, one of the other important implications here, right, is so if you were trying to, like, rah, rah, right, like, elevate all of your students, right kind of confidence level, but if you did so to a level where they collectively became overconfident, whether they were men or women, now you've potentially created that overconfidence problem, which, again, the second part of our study suggests can create problems down the road, right? And so, yeah, so like that just really warms my heart that both of these gateways is like, Yes, this is exactly what we would we were hoping would come out of this. But if Brad 36:49 you close your eyes and eliminate gender and you don't know who is presenting, it's all about show me the data, right? It comes down to whoever can show me the data. Show me that you have people that actually care about whatever problem you're being solved is being solved. And once you have someone confidence or no confidence, it still comes down to, is this problem relevant, and do people care about it being solved? And I think that if you have enough people working whatever their confidence, multi confident levels, right, all the this universe of confidence that, once they see that the data trumps all that's leveling as well. Jennifer Jennings 37:27 Nice. Jeff York 37:28 Anything else you want to talk about with the paper, generally, anything else we should take away from it? Jennifer Jennings 37:32 Well, just one, one little takeaway. And this was from a practitioner, so I gave it to someone, and she had her her partner read it, and he said, Oh, I think I get the gist of this study. And he goes, I think it's saying this that women aren't deficient with respect to entrepreneurship. They just aren't delusional. Yeah, nice, nice alliteration there. Using that one. I Jeff York 37:58 want to talk about devs paper too, but I think we're gonna split this into two episodes. What do you think? Brad, perfect. All right, cool. So once again, that was Jen Jennings, sorry. Jennifer Jennings, I just know you as Jen. The paper is challenging what we think we know, theory and evidence for questioning common beliefs about the gender gap and entrepreneurial confidence that entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, also known as etmp. You can pick it up down at your local 711 or on Google Scholar, because it's open access which a Brad 38:22 title, once again, is there like a requirement that your titles have 20 words, yes, Jeff York 38:29 and it must have a colon Dev Jennings 38:32 hit as many keywords. This Jeff York 38:35 is insane colon, long explanation that no one can write, yeah. And we'll be back to see if Dev Jennings title is similar to that, Faculty Director at the doing surfer entrepreneurship leads School of Business. Brad 38:50 I am Brad Warner and Jeff. This was a great episode. It was great. Thank you, yes. Jeff York 38:53 Thank you, and a quick shout out to our sponsors. JD, joyrides, if you want an E bike tour of murals here in Boulder, Colorado. Get on down there. Jdsjoyrides.com, and our other sponsored liquid mechanics over in lovely Lafayette, Colorado. Liquidmechanics, brewing.com, Amazing craft pier is brought to you in a beautiful setting and a lovely Taproom. Go check them out. We'll see you in just a few minutes. Or next time Cheers. Dona L 39:19 This episode of creative distillation was recorded on the front porch of the Chautauqua mission house at the reversing the arrow conference held in Boulder in June 2024 Jen's paper challenging what we think we know theory and evidence for questioning common beliefs about the gender gap in entrepreneurial confidence was published in June 2022, in entrepreneurship theory and practice. Check the show notes for a link and learn more about Jennifer Jennings on her faculty page at the University of Alberta website. You. We'd love to hear your feedback and ideas. Email us at cdpodcast@colorado.edu and please be sure to Subscribe to Creative distillation wherever you get your podcasts. The creative distillation podcast is made possible by the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado, Boulder's Leeds School of Business. For more information, please visit deming.colorado.edu. That's D, E, M, I, N, G, and click the creative distillation link. Creative distillation is produced by Joel Davis at analog digital arts. Our theme music is whiskey before breakfast, performed by your humble host, Brad and Jeff. Thanks for listening. We'll see you back here next week for the next round of creative distillation. You Transcribed by