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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, Dona L 0:21 this time on creative distillation. We gather at Jeff's ranch where he and Brad speak with Matthew Grimes, Professor of Entrepreneurship and sustainable futures, and co director of the Cambridge judge Entrepreneurship Center at Cambridge University's judge School of Business. Matthew Matthew is in Boulder as co host of gurk, the Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Conference held at ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ Boulder earlier this summer, and at which we recorded several of this season's episodes. He joined our host a Sibson D and D branded bourbon as well as a couple of rather exotic sour beers selected by Jeff, and discuss how and whether to appreciate sour beer and marvel at the ever expanding universe of beer weirdness. They also make time to get into a recent paper, co authored by Matthew, which addresses the perils of hype to entrepreneurship and proposes an emergent theory of heightened management. Enjoy and cheers. Jeff York 1:24 Welcome to Creative distillation, where we distill entrepreneurship Research and Action Plan sites. I am your co host, Jeff York, Faculty Director at the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado. Boulder, joined by my co host Brad Brad 1:38 Werner and Jeff, it is great to see you, and we work together at the Deming center. And now, though it's summertime, Jeff York 1:45 it is summertime. We are in the midst of enjoying the summer of academic relaxation, Brad 1:52 but we also have some really cool events coming up at Deming. We Jeff York 1:54 do have, we do? Yeah? We do okay. Brad 1:58 We have two conferences. Yes, Jeff York 1:59 yes, yes. We have two conferences, and we're gonna talk to one of the guests of those conferences. But first, let's just catch up real quick. Where did you arrive here to Well, first of all, where are we? Brad 2:10 So we are actually, for all you young entrepreneurs out there, do not believe that there is no money in academia. We are actually recording at the Jeff York ranch in the mountains of beautiful Boulder, Colorado, actually, just west of Boulder. And I'm looking at mountains cattle. I'm looking at your cattle herd, Jeff, I can see the town in the distance. And I would say this is a really beautiful place. Academia does pay. Jeff York 2:36 I don't know about that, but thank you very much. It's awesome to have you guys here. We just enjoyed a lovely dinner outdoors and our ketchup. And Brad, you just arrived this morning, last night, last night from Brad 2:47 So I flew in from the south of France to talk to you for a week, because we're going to do some really cool things. Jeff York 2:52 Yeah, absolutely. And I just got back from Hawaii. So you know, it's a tough life. We're having a terrible summer Hawaii. Yeah, it's rough. But anyway, I'm here at home for a while, so it's nice. It's nice to be here. Brad 3:05 The ranch is great. Jeff York 3:07 We're also joined by my dog, Ranger, rangers here. Ranger, if you hear a thumping noise, that's his tail hitting things, because he's loves Brad. And we are also joined by our guest. We're very excited to have a professor of entrepreneurship and sustainable futures, as well as the co director of the Cambridge judge, entrepreneurship sir, from the University of Cambridge. Or is it Cambridge University? I always get that wrong. Either one will actually work. Well, okay, I'm right then, University of Cambridge. Excellent. Nice. Judge, cool business professor. Matthew Grimes, thanks for joining us. Man, great to have Brad 3:38 you. Yeah, it's great to have you here. And by the way, Matthew as a repeat guest? Jeff York 3:42 Jeff, yes, we have very few repeat guests. We're actually we're getting creative distillation swag. Yes, the rumor is it's been ordered. So next time you come on, Matthew, Not this time, this time you get nothing. I did get dinner. You did get dinner. You get the dinner, and you'll get to sample some fine things here, but next time, we may have schwag. Matthew Grimes 4:03 Schwag, yeah, something that you count me in one Brad 4:08 of your Harry Potter dinners, so Jeff York 4:09 you'll take any international flight from wherever you are. Yeah, I never got to do the Harry Potter dinner. I was so bombed like I did not get to sit at the high table and look down upon the students of my academic robes. I really want to do that. You would have loved it. I would have loved that. That'd be great, you know, anything where I can, like, you know, wear academic robes and look down on people. Yeah. Well, okay, so, so we're gonna sample some beers. Matthew has expressed a preference for sour ale. So when we're doing these, well, first of all, Cambridge is, if you've if you've missed our previous episode where we've talked about the Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Conference, as we like to call it, gurk, Matthew Grimes 4:50 just a great Jeff York 4:52 acronym that, you know. What else be trying to steal our acronym, gurk? Are you going to the gurk? You know? I mean, it sounds good, right? For sure, it apparently works as lots of people, we had to turn people away from this. Yes. So Matthew is the representative from Cambridge University, and is here in town as our co host, along with the Darden School at the University of Virginia. And you might have this episode where we spoke with him and and my clinics a little bit about the history of the conference. If you hadn't just rewind, go find that one. It'll say the history of the gurk, and you'll know you're in the right place. So Matthew's here. We're going to talk about, we talked about the conference of the other episode, but we want to talk to him about his research, because we thought his research was pretty interesting, and before the podcast, we did sample this. So first of all, Brad's microphone is on a book that he's really interesting Brad 5:40 heroes fest. It's one of my favorites. Here is feast. Well, that's Matthew Grimes 5:46 the other one. Yeah, the Brad 5:47 official dungeon and Dragon cookbook, yes, oh my god. And by the way, the cover art is just Jeff York 5:53 incredible. Nope. We sampled a DND themed whiskey from questions distillery. Queston is founded by the actor I'm probably gonna mispronounce his name, also Matthew Lillard. Lillard, I'm sorry. Lillard played shaggy in Scooby Doo. 2002 you're a big fan of the Scooby Doo. Brad 6:16 I've never seen the Scooby Doo. Matthew Grimes 6:17 Oh, the trilogy. Jeff York 6:20 Yeah. Anyway, so I don't know anything about Matthew. He's a d&d enthusiast, and he's created this company that does bourbons based on d&d classes. So you looked at the bottle and what were your thoughts? Okay, so Brad 6:35 the first time, when you showed me the bottle, Jeff, I actually thought it was a joke. Matthew Grimes 6:39 Bourbon. I'm like, Brad 6:40 How would bourbon for Dungeons and Dragons? Jeff York 6:44 Who would buy it? Yeah. Well, Brad 6:45 I know, I know the one person that would buy it, but after tasting it, it was actually very good. It's actually a pretty good price. So teasing aside the bourbon is Yeah, and I'm shocked to even say that, yeah. So Jeff York 6:58 we'll have a link. Go check out questions if you're into DND or just bourbon. Brad 7:02 So is D and D now a drinking game, or has it always been? Jeff York 7:05 I kind of think it always has. Well, I called my campaign dungeons and flagons so, you know. So I was thinking, because we're gonna be drinking a sour Ale, Brad might like to have some other beer on hand as well. You're a good man, Jeff, and we won't be able to taste it after the salary, so we've already applied him with quests and Rogue. Now we're gonna have true Brewing Company scorn. Scorn is a pale ale to keep with our d&d theme. This Brad 7:35 is truly incredible. I mean, talk about a market this d&d world. So true Jeff York 7:39 brewing is like, we're definitely gonna get down there. If anybody from true brewing hears this, I love you. I love your brewery. Where are they? We're coming down there. They're in Denver. We're definitely coming down there. I don't know where they distribute to, but it's one of the best breweries in Colorado, in my opinion. And what's really cool about true brewing is they are a metal themed brewery, like as in metal music. So all their, all their branding and labeling is like weird names, like, I've also got apparition Pale Ale, but this is scorn, and it has a cracked skull with like beer poured on it. Is how I interpret it. I don't know if that's what they intended on a black label. And I first found them on Halloween one year. Of course, I was going to a party, and they were out of pumpkin beer because it sells out before Halloween, because everyone loves it so much. So I was like, oh my god, what am I gonna do? They sold out a pumpkin beer. I was faced with this tragic situation. So then I saw a beer that had a Jason from, like, Friday the 13th, like character out with a chainsaw. There you go. And regularly bought it, and I've been in love with true brewing ever since. It's a fantastic brewery. Yeah, we need to go down there. you go. Cheers, try it. Brad 8:50 Cheers, cheers, cheers, sir. See you guys. Joel, happy summer. To everyone. Jeff York 8:55 Happy Summer. They make so many beers, especially these kind of sours and lagers. But this is just a pale ale they make that I find really, really good. So this Brad 9:06 brought me back to my Chicago days. It reminds me of Gumball HUD. Really had Gumball head. Yeah, Jeff York 9:10 it's an IPA though. Yeah, it's Brad 9:11 just, for some reason, it's what I thought of when I Jeff York 9:14 come I haven't had in a while. That's three Floyds, right? Yes, we were talking about that with some Chicagoan. Yeah, I don't know. So to me, it's got, like, a really, like, nice biscuity malt flavor, kind of a toasty malt flavor going on in the background, not a lot of hop heaviness, just a really good easy drinking beer, perfect accompaniment to questions rogue. I mean, just look at them together. Does that? Joel, you knew that that'd be a good photo. There's your photo for the podcast. These are fine beverages. Zoom in and I endorse these beverages. I know. What else I endorse, bread. What I endorse, bicycle tours of Boulder. Me too, but I don't know. Where could I get a bicycle tour of Boulder, and particularly if I was interested in seeing the beautiful murals here Brad 9:58 in town. Is there such a offering? I don't know, Joel, is there such an offering? As Joel Davis 10:02 a matter of fact, there is an offering. It's called JD joyrides. Oh my god. And we'll show you around boulder. We'll show you a good time on two wheels. And Brad 10:12 where can we find information for about JDS joyrides, Joel Davis 10:15 jdsjoyrides.com JDS joyrides.com Jeff York 10:18 Fantastic. It's awesome. Our very down, I'd love to ride with you. Our very first sponsor. Very excited to have JDS Joy rides, official sponsor of creative distillation. Had to remember the name of the podcast. I'm really good at marketing. I can't remember the name on a Brad 10:36 podcast. So the amazing thing, though, we need to take a moment here before we bring Matthew in is to talk about 60 plus episodes. Jeff, well, I mean, right? I mean, to me, Jeff York 10:46 what do you think about 60 plus episodes? Oh, I mean, I just, I think it's here for one year, 222, Matthew Grimes 10:52 now, yeah, you know, part of the game is survival, right? And Brad 10:57 I'm looking at through our list for the week, though, and Matthew's gonna be repeat guests again. Oh, he's gonna Jeff York 11:02 be a three fur Yeah. So Brad 11:04 we Jeff York 11:05 also have another official sponsor. I don't know if you knew this, Brad, no, but liquid mechanics brewing, located over there, just over the hill from Boulder. Lafayette is the town. It's a great brewery, by the way, there's a fantastic brewery. You can check them out at liquidmechanics brewing.com they have agreed to be our other official sponsor. Seriously, yes, they have. It's very exciting. Cheers. I love that. And you probably are hearing even before this episode, you might have heard the actual Brewer and founder leading a beer tasting. If you want to rewind in time and find that there's episode with Professor Tony Kong, and that one took place at liquid mechanics. We met Devin, the who is, of course, a buff. Brad 11:46 Yes, he is, I love about liquid mechanics is in on this? Yes, we're very excited. It really is a great brewery. It Jeff York 11:52 is a great brewery. Okay, now to get down to business, Matthew, I have here for you a Colorado sour beer made by what I think of as the most adventurous brewery in Colorado. Some may disagree with me, but I don't think they will another place. We have not done an episode that I very much want to, and Brad probably will not want to after we taste this beer. But they make all kinds of beer. They make the wildest variety of beer of any brewery. I think of what we have here is a weld works Brewing Company over in Weld County, Colorado, Okay, Grandma Jay's strawberry rhubarb pie sour ale. Oh, my God. And this is sour ale. Matthew Grimes 12:32 I'm reading the can sour beer. Sour beers are named very, very poorly Jeff York 12:36 with strawberry and rhubarb puree, vanilla bean graham cracker and milk sugar. It says, keep cold drink. Now, dialed in beer. Let me give you a small sample, because this is thank you very good beer. Brad 12:50 Okay, I appreciate that. Though, this one's good, though the first one was really good. Oh, yeah, oh, I Jeff York 12:54 gave you that. Hold on to that. Brad 12:55 I feel like this is hazing. It's not, oh, this Jeff York 13:00 is Matthew's choice. Brad 13:01 This is Matthews. So Matthew, what is your before we even taste this, what is you? Tell us about your story with soccer. Jeff York 13:07 We got we I just want you to smell this sucker before it phase. Brad 13:11 Oh, my God. Matthew Grimes 13:13 Wow, the strawberry shortcake. Jeff York 13:15 Yeah, strawberry rhubarb pot. Wow, Brad 13:18 somebody's attic. Matthew Grimes 13:21 This is the official beer of gurk. Jeff York 13:27 Really well, Grandma J's strawberry Rupa pies, the official beer of gurk. Matthew Grimes 13:33 So are we gonna taste this now? Brad 13:35 Yes, we'll talk about Matthew Grimes 13:39 Whoa. Okay, okay, that's interesting. Jeff York 13:42 I mean, so here's the thing, like, I know, oh my God. What's your impression? Is this a Do you really Brad 13:53 like this? Yeah, I mean, like you would. I don't even know an occasion where I would open this. I can't even imagine something, Jeff York 14:04 this official beer of Kirk. So that's Brad's reaction. I don't even know an occasion where I would ever open this. Oh, my God. Quote, you put down the can. Brad 14:16 And this is a good one, right? Jeff York 14:16 I don't know. What do you think, Matthew? I Matthew Grimes 14:18 mean, this is probably one of the more adventurous sour beers I've tasted. He did ask. I went big in general. I would say that sour beers are one of the more adventurous beers, just generally, you know. And this one is particularly so. Brad 14:35 So how did you get into them, though? Matthew Grimes 14:38 I mean, the novelty factor is a big factor, which actually ties into the topic we'll discuss later on. But so there is, there's a, you know, there's a novelty to it. And I think that this was toward the end of my Nashville day. So I was, like, I was winding down my PhD in Nashville, and they were just starting to come out with these sour beers. And so there's a. Bit of nostalgia with it. You know, a lot of people have talked about how I see I actually probably have some questions about sour beer. Maybe Jeff, you can answer these. But like I've been told that this is a more healthy beer. Is that? Is that not true? Yeah, because if you taste this, Brad 15:17 you only drink one. Jeff York 15:22 I don't think there's any truth. No, in fact, like, you know, at least the research I've Matthew Grimes 15:27 read, the fermentation, any, nothing, nothing. Well. I Jeff York 15:30 mean, what people are saying, like the lactobacillus, like with it's the Matthew Grimes 15:34 kombucha of beers, almost, sort of. I mean, there's, do you like kombucha? No, see, so there you go. Yeah, it has a similar kind of, yeah, like acidity and Yeah, somebody Jeff York 15:46 gave this to you and told you it was kombucha. You probably believe it, right? I mean, I guess I really like this. I think it's amazing. I mean, it tastes like strawberry pie, Brad 15:56 Grandma J's strawberry. I Matthew Grimes 15:58 mean, the after the aftertaste is, it was a bit weird at first, but it's a, it's actually a, it's actually pretty good. Well, the Jeff York 16:03 first sip of it like every Okay, here's the thing with sour beer too. If you're like Brad and you take one sip, you will never like them, because you'll take that one sip, and what happens is your taste buds get hit with all the lactobacillus, which is what most of the sours derived from. And it just like, hurts. It's like painful. It's much like drinking, like, you know, a double IPA, like, you know, your first sip of like, it's just hops and it like, actually, will burn your throat a little bit. And the same thing with sours, like, you can't even taste them in the first sip. Usually it just is, like an overflow sour. But as you taste a few, take a few more sips. Come on, try What Matthew Grimes 16:37 does what does this say about my social identity that this is the beer like, like, if, if I had a choice of beers, I'll always choose sour beer. Like, what does that? What does it say about that? You Jeff York 16:50 want people to think that you are a bold, adventurous outlier type? Matthew Grimes 16:56 Okay, I Jeff York 16:56 would say, I would say Brad 16:58 it's just that you're perfect for this podcast. Jeff York 17:02 I that's how I would interpret as a social so, like, Well, I mean, it depends, like, your social identity, it would be like, so what group are you trying to be? Yeah, Matthew Grimes 17:10 exactly. Like, what Jeff York 17:11 is it I sort of misinterpret. I Matthew Grimes 17:13 was thinking, well, because, I Jeff York 17:14 mean, I would say how you would interpret a social norm around, I wasn't thinking about social identity. So social identity, I mean, what people Matthew Grimes 17:20 would you be? Your choice says a lot about a lot about a person's identity, social identity, right? When you say, so, I guess Jeff York 17:27 I don't know. What do you think it says? Matthew Grimes 17:29 I don't I don't know what the demographic is that. So, okay, so Jeff York 17:32 to be Matthew Grimes 17:33 like, who's buying these? Brad 17:35 Oh, well, I would just say some idiot. That's all I would need to know about the person? All right, I've had five steps like to get through that Jeff York 17:45 tasting different. Brad 17:46 Oh no, it actually does mellow out, right? But sourness at the beginning, after a few tastes, that goes away. It chills out. But, man, this Jeff York 17:54 is so here, what's here's what's crazy about this beer to me, is it like you taste the sourness? Yes, okay, fun. It's not really that sour. I mean, like a lamb beak from, like, from Brussels, correct, a real one is, like, really. I mean, that's just thing, nothing there but the sour, like smack, and maybe a little horse blanket flavor to go with it. That's a flavor descriptor for that. But, um, all right, so to balance this discussion a little this is actually, I mean, it's not a typical sour beer at all. Like I said, this must be adventurous brewery I know of, maybe anywhere, but certainly in Colorado. I'm sure there's more adventurous breweries in Belgium and other places. But, um, what's crazy about this beer is the layers of flavor they got in it. That's what's nuts. It's like, just as an achievement of brewing, it's kind of insane. So you got sour, right? Okay, yes. But then you do taste, I taste strawberry. I definitely get a hint of the rhubarb. Oh yeah. Then I taste vanilla, and then the graham cracker kind of comes through at the end. I mean, I taste all those things now as a power suggestion of me reading the can, maybe, I don't know, but I can pick up all those flavors and tasting this, and it's kind of an amazing I agree. I agree. Brad 19:00 I agree that the flavors are there. The problem is, is it doesn't go away. It just it's still in my mouth from a SIP maybe two minutes ago. Those flavors last, Jeff York 19:10 yeah, no, it really lingers. Yeah, that's the problem. It's kind of amazing. Brad 19:14 I mean, I'm sure, as a brewing, a brewing challenge, awesome for a customer, no way. Jeff York 19:20 I don't know. They're pretty damn successful. I'm Brad 19:22 sure they are just, I'm Jeff York 19:23 not entirely this sells for 20 bucks a four pack, probably. Yeah. I mean, now as though that wasn't enough. Brad 19:32 Now, Matthew, would you order this in a if you knew this was coming? Would you order this? Matthew Grimes 19:36 Yeah, yeah. I would. Jeff York 19:38 I think about sour beer. You have to develop a taste for it. You're probably going to pick it up and drink your first one and react like Brad, but if you persist, yeah, it's Matthew Grimes 19:49 like coffee, yeah. Do you like coffee? Brad 19:52 Yeah? So an IPA is a gateway beer to sour, Jeff York 19:56 huh? Maybe, maybe because IPA certainly. It tastes very different. No, like a lager, right, right? I would say just drinking craft lagers is, like, kind of a gateway, like, oh, wow, these people made a German pillsner Instead of drinking a Miller. I mean, Brad 20:11 there's a difference, for sure. Jeff York 20:12 Yeah, I don't know. Have gotten so weird now, like, because there's so many craft breweries and it's just like everybody, I don't know it's, beer is like a ever expanding universe. Yeah, it is. Matthew Grimes 20:25 I mean, the combinations I you know, in general, I would say that the have now having lived in the UK for six years and coming back to the US, like it's always a place where people are very willing to experiment. It's in a way that other cultures just don't have that kind of same experimentation urge. Jeff York 20:43 Who couldn't have given me a bare segue into our next beer. Also a world works creation. I just happen to have two world works sours. Matthew say one sours. I said I got two sours. We're next trying. Bam, bam, Rubble. Rubble, bam, bam, Rubble. Rubble says sour ale. And then if you look over in the corner, it says with fruity rice cereal, strawberry, vanilla, marshmallow and milk sugar. I'm Brad 21:10 gonna get ready for that. Jeff York 21:16 So I'd say you need to cleanse your palate. But not really. Brad 21:20 That's amazing to me, though, actually, as well, well, county is a very conservative County. It is that base this type of brewery there. To me, I wonder how they pulled that Jeff York 21:29 off. I really want to go interview them and find out amazingly successful. I mean, they they're really known for their they make an IPA called juicy bits. So if you're looking for a weldworks beer. Look for something called juicy bits. They mostly are known for those. These are kind of, we're definitely delving into the deep cuts of weldworks. Here we go with, bam, bam, Rubble. Rubble, cheers, and Matthew Grimes 21:51 bam, bam, bam, cheers, rubber. Rubble, cheers, Jeff York 21:55 gas smell at first. Because, Matthew Grimes 21:58 wow, okay. Oh Jeff York 21:59 okay. Yeah. That's, I mean, you guys, obviously, oh Matthew Grimes 22:02 yeah, the fruity, fruity bubbles, yeah, Fruity Pebbles. Come on, come on. That's, that's crazy genius. Yeah, Brad 22:08 I'm just still thinking about it. Matthew Grimes 22:12 Yes, that's good. What's interesting with, with both of these beers is the is the aftertaste, Jeff York 22:21 speak, I Brad 22:22 can't speak. It's interesting to watch me or, yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm just, I'm still thinking about the customer profile. Who drinks this. Matthew Grimes 22:34 Yeah, I'm trying to figure it out. Jeff York 22:37 I bought it. I did not buy these for the podcast. Brad 22:43 I don't even know how to explain this, but there's a taste in my mouth so bad, and I want it. I'm trying. I'm drinking water and the IPA, and it still doesn't go away. Whiskey, Jeff York 22:54 we've got, they've got more, more. This Brad 22:57 beer is so good, it takes whiskey. You need a whiskey Chaser to get rid of it. So this beer is nuts. Yeah, it's nuts. Bet I agree. I Jeff York 23:07 actually don't like it as much as I like the grandma Jay's strawberry rhubarb pie, but I do think it's really interesting. The most interesting thing going on in this is the marshmallow. Brad 23:18 Okay, so that's I think I have a problem with that right there. I don't want my beer to taste like marshmallows, really. I know if somebody can figure out how to do that, I still don't care. It's kind of like a solution looking for a problem, right? That we're going to make this. Jeff York 23:33 But I actually was wondering about that a little bit with this beer. I'm really, I really want to ask them, like, did they just make something that they thought tasted like fruity pebbles, or were they, I think, I don't think so. I think they were aiming to make something that tastes like, yeah, yeah. I Matthew Grimes 23:48 mean, they had to think, I think Jeff York 23:49 so. How else do you How else do you decide to make this like? I mean, you must have, there's very strong intent here. I Matthew Grimes 23:56 mean, it could be a lot of experimentation, or there might be, you know, direct intention, Brad 24:02 they're experimenting. This is, they're an amazing brewery. We Jeff York 24:05 definitely got it. Okay. So what do you think of their nephew? Of bam, bam, Rubble, Rumble. Matthew Grimes 24:11 Yeah, I'm a fan. I'd order it again. Jeff York 24:13 Do you like it? Or, or the strawberry rhubarb pie? Matthew Grimes 24:16 I think one of the challenges is that, with the rhubarb, yeah, that was the first taste I had. So it was coming off of, like, you know, drinking glasses of water all of a sudden. It's like, you the intensity was, was potent, right punch in the face, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas, whereas this one had the benefit of, like, actually having a sour before it, but I, but I will say, you know the bam, bam, Rubble, Rubble, Rubble, Bubble, bubble, Rubble, Jeff York 24:45 bam, bam, Rubble, Rubble, bam, with two b's. Anyway, if you're out there, for some reason, you have an association with what works. Get in touch. We want to come visit you not quite meant that. Same goes for true brewing and. And if I doubt Matthew Lillard is going to want to talk to us, since I butchered his name and we haven't seen his movies, Matthew Grimes 25:05 but let's talk more about Matthew. Jeff York 25:08 We like his whiskey. We like his whiskey. Oh, so anyway, well, we're going to talk about paper with Matthew here, because this actually is pretty a little pertinent to the conversation we've been having about sour beer. I think so. This appeared back in 22 not that long ago, while back in the academy Management Journal volume 65 number three, living up to the hype, Brad 25:31 that's the first part. We should just stop there, right? Jeff York 25:37 Okay, keep going. All right. How new ventures manage the resource and liability of future oriented visions within the nascent market of impact investing. Matthew, Brad 25:47 how'd you come up with that one? Well, I Matthew Grimes 25:50 went down to the local, local brewery. Brad 25:54 There we go. There's our connection. Jeff York 25:56 So this paper, the lead author is actually Daniel Logue, who's at the University of New South Wales with Matthew Grimes. So So tell us about the paper, Matthew, what were you guys up to in this? Matthew Grimes 26:06 So Danielle and I were actually co students together during our master's work at Oxford, and so really, yeah, Jeff York 26:14 knew each other as master went off and did PhDs, yeah? Matthew Grimes 26:18 So she stayed in Oxford and continued on, I went back to the states and pursued my PhD at Vanderbilt and and then several years later, she had approached me about this really interesting data set that she had where she was looking at kind of impact investing for several years. And one of the recent kind of innovations within the context of the impact investing market was this idea of social stock exchanges, the idea that you could, you could create these organization, you know, basically a stock market that would funnel capital towards ventures with with an impact, impact focus. You know, this was coming out of really early kinds of organizing that was happening around impact investing in the late 2000s and at like, one of the launch events, there were three different founders in different areas of the of the world that all founded these social stock exchanges at the same time, one in Singapore, one in London and one in Toronto. And so being able to actually look at these organizations that were being launched at really the same time, with the same business model in mind, and trying to take advantage of all of this cultural momentum that was building these expectations and excitement and attention that were being drawn towards the whole impact investing space, and these organizations are trying to take advantage of that growing hype to basically try to change the way that we finance new ventures, but different impacts, Brad 27:48 right? Each, each venture was kind of focused on a different in a different universe. Matthew Grimes 27:53 Yeah. So these, these were very they were independent organizations with against very similar business models operating in kinds of, I mean, yes, culturally speaking, I mean, Singapore is different from London. There's different from Toronto. But at the same time, we're talking about, you know, highly financialized countries where, you know, relatively speaking, these are all, you know, similar kinds of, similar kind of development level economy, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So thinking about what, what you know, how did these organizations go about this process in similar or different ways? How were they taking advantage of the hype, but also, how were they managing all of the growing expectations that were that was essentially building around them? And so there's this tension that motivates the paper, between this idea that hype, on the one hand, is this really interesting short term cultural resource, right? It provides opportunities for ventures to mobilize all kinds of additional resources around what they're doing, and yet, at the same time, it also creates this long term relational liability, because there's growing expectations of, well, you need to deliver on, on all of this promise that you've, you've, you've guaranteed. So there's kind of temporal compression there that happens where it's like, show me the money and then, and then, in addition, there's kind of categorical compression where, in other words, like, there's a there's a compression in terms of your ability to pivot, right? So there's growing expectations that say you need to kind of stay the course, and you need to show results. And so that the elevated expectations around these ventures. So there's this real tension, like, how do you do you embrace the hype around you as a new venture, or do you manage expectations in a way so you don't, you don't actually engage the hype directly, you know, to avoid a situation where there's, you know, essentially unmet expectations, Brad 29:55 right? I mean, if you over promise, it's dangerous exactly Jeff York 29:57 just as just looking. Like. So when we talk about hype, yeah, you know, I think it's interesting that you're defining that as like a academic construct, because it's not something we normally think of. And you guys say hype is a collective vision and a promise of a possible future around which attention, excitement and expectations increase over time. Isn't there like, a bubble though, I'm sure it's part. I mean, like, you know, I'm just thinking, like, we all teach entrepreneurship, right? Yeah, and we all got, how many of the bitchers in the last year did you see had something to do with AI? Yeah, yeah. Like, it's just, Brad 30:34 I want to get short AI so badly. Jeff York 30:37 Yeah, right, right? I mean, but we, we, I think unlike Well, I mean, most people experience hype. They read the paper, they see about this new thing that's coming out or whatever. But I think we experience it as as entrepreneurship professors, on a much more visceral level, because our job is to guide students in the process of starting to think about ventures. And we see these waves of hype, at least, I think we do is that what you're talking about here, like, Matthew Grimes 31:01 well, so that, I mean, I think there's different ways that we talk about hype, like, one is, one is? We talk about it oftentimes as a form of deception, right? That there that essentially, is this real or is this mere hype, right? He said, Don't believe the hype, right? Don't believe the hype, right? So there's an assumption that, essentially, hype is either over promises or some some form of deception. So that's one way that we talk about it. Another way that we talk about it is this idea of hype cycles. Yeah, so, so I, prior to academia, I spent time in the world of consulting, working a lot of with Chief Information Officers for this company called CEB was a consulting firm that did a lot of research. It was ultimately acquired by a company called Gardner, which actually produces the hype Hype Cycle model. So that, you know, I was looking at these hype cycle models a lot in my consulting experience, and essentially, what they suggest is that there's this kind of trigger point where, you know, you can think about it as kind of the launch of the public beta of chatgpt, or the public release of chatgpt in what, late November of 2022 right? There's a trigger event that, ultimately, you know, contributes to an expansion of resources and attention that so it's that upward side of the slope there. At some point in time, there's so many suppliers in the markets as their supplier proliferation, and the promises are so great, because everyone's competing for attention, that ultimately, you know, there's no way that those promises can deliver on the expectations, and at that point in time, the sort of media attention actually flips. So there's sustained attention, but it's actually negative and criticizing it, where you see kind of the collapse of the market. So there's a lot of consolidation around suppliers that leads to this kind of trough of disillusionment, where ultimately, you know, this is actually where a lot of the hard work of building out second order use cases actually starts to take place, and then that leads to some kind of plateau, ultimately. And so this is the the kind of an evolutionary diffusion model of hype, right? So hype is a cycle, but there's another interesting kind of phrase that we use sometimes in talking about hype, and it's, it's the title of the paper, this idea of living up to the hype, right? How do you actually deliver on these grand promises? And I think that that's, that's at the heart of what we were trying to do with this particular paper, is to say, Okay, well, if we think about hype as deception that doesn't really capture all of the nuance and dynamics of what's going on, because it's not. You can only know whether hype is an over promised post hoc after the fact, like you can. You can look back and say.com, bubble. So now you could say, oh, well, that that's that was just hype, right? Jeff York 33:58 But then Amazon, I would argue, as right, there were well, well beyond what gonna be a bookstore in that swell guys. And we were like, swell, and it was, and now it's so much more than that, frighteningly so. But like, you know, it's interesting, some people actually over deliver, like, Matthew Grimes 34:19 right, precisely. And so this is the idea that that there's we might associate the idea of hype with fads or market bubbles, that assumes that there's always going to be a collapse. And actually, social scientists have have looked at the actual data around the diffusion of innovation, and those patterns do not necessarily map to the hype cycle model that has been become popularized by Gartner. Now I think it's a useful heuristic, like when I teach exec ed or teach MBA students on the topic of hype I'll usually show them this model, because I think again, it's a useful heuristic for understanding this is generally how perhaps. Perhaps, on average, technologies tend to evolve, but just because that may be the mean doesn't mean that everything's going to follow that sort of pattern. And so I think you're, I think what's quite interesting, and what's usually interesting with qualitative research, is that you can explore the outlier so you can see how have people actually lived up to the hype? And this is why we, you know, we were really interested in doing running the comparison here, because it was like one organization completely collapsed. Sadly enough, that was the London social Stock Exchange. Another sort of pivoted out, you know, away from the kind of grand vision of the social Stock Exchange to something where they were more focused on something they could, like, tangibly deliver, which was like impact bonds. And there was just a lot, there was already a lot of conversation around this, so it was just easier for them to deliver on simplified. Yeah, exactly. So it kind of pivoted to something that was, it was simpler. And then, you know, actually, the Toronto exchange was very thoughtful about its approach in how it engaged, engaged with hype, and how it essentially built relationships around the kind of platform ecosystem that it was creating, and so it was generating social proof. Because again, like one of the things that's hard about living up to the hype is that you've got these really long term visions of what you're trying to achieve. But the question is, how can you actually deliver on these really long term results in the near term? Well, you can't, and so traction. So how do you show traction? We show it through social proof. You don't have material proof, but you can, you can deliver social proof. Measuring impact, though, is still difficult, correct, totally. But you have to essentially build the kind of network and ecosystem and like and support that's going to finance your runways. I mean, this isn't at one point in time. The title of this paper was about it included the term entrepreneurial runways. The reviewers ultimately stripped it out because for us, like that was, that was what was happening. Was this, you know, the challenge of managing the cash flow as you were under delivering on these really grand promises. Brad 37:11 That's really interesting. And so I'm thinking about the hype. I'm thinking about the way that you explain it. Though the timelines had to be explained properly, too, right? So the timeline at the early stage, obviously, you're never going to do everything right, but to at least set expectations for, Hey, folks, this isn't a two year play. This is a 20 year play or whatever that worked, I think would be critically important, Matthew Grimes 37:36 yeah. And in some ways, you have to get, you have to get people to buy into an abstract, long term, long term vision, and that requires, I think, a willingness to, sort of, you know, sustain commitment, even though, even though it looks like there's no tangible results, and then, you know, coming, coming through, right? But, Brad 37:55 I mean, I see the Gates Foundation doing that, when you kind of look at some of the projects that they fund, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I think this is, this is interesting, because I do, when you first said it, I'm thinking hype equals fad, yeah. And that's, that's the dangerous part, but it's, it's, it's more this vision part. And how do you actually fund a vision where you can't show results, or at least positive results, in the shortage Jeff York 38:16 more into what you mean by social proof? Because I don't trust something everybody listening to this is gonna be like, Oh yeah, I know exactly what he Matthew Grimes 38:22 means by what he means by that. Yeah. So, I mean, I think, you know, there's ways that we talk about this in practice, like, you know, well, you need to go out and build social proof, right? And what does that mean? Well, it means that you're, you're showing the letters of intent that you've generated through potential customer sales, right? Or you're showing that other investors are interested in Jeff York 38:42 validating interest, yeah, building the chain of belief as well, yeah? Matthew Grimes 38:45 Or you're, you've got the right advisors or board of directors in play, right? And so if you can build the ecosystem around what you're trying to do, that matters, and what we actually show, for instance, like the way that London approached this, they do wrong. So they actually, they actually connected in, like in the very beginning, they were given space in the London Stock Exchange building. They had the Prime Minister helping to launch the launch, the the main event around it. And so really cranking Exactly. So it was, it came out of the gate, just right away, strong early alliances, exactly. But in a way, that was all about the celebrity associated with social proof, right? Like, look at Theranos, for example. I mean, it's hard to talk about hype these days without talking about about the Theranos case, to not bring it up. But yeah, it's hard. It's yeah, I mean, but that's because it's just such a good example of exactly what we're talking about, which I mean, if you look at, for instance, the board of directors at is probably, yeah, is probably the most prominent board of directors of all time for a startup. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, it was unbelievable. And yet, when you show when you just look at the picture of all of the people on that board, and you show that to students, it's almost embarrassing, right? I mean, it's all these old white men that know absolutely nothing about the technology or the science. And so I think celebrity can buy you some degree of temporary social proof, but it can be fleeting. Yeah? Dangerous? Well, yeah. Brad 40:26 I mean, Theranos was fraudsters too, right there. Well, fire Jeff York 40:29 festivals and other, oh yeah, Ja Rule, whatever, it's gonna be fine. Yeah? So it's so interesting, and it's like in the world of like social media hype is, I mean, it's an art form. It's what influencers are paid to do, yeah, to generate hype around products, yeah? And I think, I think we're celebrity, the more, the better, the more celebrity like we can get. You know, Kim Kardashian to drink grandma Jay, strawberry rhubarb pie, sour ale. Matthew Grimes 41:00 Yeah? Brad 41:00 I mean, Matthew Grimes 41:02 technology has this unbelievable amplification effect and speed of amplification, yeah, that's right. And so it's, it's really been for the process of hype. I mean, it is, it's just explosive. Jeff York 41:17 I mean, so it's so hard as I think, like, as we think about like an entrepreneur, a new entrepreneur. It's so easy to buy into hype. It's like the London Stock Exchange is going to let us on. Well, of course, we're going to do that. The Prime Minister wants to go. Of course. You know, John rule wants to be on. All right, great. George Shultz will be on our board. Okay? It seems like it's almost could be a distraction, right? Of like, I'm doing this thing and it's building height and heightening the expectations, but I think you raise a really great point, and perhaps this is a, I don't have the sound effect, right, but perhaps it's an actual insight that, like, actually like focusing on, and you'll probably articulate this much better. And I will, Matthew, but I'll try, like, focusing on the celebrity aspect of hyping your product, rather than the authenticity legitimacy, like actual, possibly emerging. You know, I mean, it's like, it's so easy to build that buzz instead of actually working on getting the product to market. Matthew Grimes 42:25 Yeah, a lot easier. It's true. I mean, well, you can spend all your time trying to, trying to learn about the, you know, the various kinds of algorithms, and optimizing your messaging around those algorithms. I mean, that can be hard work in itself, right? So actually creating hype, right? It can be challenging. And a lot of a lot of organizations you know are desperately trying to figure out how to Jeff York 42:48 messaging stand out, like, actually, I mean, it's almost impossible. I mean, it's very difficult, Matthew Grimes 42:52 yeah, but it can. It can be a huge, a huge distraction, if, if you don't have your fundamentals in place, and if you're not thinking critically about the sort of broader interdependencies and and systems that you're trying to generate, particularly in nascent markets, where you're having to build the legitimacy of the market, right, and so and so Hype. Hype is not just legitimacy. That's Hype. Hype is fleeting. Legitimacy is is there's a there's a permanence and a stability to it, and so, but the the key is figuring out how you actually, as you generate this kind of precarious resource that is hype, how do you not fall off that cliff, and how's it actually turn it into Right? Like, how do we legitimacy? Jeff York 43:35 How do we take this hype and then transform it into actual reality, right? So, how do the people that do it, you talked about building an ecosystem, say a little more about that, like Matthew Grimes 43:44 so for instance, like with the with the the Toronto exchange, right? The contrast here was pretty stark between London, for instance, and the way that Toronto approached it, right. So what Toronto did was they, for instance, looked at a partnership with the B Lab, right? So this is the organization behind B Corporation and the B impact assessment. So, so again, we come back to fundamentals. One of the really hard things about impact investing is what it's about, measuring, measuring impact actually? Yeah, how can you actually figure out how to how to measure what social or environmental impact looks like, maybe environmental impact is possibly a little little easier to quantify, but actually, you know, measuring social impact extremely difficult, and so a lot of the these in in London and the way that Singapore approached this very different to the way that Toronto said, Well, we're going to partner with the people who are, you know, serious about building expertise around measuring impact and assessing that impact. And so those kinds of systems of support, and it was local and global, right? So what they were doing was building out lots of credibility with local stakeholders. Embedding in those networks, even as they also connected in with these prominent experts in the global market, like B Lab. So Jeff York 45:09 what I'm hearing from what you're saying is like to actually properly take advantage of Hope hype. Obama did a pretty good job, right? Matthew Grimes 45:22 So you laugh at that. But like, I mean, I was giving this talk at Boston College, and one of the folks in the audience was like, Well, how are hype and hope related, right? Because, because there's a recent paper in ASQ that looks precisely at Hope cultures, like cultures of hope, published by the person who asked me this question cite Jeff York 45:43 their paper. I Matthew Grimes 45:44 believe I did, because I think there is an interesting connection between hope and hype. Yeah, Jeff York 45:51 well, because hype is, I mean, it's building the hope that this positive future is going to be real. That's right. So for, like, individual entrepreneurs there and find themselves in emerging market in, like a hype cycle. And, you know, I mean, I think it's hard for us to, I mean, maybe, maybe you disagree. I mean, I think it's hard to advise someone that jumps into like a market because of the hype, it's just, oh yeah, it was what we see our students doing all the time. Well. I Matthew Grimes 46:14 mean, let's, let's be honest. Like, it's what, it's what we as academics do as well, of course, right? Like, I mean, when you see a special issue emerge, like, Okay, so there's a new special issue in AMR coming out, and Jeff York 46:26 we're special people. How do you know if you're a special person? How did you have to ask you're not Matthew Grimes 46:36 so I mean, this, this special issues on AI, and how many papers do you think are being going to be submitted to God, yeah, it's gonna be 300 Yeah, the the most submissions, probably, of any special issue ever, right? So we're editors, so let's, let's not deceive ourselves that like this is just that hype. Is only something that our students follow, right? This is something I think we all professionally are thinking about, and is that the wrong approach to to follow the hype. What was Brad 47:01 your surprise in doing this research was there was there a finding that really surprised you? Matthew Grimes 47:05 I think the surprising thing is that that the right response to this is not either just completely embrace the hype, grow your market to the point at which you are able to you know your market share, you're able to capture rents from the system and then drive down, drive down prices, and then create efficiencies of scale, right? I mean, because that's one model, right is to is to use hype to just grow, grow, grow, before you actually look at your fundamentals. But at the same time, it's also not the lessons, not the opposite, to just run away from hype, because hype is just deception. It's just a lie, and it's just noise in the system. So you need to avoid it, right? It's both of these things, right? And so, so even just the fundamental, that fundamental nature of hype, and recognizing it as both resource and liability, and seeing that the way, the way in which you navigate that actually matters to your longevity. That was surprising to me. I'm not sure, I'm not sure why, but I think maybe it's because, because the again, I came out of that model where I saw hype always as this kind of faddish tendency. It was like part of the part of the cycle, the hype cycle, where you're always going to see a collapse anytime there's hype, I think that this is, for instance, if you Google artificial intelligence now, you know what's the likelihood that the article is going to mention the word hype pretty high right now. So is that an indication that everything that is happening around artificial intelligence now is just noise in the system. It's just, it's over promises. I mean, some, some will argue that, yes, in fact, that that is what we're dealing with. But I think there's a lot of people out there that that see this as as, again, like a technology and innovation, a growing ecosystem that is ultimately going to deliver and live up to that hype, Jeff York 49:04 or well beyond, in ways. I think the other thing is all the unexpected externalities, both positive and negative, for sure. I mean, you know, we all, we all were around during the.com boom, and, you know, I'm sure we remember how the Internet was going to solve all, oh yeah, all the world's problems and and indeed, he did solve many problems, but also created all sorts of problems that no one ever I mean, I don't remember anyone ever talking about. You know, this could have a really negative effect on people's mental Brad 49:36 health. Important part to focus on. Also, though fundamentals matter, right? You still need to execute. You still need to build gold standard, whatever you're building, yeah, and you need to be in touch with your customers, and, sorry, build Matthew Grimes 49:48 the relationships around everything, and look at the hard problem and solve that, right? So when I teach on hype, one of the things i i show you, know, I show an illustration of you. A monkey on a pedestal, and the monkey is reciting Shakespeare. And I, and I asked, Are you familiar with this before? Okay, so, you know, and you ask them like, which would you do first, if you were, if you were trying to, you know, build this business that's based around a monkey who can recite Shakespeare on top of the pedestal. Would you build a pedestal first? Or would you, or would you train the monkey to recite Shakespeare? And usually, like, I'll get half a room that will say, I build, I build the pedestal. The other half of the room will say, I try to train the monkey. And so you ask, like, Well, why? Why would you build the pedestal first? And he's like, Well, that's the easy thing to do, so you can show momentum, right? Right? But ultimately, if, if right, solving we know, we know you can build a pedestal, right? That's what we don't know, is whether you can train the monkey, right. And so solving that really hard problem and showing progress, showing proof, showing evidence, actually matters. Brad 50:57 There's our actual insight. You got your bow or I Jeff York 51:01 don't, I think we might abandon the bell this. I have enough confidence our listeners that they'll know an actionable Brad 51:07 I think that was that, though that was really amazing. I Jeff York 51:10 really that was very well. Said. Anything you want to add about the paper? We haven't talked about Matthew. I think we've kind of captured the actual insights from it. It sounds awesome. Yeah, yeah. Matthew Grimes 51:19 I'm excited to have it out there. It seems like the field is starting around it starting, you know, at some point in time I'm gonna write, I'm gonna write a book, I'm gonna write a book, and the title is Jeff York 51:30 gonna be hype. I hope you do the papers living up to the hype. How new ventures manage the resource and liability of future, oriented visions within the nascent market of impact investing, Brad 51:43 take a breath to actually get through that. Jeff York 51:45 I still Matthew Grimes 51:47 think it's better than bam bam, Rubble, Rubble, Jeff York 51:49 that's a pretty bad title, although I gotta say I do want to comment a little bit on bam bam, Rubble, Rubble. I would have said at the beginning of the podcast that grandma J strawberry rhubarb pie was my favorite. Bam, bam, Rubble, Rubble. As it warms, it's getting like, the flavors kind of blending together. Yeah, Matthew Grimes 52:05 I really enjoyed it. Yeah. I finished it off. Jeff York 52:08 I finished I finished off grandma's room. No, there's Brad 52:10 some more overhead. Jeff York 52:12 We'll be all right. Well, thank you for joining us once again. I'm Jeff York, your host, joined by I'm Brad 52:18 Brad Werner, and this Matthew, this was great. And of Jeff York 52:21 course, we were joined by Matthew Grimes, Professor of Entrepreneurship and sustainable futures at Cambridge University. Thanks so much for joining us, Matthew, Matthew Grimes 52:29 thanks for having me. Oh, I should also mention that I'm the co, co sponsor of gurk. Gurk, Jeff York 52:35 Dirk, go. Gurk, official beer of gurk, strawberry rhubarb. Putt. I don't think it will be. We'll find out. No, stay tuned to the next episode. Find out if strawberry grandma J's strawberry rhubarb, but actually is the official beer of ger car. Something displaces. All right, see you soon. Okay. Cheers. Dona L 52:57 This episode of creative distillation was recorded on location in Jeff's ranch above Boulder, Colorado. Matthew Grimes paper, living up to the hype how new ventures manage the resource and liability of future oriented visions within the nascent market of impact investing, was published in June 2022 in the Academy of Management Journal. Check the show notes for a link. Learn more about Matthew Grimes on his faculty page at the Cambridge Judge Business School website. We'd Dona L 53:28 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