Riding the Roller Coaster of Emotional Energy in a Student Startup Incubator

Abstract

Emotional energy, as a building block to progressing new entrepreneurial opportunities, refers to the actions that are driven by confidence, enthusiasm, and strength to take initiative. This study examines the ebb and flow of emotional energy in a student-centred university incubator that employs a lean startup method. We contribute a model that illustrates the roller coaster of emotional energy experienced by the student founders during the program and highlights the key role that interactions play in de-energizing or re-energizing participants. We further examine the impact of these interactions on the participants’ emotional energy, and the significance of re-energizing interactions in the program to support the development of opportunity confidence.

Keywords

entrepreneurship programs entrepreneurial behavior action learning empathy entrepreneurship centers

Introduction

“You learn things and then you realize that there are certain big roadblocks. Some you can jump over, and you can push through but some, you can’t and it’s just, those sort of generate up and downs emotionally, especially when you’re in a team because you’ve got to look after the people around you and like everybody’s emotional levels.” (Participant 17).

As described above by one of the student entrepreneurs in our study, the creation and early development of a new venture places great demands on the emotional energy of startup founders (Goss & Sadler-Smith, 2018). In an entrepreneurship education context, navigating the emotional journey plays a highly significant role in building the entrepreneurial attitudes, knowledge, and skills of students (Lackéus, 2014; Shepherd, 2004). The lean startup (Blank, 2013; Ries, 2011) has become a widely adopted blueprint for an increasing number of entrepreneurship education programs, as well as student incubators (Liu et al., 2022; Mansoori, 2017; Shepherd & Gruber, 2021; Welter et al., 2021). The lean startup however, is built on an assumption of technical rationality in creating a new venture, with explicit rapid testing and validation of hypotheses being at the core of the process (Blank, 2013; Ries, 2011). While these aspects are certainly vital, many, possibly most, entrepreneurial ventures also require no small amount of passion (Cardon & Kirk, 2015; de Ávila et al., 2023), empathic judgment (McMullen, 2015), social and creative intuition (Walsh et al., 2022), which all require emotional energy from the founder(s) (Goss & Sadler-Smith, 2018; Walsh et al., 2020).

There are many calls for an increased acknowledgment and understanding of the emotional, affective elements of entrepreneurship (Baron, 2008; Cardon et al., 2012; Foo, 2011; Ginting-Szczesny, 2022; Keller & Kozlinska, 2019). These affect-based aspects are difficult to account for in an overtly rational model of testing and validation, such as the lean startup. With this in mind, we conducted a longitudinal study of students’ experiences during a university based ‘summer startup’ incubator program, designed around a lean startup approach. We were interested in understanding how emotional energy develops in student entrepreneurs in a lean startup incubator program, and what are the effects of this?

In the ensuing sections, we review the literature on emotion, core affect and emotional energy as it relates to lean startup-based programs. We follow this with a description of our multi-phase action research method and description of the findings. We then discuss the significance of de-energizing and re-energizing interactions in supporting emotional energy and enabling opportunity confidence. We then discuss our findings and introduce a model which describes the roller coaster of emotional energy in a startup incubator. This model contributes to entrepreneurship education pedagogy by showing how the concept of emotional energy can be applied in an incubator setting. This highlights the practical need for lean startup-based programs to monitor and enrich participants’ emotional energy as a vital component of incubator success. Finally, we explain the implications of this model on the practice and pedagogy of lean startup-based incubator programs.

Emotional Energy and the Lean Startup

Psychology scholars as far back as James in 1884 have been grappling with defining emotion (Russell, 2003). Only in relatively recent times has some consensus emerged that emotion is best described as resulting from a process of adaptive response (Elfenbein, 2007, 2023; Scherer & Moors, 2019). This process starts with some stimulus event, which is registered and elicits a physiological response including tendency for action. The response may or may not be regulated in some way, and this is experienced as a feeling state. Such states are described and labeled as emotions (Elfenbein, 2007; Scherer & Moors, 2019). Some theories then extend this to emphasize the social functions of emotion in that such feelings may be expressed and then recognized by others (Elfenbein, 2023). In psychological terms, emotions are distinct from the related concept of core affect. Where emotions are relatively short-lived responses to specific stimulus, core affect is a feeling state that can be thought of as present in the background and is not stimulus specific. Core affect can be categorized on two dimensions: pleasure-displeasure and activation-deactivation. Core affect can of course be changed as the result of emotional events, and conversely prolonged core affect can be described as mood (Russell, 2003).

Clearly related to emotion, emotional energy is a multi-faceted concept that has roots in micro-sociology (Collins, 2004), and is gaining attention in a range of fields including organizational psychology (Baker, 2019), management (Soderstrom & Weber, 2020; Vuori, 2023) and entrepreneurship (Goss & Sadler-Smith, 2018). Although there are some alternative definitions emerging (Baker, 2019), the majority of work in the management and entrepreneurship fields have adopted the seminal definition of Collins (2004) who described emotional energy as “a feeling of confidence, elation, strength, enthusiasm, and initiative in taking action” (p. 49). In Baker’s (2019) review and in-depth explanation of the concept he leverages a useful metaphor from physics, where energy is defined as the capacity to do work. A store of potential energy can come from a variety of sources, and each are referred to by the source type, for example, electrical energy, chemical energy, and so on. When this potential energy is applied to do work it is converted into useful energy for example, kinetic energy. In the same way then, we can also think of emotional energy as the capacity to do work, where the source is core affect or emotion. We note that the definition of emotional energy does not distinguish between emotion and core affect, and both can be treated as the source of potential energy. The focus on capacity for action, which is inherent in the concept of emotional energy, is particularly relevant for entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education where action-based pedagogies have been shown to increase entrepreneurial self-efficacy (Koropogui et al., 2023).

Emotional energy can also be considered at three levels (Baker, 2019). Firstly, there is the individual, micro perspective. At an individual level personal actions, for example, exercise, reflective practice, may increase or decrease an individual’s emotional energy. Secondly, is a relational, meso-level. This is where small scale social interactions and relationships between individuals will increase or decrease their emotional energy. These interactions are at the core of Collins theory of interaction rituals (Collins, 2004). Sometimes this is referred to as relational energy (Baker, 2019). Thirdly, emotional energy can also be considered at an organizational, macro-level. At this level concepts such as group emotions and energy networks are used to describe the energizing and de-energizing effects across large groups of people.

Emotional energy, particularly at the relational level, is proposed as a key building block in creating and developing a new entrepreneurial opportunity (Goss & Sadler-Smith, 2018). We take the view that opportunities are social constructions that emerge through feedback from social interactions (Alvarez et al., 2013). Goss and Sadler-Smith (2018) suggest that the process of developing opportunities rests on the feedback from these social interactions which either enhance or detract from the emotional energy of the entrepreneur. Emotional energy includes the feeling of confidence that, when specific to an emergent opportunity, is referred to as opportunity confidence (Davidsson, 2015; Dimov, 2010). Overall opportunity confidence draws on emotional energy and is built through interactions that enhance entrepreneurial self-efficacy, organizational confidence, external confidence and confidence in partners (Walsh et al., 2020). The role of an entrepreneurship incubator program should be to create a supportive environment to help participants experience interactions across these four areas, and thus building emotional energy in the process so they can develop opportunity confidence (Davidsson, 2015; Dimov, 2010; Walsh et al., 2020). The enabling aspect of the incubator, in this process, is particularly important for novice entrepreneurs and most notably student entrepreneurs who do not have established stores of emotional energy to draw on. Jones and Underwood (2017) concurred with this perspective, suggesting, “what is currently missing is an emphasis and understanding of the social/interaction and overall emotional ecology of the entrepreneurial classroom” (p. 667).

The lean startup, which originated from Blank’s (2013) customer development process, was extended to include principles from lean manufacturing that was popularized by Ries (2011). It involves tools and techniques that can be employed to build business ventures faster and at lower cost (Liu et al., 2022). For a fuller description of a typical lean startup based program, and an example case, see Roy et al. (2020). Lean startup has subsequently become one of the most common methods used in entrepreneurship education, incubators, and accelerators to guide the startup activities of nascent entrepreneurs including students (Mansoori, 2017; Shepherd & Gruber, 2021; Welter et al., 2021). While the adoption of the lean startup method has been widespread, there is still the need for research to understand the strengths and limitations of the method. We echo the view of Mansoori (2017) who stated, “The prevalence of the lean startup methodology and the lack of understanding of its impact on entrepreneurs demonstrate the need for studies addressing this issue” (p. 813).

Within the lean startup method there is very little acknowledgement of the role of emotion or core affect. The process of learning by testing a series of hypotheses favor a scientifically rational approach. Ries (2011) refers to this as validated learning, which he describes as being, “always demonstrated by positive improvements in the startup’s core metrics” (p. 49). This focus on hard data and metrics leaves little place in the process for consideration of entrepreneurial passion (Cardon & Kirk, 2015; de Ávila et al., 2023), empathic judgments (McMullen, 2015), social and creative intuition (Walsh et al., 2022), or values, desires, and intentions (Sergeeva et al., 2021). The intent of the rapid testing of ideas in lean startup is to avoid expensive development efforts being wasted on products that ultimately customers do not want. This often-quoted principle of 'fail fast’ has good intent in order to encourage rapid learning, but also fails to acknowledge the emotional aspects of failure. Even when testing ideas, entrepreneurs have different reactions to failure (Politis & Gabrielsson, 2009). In entrepreneurship education, scholars have suggested that we need to do more to educate students, and other nascent entrepreneurs, on how to manage their emotions in the face of failure so they are able to learn from these experiences (Shepherd, 2004; Shepherd & Cardon, 2009). In a recent Delphi study examining the risks and dark sides of entrepreneurship education (Bandera et al., 2021), the leading concern raised by the expert panel was that the “student is unprepared (knowledge-wise, skill-wise, and/or emotionally)” (p. 629, emphasis added). We question that if entrepreneurship programs continue to favor structures around the lean startup method, are they adequately dealing with the emotional aspects of the startup process. To explore this further, we were focussed on the following research question: how does emotional energy develop in student entrepreneurs in a lean startup-based incubator program, and what are the effects of this?

Method

To examine this question, we adopted an action research approach, which is a systematic study that combines action and reflection, with the intention of improving practice (Cohen et al., 2018). Although action research has roots in both pragmatic and critical traditions, Zawadzki et al. (2020) point out the advantages of combining these two approaches. They include, use of experiential learning, learning by doing and reflexivity, and providing space for students’ to be critical and reflective while developing practical reasoning (Zawadzki et al., 2020). Our action research included plan (i.e., identifying the need for a particular change or activities), act (i.e., conducting the tasks or interventions), observe (i.e., measuring outputs or outcomes of actions taken), and reflect (i.e., making sense of the findings and modifying interventions or activities) steps (Cohen et al., 2018; Winkler et al., 2018). The observe and reflect steps happen in parallel to the intervention as reflections and actions are interconnected (Cohen et al., 2018).

The Action Research Study Context

We conducted our study at a lean startup program at a university-based Centre for Entrepreneurship. The Centre for Entrepreneurship runs this annual lean startup program for ten weeks during the summer break between semesters. The aim of the program is to provide students an opportunity to convert their venture ideas into reality in dedicated workspaces on campus, under expert guidance, including business mentoring, and peer support. The authors of this paper are teaching and research academics in entrepreneurship at the university in which the Centre is based. Although we supported Centre activities and worked closely with the team at the Centre, we were not involved with the day-today activities or running of the startup program. Our focus of this action research was to understand the experience of students and improving the tasks in an iterative and continuous manner (Winkler et al., 2018). Written informed consent was gained for all participants. The study was approved by the university's human ethics comittee prior to commencing any research (ref: HEC 2018/38/LR-PS).

The program selected students based on a competitive application process. The application includes students submitting a brief venture idea which they want to validate, test, and develop. The students who are selected for the program are also provided with a stipend for the ten-week period. During the first five weeks, the Centre conducted activities related to cohort building and broadening students’ understanding on venture start-up. The second half of the program concentrated predominantly on preparing for and pitching their business idea. The Centre invited guest entrepreneurs and conducted lectures, practical sessions, and workshops during the full ten-week period. Each student or student team also had a mentor throughout this ten-week period. There were also two speed mentoring sessions, in a format similar to speed dating, where multiple experts and entrepreneurs provided feedback to students or student teams.

During the program, students attended activities designed by the Centre and worked on their idea by conducting market research, obtaining feedback, testing, and validating the idea, building prototypes, or connecting with suppliers. All the students were given 24hr access to the Centre and were provided with their own workstation. The Centre also have entrepreneurs in residence working on students’ business ideas in a co-sharing space. Some of these students were previous years’ annual summer start-up participants. The students had the opportunity to interact with the others in their own cohort and previous cohorts. At the end of the program, students and student teams pitched their ideas and showcased the business ideas in a public event.

The Action Cycles

Our action research included three cycles. In the plan stage, we identified our focus as student-founder experiences in the lean startup incubator. Then the act step included working closely with the Centre for Entrepreneurship startup program team in seeking to understand the student journey. Observations involved conducting multiple semi-structured interviews with student-founders during three cycles of the ten-week program. Then reflection included analyzing the data, synthesizing, and developing suggestions to improve the summer start-up program, sharing our findings, and implementing those with the program design team.

We commenced the study by conducting semi-structured interviews with student-founders at the completion of the 2019/2020 program. We call this our first action cycle, and the key findings informed the second cycle of the study. Our analysis from 2019/2020 student cohort highlighted the ‘ups and downs’ student-founders experienced in terms of emotions, opportunities, and challenges while attempting to validate their business ideas. Following the first action cycle our research question emerged, which focussed our attention on how emotional energy develops for the student entrepreneurs during the incubator program, and the effects of this. Through an abductive approach in the subsequent second (2020/2021 program) and third (2021/2022 program) action cycles, we explored the students’ journey by collecting longitudinal data at various stages of the summer program. At the end of each of the three action cycles, we reflected on the key findings with the summer startup management team as part of the iterative process of the study and to inform ongoing program development.

Data Collection and Analysis

We used semi-structured interviews in collecting data. In action cycle one, we asked general questions about the student experiences, what they liked, did not like, opportunities and challenges of participating in the program. This allowed us to narrow down our focus in an abductive manner. In action cycles two and three, we asked interviewees about their experiences, emotions, changes in the business idea, and challenges. We introduced the research project at the beginning of the ten-week summer startup program and invited student founders to participate in the study, which included multiple interviews. The first interview was conducted within the initial two weeks, and the second and third interviews were conducted during the middle stage of the program. The final interview was conducted after the startup showcase following the completion of the program.

Our data set consisted of ten participants in action cycle one, seven participants in cycle two, and eight participants in cycle three (see Table 1). Overall, we conducted a total of 57 interviews.

Table 1.

Study Participant Details.

Participant #	Degree area	Business area	# Of interviews
2019/2020
1	Commerce	Primary industry	1
2	Product design	Beauty and accessories	1
3	Product design	Food - new products	1
4	Commerce	E-commerce and consultancy	1
5	Engineering	Technical	1
6	Science	Telecommunication	1
7	Science	Technical	1
8	Product design	Primary industry	1
9	Law	Consultancy	1
10	Science	Food - new products	1
2020/2021
11	Commerce	IT- App related	3
12	Communication	Beauty and accessories	2
13	Teaching and learning	Education services	3
14	Science	IT- App related	3
15	Arts	Food – Sustainability	2
16	Engineering	IT- App related	3
17	Arts/Commerce	Food - Sustainability	3
2021/2022
18	Product design	Health – Education	3
19	Commerce	Technical	4
20	Science	Health- Supplementary	4
21	Commerce	Service – social media	4
22	Nursing	Health – wearable products	1
23	Commerce	Technical	4
24	Law/Commerce	Beauty and accessories	4
25	Health Science	App/product -time management	4
Total: 25 participants	Total: 10 disciplines	Total: 15 industries	Total: 57 interviews

We used NVivo to arrange, code, and analyze our data. We created open codes from the interview data, according to stage of the program: beginning, during, and end. Under each stage we further sub-categorized codes as positive emotions which enhanced energy, negative emotions which led participants to doubt the viability of their business idea. We report our data coding structure related to opportunity-emotional energy nexus in Table 2.

Table 2.

Extract From Data Structure Opportunity-Emotional Energy Nexus Coding.

Selected interview quotes and open codes	Axial code	Analytical code derived
I’m feeling excited to be honest. It’s awesome having the ability to just focus 100% of my mental energy on this project […] (Participant 23)	Feeling good about business and opportunity	Opportunity optimism at the beginning
I Was stoked. I Was like, well now I can actually make it [product] (Participant 19)	Feeling good about business and opportunity
I Guess there’s always that bit of trepidation and like not the unknown (Participant 14)	Feelings of apprehension of the idea/unknown
I Think coming into it, I was so nervous and like really anxious and thinking, oh my god, […], my idea’s just nothing compared to everyone else (Participant 24)	Feelings of apprehension of the idea/unknown
We’ve got a pretty good stable business model that we’re kind of committing to at this point, so we feel like we’re doing pretty well […] we feel pretty good (Participant 11)	Positive emotions leading business idea commitment	Opportunity assurance at the middle
The drive’s still there. We see the potential in it [business idea] and because other people see the potential in it, it fuels the fire so to say (Participant 14)	Positive emotions leading business idea commitment	Opportunity assurance at the middle
Definitely have felt like, it’s like ohh Jesus this is beyond me. I shouldn’t be doing this. This isn’t my field and then it’s like, ohh is it even worth doing? […], definitely get like that imposter feeling of like this isn’t really my field. I shouldn’t be working in here (Participant 19)	Negative emotions leading to doubt about idea and themselves	Opportunity doubt at the middle
[…] trying to figure out where to take it [business idea] and how to make it viable and how to make it succeed and make it stand out and all that kind of stuff and so I’m feeling a bit of um, bit of self doubt (Participant 12)		Opportunity doubt at the middle
It feels good. There was a bit of a down period shortly after finishing, just taking time to relax and what not but, straight back into it (laughs) (Participant 23)	Feeling good leading to business idea continuation	Enabled opportunity confidence at the end
I ‘ve been straight back into it, trying to commercialize this business (Participant 5)	Feeling good leading to business idea continuation	Enabled opportunity confidence at the end
I Kind of parked it and just set it aside cos I think it was putting a bit too much on my plate with uni and club stuff and all that, everything (Participant 19)	Feeling drained leading to discontinuing or parking the idea	Disengaged from opportunity at the end
It just did feel like we’d made so much progress in 10 weeks and then it was just like, ohh, it’s, it just kind of fizzled out really quickly (Participant 20)		Disengaged from opportunity at the end

We also coded what interactions shaped positive or negative emotions such as contact with program team, peers, experts, potential customers and so on. Then we looked closely how these interactions energized, de-energized and re-energized students’ emotional energy, enabling their opportunity confidence. We then used this analysis to identify pathways by which emotional energy shaped their opportunity confidence and developed our framework.

Findings

Our findings demonstrate that the participant’s changing emotional energy over the duration of the program related to differences in how they viewed their business opportunity. Their level of opportunity confidence varied at program beginning (optimism), middle (reassurance or doubt), and end (confident or disengaged). We identified various interaction rituals that provided either negative or positive feedback that were energizing or de-energizing for the participant’s stock of emotional energy (Goss & Sadler-Smith, 2018). We now explain these areas in greater detail.

Initial Opportunity Optimism

At the beginning of the program, participants generally had a high level of opportunity optimism and emotional energy. This is because of the energizing interactions they received from being selected to participate in the program and having high hopes for their business ideas. Phrases such as “stoked”, “awesome”, “feeling good”, “exciting” “pretty good”, “amazing” and “over the moon” explained their feeling towards selection into the program (participants 11, 12, 14, 19, and 23). This positive stock of emotional energy contributed to their optimistic outlook towards their own venture idea and the program ahead. These varied from having a solid business model or a clear brand (participant 12), understanding customers (participant 20), solidifying the idea (participant 22). Participant 12 said:

“I’m hoping that I’ll have a solid brand, very solid business model that, cos the whole manufacturing of XXX [product] and getting all that stuff, that’s going to take a long time. Like that’s not going to happen over the summer.”

Positive emotional energy was further enhanced by participants initial interactions from meeting the members of their program cohort. They described these people as, passionate, interesting and “cool people” (participant 18). They liked working in an environment with “like-minded” peers, and not needing to work in isolation (participant 23). Participant 23 described this:

“I’m feeling excited to be honest. It’s awesome having the ability to just focus 100% of my mental energy on, this project and not having to worry about uni, or paying bills or working or whatnot, sort of go to sleep thinking about the project and wake up thinking about the project.”

Together with the early excitement, participants also acknowledged some negative emotions, such as being “nervous”, “overwhelming”, “intense” “little bit of doubt”, “bit of trepidation”, “daunted” and “anxious” (participants 11, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24 and 25). Participant 24 said, “I think coming into it, I was so nervous and like really anxious and thinking, oh my god, […], my idea’s just nothing compared to everyone else.”

For some this was from facing the unknown and the uncertainty associated with the new situation. Participant 11 said, “There’s a little bit of, maybe, doubt but I think that just comes with anything […] like, there’s always going to be, you don’t, you know you don’t know. You can’t assume what’s going to happen.”

Mid-point Opportunity Assurance or Doubt

At the mid-stage of the program, participants were either more assured, or doubtful of their venture’s opportunity potential. This arose from the increase or decrease in emotional energy that they experienced through energizing or de-energizing feedback from the various interactions that the program encourages. Participants who remained exited and emotionally invested referred to the potential in their business idea. For example, participants 11, 12, 14, 15, 21, and 25 were still excited and emotionally invested. Explaining this further, participant 14 highlighted that it is because other people have seen the potential in their business idea. Participant 11 said:

“We’ve got a pretty good um, stable business model that we’re kind of committing to at this point um, so ahh, yeah, we, we feel like we’re doing pretty well and the pace that we’re going at it actually keeping up with the course as well so um, yeah, no we feel pretty good.”

In addition, they mentioned being energized by other people. Participant 14 said, “The drive’s still there. We see the potential in it and because other people see the potential in it, it fuels the fire so to say.”

Unfortunately, these kinds of energizing interactions were not the norm. The majority of participants had decreased emotional energy that was reflected in self-doubt in their business ideas and opportunity (participants 12, 19, and 21), feeling stuck and annoyed with their lack of progress (participants 12 and 19), or felt that they were going around in circles (participants 20 and 24). Participant 22 said, “I think the overall energy of the program’s been like diminished. Perhaps some of that excitement’s worn off. People are still, I don’t know, maybe tired.” Participants expressed that they were, “drained”, “bit burnt out”, “pressured”, and were “stressed” (participants 13, 15, 19, 20, 21, 24, and 25). Some felt guilty or frustrated for not been able to work on the project (participants 15 and 16). Participant 16 said, “You’re not getting as much time to be able to do those tasks that were assigned to do or to get done and so it can almost make you feel a little bit guilty as well.”

Some participants referred to having imposter syndrome. That is, they felt like they are doing something beyond themselves or that the idea they were working on was not in their field of expertise: Participant 19 said:

“Definitely have felt like, it’s like ohh Jesus this is beyond me. I shouldn’t be doing this. This isn’t my field and then it’s like, ohh is it even worth doing? […], definitely get like that imposter feeling of like this isn’t really my field. I shouldn’t be working in here.”

During the middle stages of the program, short increases and decreases of emotional energy were very common amongst participants depending on the day to day energizing or de-energizing interactions. Participant 17 described this as:

“So those up and downs can come quite thick and fast as well. You can have one really good day and then the next day, you hit a massive problem and then you feel like it’s the last two weeks were pointless. But then, the next day, you have a great solution and then you go out of it and then you sky rocket.”

End Point Enabled Opportunity Confidence or Disengagement

In concluding the program, our participants continued to exhibit either confidence or were disengaged from their business opportunity. Immediately after the program, most participants were “pretty positive” and felt “good” (participants 14 and 24). Others mentioned they were energized by the outcome and experience with the business pitch finale event and were looking forward to progressing the business idea (participants 23 and 24). Participant 22 said:

“But also really exciting because now I’ve got the time to just really crack on. There’s no commitments with the program. I can just really crack into it, sort of clear my head from all of that. Take all the learnings, just get, get stuck in.”

Our 2019/2020 findings illustrate that opportunity confident participants were able to leverage their positive store of emotional energy and used the connections that they developed to progress to other startup incubators outside of the university (participants 5 and 7). Participants with projects of a technical nature, continued on with testing the product related to their business opportunity (participants 5 and 8). Participant 8 had managed to secure funding to test the idea by building a small-scale commercial prototype. Participant 1 said, “It’s been like restructuring, and getting proposals and now looking to actually commercialize it.”

In contrast, other participants had decided to “park the idea” or not to go ahead with the business opportunity. This decision is related to disengaging from the opportunity, influenced by a lack of emotional energy. For example, they made statements such as “an anti-climax” and the excitement “kind of fizzled out really quickly”, or as participant 20 said, “We just don’t have the time and energy to really, to really do it. So it was something that we always thought might happen but it was really confirmed in the second half of the program.”

Other participants mentioned current priorities including work or university commitments making it hard for them to work on their ideas. Participant 3 said:

“I do see myself having my own business at some point. Like it could be X [product idea]. It could be something different by that point. But for the future that’s kind of my crossroads at the moment is like just thinking about what I want to do so that’s why I kind of parked it and just set it aside.”

Energizing and de-energizing Interactions

Our findings illustrate that participants had both positive and negative feedback from their interactions which affect their store of emotional energy. Positive feedback from interactions energized the participants, including renewed passion for their business ideas (participants 11, 13, 18, 20, 23, and 24), new learnings and insights (participants 12, 14, 17, 21, and 24) and having a cohort of passionate people (participants 12, 13, and 18). Participant 18 referred to this as:

“I love being around the people that I’m around all day. I’m around so many like-minded people and I don’t necessarily get that from the rest of my uni experience. So being around people who think like me and who just have these amazing ideas and are so passionate and so driven and ambitious, it’s, it’s amazing and it’s so encouraging.”

Negative feedback from interactions were prominent among participants and subsequently had a de-energizing effect. These were mainly related to challenging personal, business, market, and program interactions, as shown in Table 3.

Table 3.

De-Energizing Interaction Rituals.

Interaction	Explanation	Participants who mentioned it
Feedback or advice	Criticisms or conflicting advice leading feeling upset or confused	12, 13, 14, 16, 18 21, 23
Program activities	Program events (e.g., workshops, mentoring or pitching) or features (e.g., funding) leading to stress and pressure	13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25
Co-founders and peers	Competitiveness among members in the cohort	13
	Having co-founders leading to unhappiness and conflicting ideas	15
	Not having co-founders leading to an overwhelming workload	12, 16
Uncertainty – outcomes or process	Feeling apprehensive about the outcomes, process, and things not going as planned	11, 12, 13, 19
Participant-related	Inability to manage the workload creating pressure and stress	12, 16, 19, 23, 25
	The miss-match between their own expectations and reality (e.g., not getting shortlisted for final showcase, not having a prototype, etc.)	13, 19, 20, 24
	Too much attachment to their ideas	11
Market reality	Market research and validation findings leading to confusion, uncertainty, pivoting the idea, and a feeling of going round in circles	12,13, 14, 17, 20, 23

Participant interactions involving contradicting feedback, overloaded program activities, expectation mismatches and market reality triggered negative feedback which reduced participants’ emotional energy. Negative feedback led some participants to use support interactions to minimize the impact on their emotional energy.

Re-Energizing Influence of Support Interactions

Our findings illustrate that participants aimed to reduce the impact on their emotional energy from negative interaction feedback experiences, using four support mechanisms. See Table 4.

Table 4.

Re-Energizing Interactions.

Category	Sub-category	Selected evidence
Program related interactions	Mentors	Having a catch up with X [mentor] yesterday, I kind of got the passion back of actually I feel really passionate about this idea (Participant 22)
	Mentors	[…] she could definitely see that in me, and she said, is there anything we can help so that was quite beneficial (Participant 13).
	Program approach or messaging	You’re not competing against each other and I think that was really important to say […] like you can do it at your own pace and […], it’s a really nice approach to have (Participant 18)
	Program management	The team have been amazing, like they’ve said that you know they’re here to support and encourage (Participant 22)
Peers and co-founders	Interactions with co-founders	It’s really good having a partner in my organization so it’s nice to, we’re kind of on the journey together (Participant 20)
Peers and co-founders	Peer support	I Was so nervous yesterday but I don’t feel nervous now because everyone’s really supportive of each other (Participant 24)
Personal	Self-reflections	I Think that reflection for that latter half is what saved it from being burn out level of stress and absorption (Participant 17)
Personal	Self-reflections	Learning ways to cope when you’re in that pit of despair. Especially with the reflection journals […] (Participant 21)
Interactions outside the program	Family and friends	I Live with him [name of the friend] so like every day I get home and I bounce ideas off him (Participant 20)
	Family and friends	Mum and Dad love business and they just sat down with me and just helped me do all this stuff so I came back with so much clarity (Participant 12)
	Professional help	I Kind of went and saw a counselor the other day cos it made you like dwell on your like how you are as a person and it was tough (Participant 13)

As illustrated in Table 4, firstly interactions within the program that have the primary purpose of re-energizing the students’ emotional energy. The most frequently mentioned way was using the program’s mentoring sessions (participants 12, 13, 22, and 24). Participant 22 described this as:

“Having a catch up with X [mentor] yesterday, I kind of got the passion back of actually I feel really passionate about this idea. She kind of told me like, you know you’re here for a reason. Like we feel like there’s potential in this and we’re here to help you and I kind of just felt like actually, yeah, like you’re right. Like I do feel passionate and like I can do it so I think they’ve been really helpful in kind of making me feel like it doesn’t matter where you’re at. It doesn’t matter where you get to in the end. Like it’s about your journey so I feel a lot more confident about it now.”

In addition to the re-energizing of opportunity confidence, Participant 13 acknowledged that the mentors helped in managing their wellbeing. They said:

“I remember towards the last part, talking to XXX [mentor] with check ins, I said ohh, this sucks. I’m not really enjoying this that much now. I just want to get away from it, to be honest and she could definitely see that in me, and she said, is there anything we can help so that was quite beneficial.”

Furthermore, the program design and messaging (Participant 18) helped them to decide their priorities. The program team (Participant 22) created a supportive environment and their availability in times of need provided re-energizing interactions.

Secondly, the peers in the cohort also helped to re-energize each other. Participants mentioned that they talked to others going through same issues and that support helped them to ease the pressure (participants 12, 17, 20, 21, 23, 24, and 25). As participant 21 said, “And also just kind of helped us share the load a lot easier because we were all going through similar problems. I think it was just so awesome to mix a great bunch of people.” A similar re-energizing effect was experienced within some student groups which consisted of co-founders.

Third, participants were able to re-energize themselves by reflecting on their motivation, progress, and challenges (participants 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, and 23). This deliberate interaction with their own thoughts and feelings was introduced into the program in the second year through the use of reflective journal sessions. These sessions helped in mitigating the de-energizing effect of negative feedback on emotional energy. Participant 21 said:

“Learning ways to cope when you’re in that pit of despair. Especially with the reflection journals, just taking that step back and being like, hold on a minute, like you understand that these things are happening to you and then you just sort of like, you know you remind yourself what you need to do to get back on track. I’ve definitely learnt that.”

Fourth, occasionally the participants also sought outside help for this energizing support. For example, talking to her parents helped participant 12:

“It was a bit overwhelming, […] my Mum and my Dad, my family, they are my biggest supporters. Mum and Dad love business and they just sat down with me and just helped me do all this stuff so I came back with so much clarity.”

Whilst participants 20 and 21 shared their problems with friends and participant 13 sought professional counseling support.

Discussion

In this study, we focused on answering the research question: how does emotional energy develop in student entrepreneurs in a lean startup-based incubator program and what are the effects of this? Our action research findings demonstrate that emotional energy (Collins, 2004) play a key role in the lean startup (Ries, 2011) business idea validation process. Our findings, aligning with the work of Cardon and Kirk (2015) Collins (2004), de Ávila et al. (2023) and Walsh et al. (2020), show that self-efficacy, confidence, enthusiasm, learning from setbacks, and managing negative feelings are as important as the business idea. These shape opportunity confidence (Davidsson, 2015; Dimov, 2010). Our findings, among student entrepreneurs, show that rational and emotional aspects go hand in hand in business start-up and development.

The Roller Coaster of Emotional Energy

Our findings also highlighted that the emotional ‘ups and downs’ of energizing and de-energizing feedback from interactions that the students experience, can significantly affect their store of emotional energy, which in turn affects their opportunity confidence. We synthesized our analysis in developing a model depicting the roller coaster of emotional energy (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Roller coaster of emotional energy during a startup incubator.

The roller coaster of emotional energy illustrates the participants’ opportunity optimism that at the beginning of the program; in that they had high emotional energy and high hopes. We see this opportunity optimism as the stage before the market and operational reality sets-in. Then during the program journey, participants experience a large number of interaction rituals resulting in both positive and negative feedback. They then follow one of three paths. The interactions energize or de-energize the student’s emotional energy and this enables either a growing opportunity assurance or alternatively, opportunity doubt. At the end of the program, we observed opportunity doubt can be converted to opportunity confidence if there are supportive re-energizing interactions which enables opportunity confidence. This was the most common path among the participants in our study. There were some participants however, who were not able to re-energize their emotional energy and so at the conclusion of the program had low opportunity confidence, and disengaged from or abandoned the business idea. We also note that while individual emotions may vary on a day-to-day basis, emotional energy, as a store and source of energy (Baker, 2019; Walsh et al., 2020), is a somewhat slower moving trend.

Implications for Pedagogy and Practice

We acknowledge that all businesses ventures and startup experiences are unique, and therefore each participant’s roller coaster journey may have its own unique deliverables, nuances, tribulations, and outcomes. To this end, our study considers one variable, emotional energy, and its influence as an enabler of opportunity confidence or disengagement. We acknowledge there are many factors that also influence opportunity confidence, including external enablers along with the perception of the venture idea (Davidsson, 2015). But without a positive store of emotional energy, nascent entrepreneurs are not able to take actions toward developing the opportunity further. As described earlier, the definition of emotional energy explicitly includes “confidence” and “initiative to take action” (Collins, 2004). We therefore propose that building emotional energy is a critical element of a successful incubator experience. We also suggest that taking action may include an active decision to not pursue the original opportunity. This can take the form of a major pivot, or even termination decision. In order to make such a decision a nascent entrepreneur requires some emotional energy. We still consider this a positive outcome from an incubator program. Conversely if the nascent entrepreneur has low emotional energy, they are likely to disengage and not make an active decision to terminate the venture. This may be a contributing factor to the existence of so called “lingering dead” ventures (Ungerer et al., 2021).

Our proposed roller coaster model (Figure 1) draws on these concepts and highlights the importance of managing the ebb and flow of emotional energy in the ‘ups and downs’ of a lean startup incubator program. We further underscore that re-energizing interactions, such as mentorship and supportive peer cohorts to enhance relational energy (Goss & Sadler-Smith, 2018), along with self-reflection to enhance individual energy (Baker, 2019), are vital in combating low emotional energy. This model contributes to entrepreneurship education pedagogy by showing how the concept of emotional energy can be applied in an incubator setting. This highlights the practical need for lean startup-based programs to monitor and enrich participants’ emotional energy as a vital component of incubator success.

The implication for practice of our findings is the importance of interventions that re-energise students at various stages during start-up programs in order to avoid or combat low emotion energy formation. We offer some practical steps that can be taken to improve such outcomes. Entrepreneurship Centres can ensure that participants complete reflective journals throughout the program (what went well, what did not, what have they learnt, what next?). These reflections can be discussed in peer sharing and mentoring sessions that are open, honest and emotionally safe environments. Our perspective is that within these sessions students experienced re-energization by comments that exhibit themes of: ‘you are not alone’, ‘I know an answer to that’, ‘Yes, I’ve been through that’. Such revelations were often liberating for de-energized students. Entrepreneurship Centres can deploy mental coaches to maintain students’ healthy mindsets, as in mental strength and resilience. ‘Awareness’ (real world realities) seminars can supplement ‘practical’ (how to) seminars. Such real-world truths from experienced professionals and peers were energizing for students. The research also highlighted the importance of social events. This ensured the program was not ‘all work and no play’, but more importantly demonstrated the benefits to emotional energy of informal networking with peers.

Limitations and Future Research

This study is not without its limitations. First, we collected data only from one program operated by one university in New Zealand. This program’s focus, objectives, activities and the structure, can differ from other lean start-up programs (e.g., university vs. private accelerators or incubators) (Metcalf et al., 2021). For example, the length of time, type of activities, level of funding, whether pitching ideas is part of the program or not, or whether founders are experienced or not could contribute to the dynamics and ‘context’ of the incubators. Next due to the nature of voluntary participation, there may be selection bias in our sample. That is, those who were extravert and want to share their journeys may only have volunteered for the research. Finally, we had limited diversity in relation to ethnicity among our participants. The incubator program had relatively equal number of male and female students; however, the ratio of male and female students who consented to participate in each year varied. These needs to be carefully examined to enhance generalizability of our proposed roller coaster of emotional energy framework (Simons et al., 2017).

We welcome future research examining the dynamics that may exist in other contexts for the roller coaster of emotional energy. In particular, does this play out for non-student entrepreneurs, and in particular serial entrepreneurs, with more established stores of emotional energy? Also, for new ventures that are more reliant on scientific innovation, that may be more defined by rational experiments, is the role of emotional energy as significant? We also invite researchers to examine the second, third and subsequent loops in the rollercoaster (Figure 1). More specifically, how does emotional energy and opportunity confidence play out when student entrepreneurs test and validate their second or third business ideas; are they able to manage emotional swings or how do they manage to re-energize themselves? Do they use their incubator experience in future ventures? Further research is needed to explore if having higher emotional energy helps avoid “lingering dead” ventures. We also call for more research examining other effective forms of the critical re-energizing interactions in an incubator program.

Conclusion

As highlighted in the opening quote in the introduction, the founding experience inevitably involves emotional ups and downs. In this study we examined how emotional energy develops in student entrepreneurs in a lean startup-based incubator program, and the effects of this. We uncovered a roller coaster of emotional energy that most student entrepreneurs in this study experienced. We have identified the key role that interactions play in de-energizing or re-energizing participants. Re-energizing interactions, such as positive mentorship, supportive peer cohorts and self-reflection can help lift entrepreneurs from opportunity doubt to enable opportunity confidence. Rather than relegate emotional aspects of an incubator experience to the side, we suggest these aspects should be the focus of attention for incubator managers, as well as future research.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Christian Walsh

Nadeera Ranabahu

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