A new play with strong Iowa ties about women and venture capital completed a successful three-week run at the Tides Theater in San Francisco last weekend. The play, “And That’s What Little Girls Are Made Of,” was written by former Iowan Jennifer Wilson.

This is not the Iowa author of the same name who wrote “Running Away to Home,” a compelling book about life in Croatia. This Jennifer Wilson is the middle child of Iowa Gov. Norman Erbe (1961-63). She’s the sister of Des Moines’ Dee Wittmack and the aunt of lawyer-adventurer Charlie Wittmack.

Wilson grew up in Boone and Des Moines and left Iowa for college in 1970. She returned in the late 1980s to work for the Iowa Department of Economic Development, but she left again after being fired for pushing too hard to promote women in business.

The play is Wilson’s third effort to connect women with venture capital. It is also her most successful, which, she readily admits, is a sad commentary on how little progress has been made.

After leaving state government in 1989, Wilson tried to create Sky Venture Capital, a unique fund that would invest in Baby Boomer women. She wanted to raise $20 million to invest in 10 brilliant women. She figured it would not be difficult, because there was no competition.

Instead, she learned that the lack of competition was the result of an unwritten venture capital rule: No women need apply.

Wilson put her dream on hold after meeting and marrying Silicon Valley legend Jean Hoerni. “He was the guy who came up with the idea of flattening the transistor into a microchip,” Wilson said.

Then after Hoerni died in 1997, Wilson took a position with Northeastern University in Boston and wrote a book called “Diary of a Mad Businesswoman” about her failed venture capital efforts. But she was unable to find a publisher.

“The book did not have any humor. It was heartbreaking,” Wilson said.

Years later when Wilson was back on the West Coast, she decided to turn the book into a play.

To make it more palatable, she added humor, including a “sprinkling the seat” scene in a bathroom that is a metaphor for the selfish nature of some women. Another scene that gets a lot of laughs pokes fun at women who try to get ahead by being more male than their men bosses.

Other parts are more sad than funny, she said.

“In one scene, I’m traveling around the country” trying to raise money for Sky Venture Capital, “talking to chief executives who are always men” with daughters they are proud of, but who are also clueless about the obstacles their daughters will face as businesswomen, she said.

Three actresses play Wilson at various stages of her career in the 70-minute production.

San Francisco audiences have been quite appreciative, Wilson said, although “some people have come up afterwards and said: ‘I wish the play ended with an answer.’”

Don’t we all.