Delivered October 10, 2025 @ 12:00pm

Weather in Bloomington, IN - Partly sunny and always beautiful. 27 C / 80⁰ F

Table of Contents

• What’s happening in the Democratize Venture space

• Entrepreneurial Search Grants

  • This is not a new concept - It’s just a proven one

  • What We’re Looking for in a Search

My name is Gerry Hays, Founder & CEO of Doriot® (pronounced “Doe-ree-oh”), a movement to break open the gates of venture and expand innovation and wealth beyond an elite few. Democratize Venture is my platform to explore the venture markets and share the insights, strategies, and frameworks I bring into the classroom. It’s where education meets execution—for anyone ready to play the startup game.

What’s happening in the Democratize Venture space

• The CfPA 2025 Summit is happening on October 21-22 in Washington, DC. It’s the premier event for investment crowdfunding. I’ll be there.

Entrepreneurial Search Grants

Last week, I wrote about how VentureStaking® reframes early-stage investing through the lens of poker: you don’t need to win every hand - you just need to be in the right games, fold the weak ones, and go all-in when the insight is real.

That was the investor’s side of the story. This week, let’s talk about what’s coming next.

Soon we’re introducing a new product on the Entrepreneur side for VentureStakers™ to decide upon: Entrepreneurial Search Grants - grants awarded to individual founders or small teams. These grants are designed to fund the most underfunded part of the startup journey: insight discovery.

This is not a new concept - It’s just a proven one

In 2005, Y Combinator launched with a radical offer: $25K and 90 days to turn an idea into a company.

In 2011, Peter Thiel countered the college pipeline with the Thiel Fellowship: skip school, here’s $100K to build something meaningful.

Both were controversial. Today, they’re two of the most successful founder-sourcing programs in the world - generating billions in value and reshaping how startups are born.

But they also proved something deeper: selection matters more than structure. The real leverage isn’t in capital or mentorship - the game is about choosing. A scaled system for everyday investors to choose (before the millionaires and billionaires) is a game changer in terms of seeding the potential to get into high quality investment opportunities in the future. That’s the power of VentureStaking®.

Here’s what we know: Each year, over 50,000 people apply to YC and the Thiel Fellowship - vying for fewer than 300 spots. And honestly? If you took the next 300 down the list, you’d still find world-class talent. And the 300 after that. Why? Because there are just that many talented and ambitious people out there - far more than what YC or the Thiel Fellowship can handle.

That same strategy underpins the Entrepreneurial Search Grants, but with one major difference: selection power doesn’t sit with a few gatekeepers - it sits with the VentureStakers® themselves.

Instead of a centralized committee choosing winners, VentureStakers® collectively decide which searches to fund. It's a distributed model that scales with the ambition of the community - giving more founders a real shot, and giving backers a true first-look into the future.

By pooling hundreds - and eventually thousands - of small bets, VentureStakers will collectively fund Entrepreneurial Search Grants that give them first-look access into the minds of tomorrow’s most determined and imaginative founders.

Before they become obvious.
Before they raise.
Before the story gets sanitized.

It’s early-stage investing without the traditional risk curve. You make small, early bets on talent. You follow their progress. You learn from their search. And if something real emerges, you already have a seat at the table.

The entire model is gamified, transparent, and built on the logic of poker: low-cost entries, patient observation, and the freedom to go bigger when conviction strikes.

What We’re Looking for in a Search

We’re not looking for the “perfect founder.”

We’re looking for the traits that matter most at this stage:

• Determination & Persistence

• Imagination

• Curiosity and willingness to get uncomfortable

• A willingness to learn and collaborate with others; and

• A deep appreciation and respect for the community backing them

You might be a college student, a corporate misfit, or a founder with a few scars. You can apply solo or with a small team. You might be technical. You might not be technical. What matters most is your capacity to fully commit to the search - curiously, creatively, and obsessively.

And yes, AI is changing everything. But not in the way most people think.

Like the internet before it, AI won’t replace entrepreneurship - it will empower it, through AI-agents that you don’t have to be technical to build. The cost to start and scale a business is collapsing. What used to take millions now takes thousands. What took a team now takes one person and a well-structured prompt.

That’s the strategic edge VentureStaking® has over traditional venture capital.

In the future, where it might only take one round of funding to reach cash flow, getting access to that round - early - is everything. That’s what makes these Entrepreneurial Search Grants, and the first-look rights for VentureStakers®, such a powerful model.

So if you have the urge to launch a company - but lack the personal capital, don’t want to ask friends and family - then an Entrepreneurial Search Grant might be exactly what you’ve been looking for. Think of it as a side hustle — one that could turn into something extraordinary for you and the VentureStaking® community that backed your journey. Applications open soon

Wishing you a focused and fulfilling weekend, and Go IU Football!

– Gerry ([email protected])