Facing the fear of being fully seen

Delivered April 11, 2025 @ 5:00pm ET

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Table of Contents

• VentureStaking™ Reveal in 4 Days

• Facing the Fear of Being Fully Seen

• I’ve Never Fit the Mold — So I Built a New One

My name is Gerry Hays, and for lack of a better description, I’m the custodian and convener of Doriot, a movement to break open the gates of venture and expand innovation and wealth beyond an elite few.

I’ve been in the game of venture as a founder, investor, researcher, inventor, author, game designer, and professor. I’ve built companies and developed a global venture portfolio entirely from the great state of Indiana, all while teaching over 6,000 undergraduates and MBAs at Indiana University, as well as in Croatia, Hong Kong, Slovenia, and Singapore.

VentureStaking™ Reveal in 4 Days

• VentureStaking™ - an unheard-of approach to startup investing is being revealed on April 15, 2025 at noon ET. The official link to the Zoom is ready. We’d love to have you join for the live reveal! https://lu.ma/o7vnkkju.

Facing the Fear of Being Fully Seen

After my first startup, HomeYeah — which, while it technically had an exit, wasn’t exactly a win — I used to tell students that because I’d experienced failure, I no longer feared it. But honestly? That was total nonsense.

The truth is, I’ve had more than a few moments of sheer panic leading up to this. Fear that what I present next week will be ridiculed. Fear that people will laugh at the audacity of this idea. Fear that I’ll look like a fool for even daring to suggest it.

What happened to the fearless entrepreneur? 🤣
The truth? He never existed.

What I’ve come to realize is this: it’s easy to feel fearless when you stay hidden. As long as I stayed in the background, avoiding full vulnerability, fear stayed quiet. I could talk tough from the sidelines, even judge those in the arena from the comfort of the cheap seats — if I wanted to. It’s easy. It’s safe.

But this time is different. Next Tuesday, I — and my ideas — will be fully exposed. I’ll be in the arena, with no Y Combinator, no A16Z, no Ivy League degree cloaking me in validation. There’s no fancy backdrop here. No "advanced signals." Just me, my work, and an open invitation for anyone to judge what I’m presenting. And to be honest, that’s terrifying.

But here’s the thing: what’s helping me push through that fear is exactly why I’m doing this in the first place — and why I hope more people will find the courage to bring their own bold ideas to the table. We need them now more than ever. My why (see below) is far more powerful than any acceptance or rejection that may come.

Doesn’t mean I’m not terrified, though.

I’ve Never Fit the Mold — So I Built a New One

I built VentureStaking™ for people like me.

As a long-time participant in the venture world, I’ve come to understand exactly what I want from it — both as an entrepreneur and as an investor.

Let’s start with entrepreneurship. And to be honest, let’s start with me.

I wasn’t the popular kid in junior high or high school. I wasn’t a star athlete. In fact, I never earned a starting position on any team after eighth grade — except for a club sport, and I had to pay to play. I didn’t have close friends. My companions were Legos, my basketball, and books.

I wasn’t a straight-A student. I didn’t ace the SAT. I didn’t grow up in a country club. I delivered newspapers at 5:00 a.m. just to have a few dollars in my pocket.

I don’t code. I’m so-so at math. I’ve never been great at networking. And for years, I was so critical of myself that I came across as unapproachable.

But I could see patterns. Given enough time, I could imagine better systems. And I’ve always had an unstoppable desire to build, to create, and to succeed.

But the venture industry is fickle. It’s full of egos. Sure, it’s made up of some of the smartest people in the world — but they’re not gods. And they’re not right most of the time.

VCs tend to favor people who look, talk, and act in ways that feel familiar to them. I’ve never fit that mold. And I know I’m not alone. There are so many others out there who don’t fit the "venture mold" — and they get overlooked. Just look at the disparities in funding across gender, race, and geography.

Meanwhile, a Stanford freshman can raise $5 million based solely on an idea. Frankly, I find that absurd. In today’s venture landscape, it all comes down to one word: selection. If you’re selected, you’re in the club. I’m not in the club.

What I’ve always wanted is a meritocracy. A system that funds people based on ambition, bold ideas, and integrity — not who they know, how they look, or where they come from.

To be clear, we will all be judged by whether we have what it takes to succeed. But I’d rather have 50,000 people — people with the courage to get into the venture game with their own precious capital, energy, and unique perspectives — take 60 seconds to decide whether I belong in their portfolio.

I’ll take that over spending months trying to convince 50 venture capitalists any day.

I’m done with the country club. I want to pitch to a marketplace of committed investors who, at the micro level, can afford to back bold innovations while building diversified portfolios of startup investments.

Because I’m not just an entrepreneur — I’m also an investor.

And truthfully, I love being in at the very, very beginning. When I meet someone with real ambition, who’s ready to start, that’s when I want to get in. Sure, it’s a lot more risk — and that’s exactly why I don’t want to put huge amounts of capital down upfront. I’d rather start small, watch their progress, and scale my investment as they prove themselves.

But here’s the problem: once traditional VCs enter the picture, they seize control of the terms and squeeze out early believers like me — even though we took the risk long before they did.

That’s backward.

The venture system today rewards check size, not risk-taking. It rewards latecomers, not early believers. And I believe that needs to change.

We should be incentivizing early risk-taking investors — not just those with the biggest checkbooks.

That’s why I want to stand alongside an army of small investors, people who want to join me in taking big swings at the “very beginning” and have locked-in advantages when those swings connect and turn into the next Uber or Airbnb.

If we build a game that is both universally accessible and winnable, we can change the future of venture.

Accessible means anyone can participate, regardless of their net worth. Winnable means early believers are rewarded, not pushed aside.

I want to help build a true meritocracy in venture and entrepreneurship. Because that’s the world I want to live in.

Hope to see you next Tuesday at the Reveal!

-gerry ([email protected])