For over 25 years, Gerry Hays has been working at the crossroads of entrepreneurship, education, and innovation — launching and exiting startups, mentoring early-stage founders, and teaching venture strategy and mindset everywhere from Indiana University to classrooms around the world. But Gerry isn’t just another serial founder.
After years of watching the capital markets become more exclusive and less effective, he decided to stop playing defense — and start building alternatives. He’s the founder of Doriot (Dor-ee-o), where he’s pioneering VentureStaking™ — a patent-pending, community-powered model for startup investing that flips the traditional system. He also created Fantasy Startup®, a gamified investing platform as addictive as fantasy sports, and QAI, a first-of-its-kind certification that offers a practical on-ramp to accredited investor status for the everyday person.
Gerry talks fast, thinks bold, and doesn’t hold back — especially when it comes to equity, access, and the future of investing. If you are interested in disruption, democratizing finance, or what’s really broken in venture capital, Gerry brings a conversation that doesn’t just observe change — he builds it.
