Community As An Investment

Dreamers & Doers is investing entrepreneurial womxn leaders through community

Eve #WealthWednesday Highlight #10: Gesche Haas, Founder and CEO - Dreamers & Doers?

Meet Gesche Haas, an entrepreneur, investor, mentor, and advisor who is the Founder/CEO of Dreamers & Doers?, a private collective that amplifies the entrepreneurial pursuits of extraordinary women through thought leadership opportunities, authentic connection, and access. Dreamers & Doers? has built a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem of over 33K women globally.

Prior to founding Dreamers & Doers?, Gesche held senior positions at several venture-backed startups in roles covering growth, strategy, finance, business operations and business development. She also spent five years as an investor at a healthcare-focused hedge fund (~$3bn AUM, SAC spin-off). Gesche is half German, half Chinese-Malaysian, and was born in Africa.

We dive into investing in people, building and growing a global community of women and entrepreneurs, angel investing, and breaking down our own limiting beliefs.

What was your first-ever investment? If you can remember what it was and what had got you started.

I worked at a hedge fund for half a decade. I was on the investment side of a healthcare-focused hedge fund that came out of SAC. Right out of college, I had the chance to learn the investment process hands on from a professional perspective. It was interesting because it allowed me to go really in-depth with access to more resources, which you don’t always get a chance to do on a personal level. While I was there, I was able to dive into a lot of short hedge fund research across all kinds of industries and own my own stock.?

I managed a fund through JP Morgan and then invested into a female-founded company called FORT?, which streams boutique fitness classes and is the only turnkey premium live and on-demand streaming white-label digital solution. My first personal investment outside of the public markets was an angel investment into Forte! Overall, I think that FORT? has benefited strongly from the pandemic since people have been working out at home.

From the beginning, I thought to myself, FORT? has an amazing founder and CEO in Lauren Foundos. With angel investments like that, you really have to believe in the founders. Even if the mission of the company pivots and the verdict on your investment is still out, you have to believe in the people you’re investing in, not just the idea of the company. It’s an important thing to keep in mind with angel investments, that they’re riskier in some ways. You have more ups and downs, but you also have more upside when you take risks. With FORT?, we can't say for sure that it's a financially successful investment, but for me, it is already successful and I’m feeling very positive and confident about it.?

How/why did you get into your space?

At Dreamers & Doers?, we support extraordinary, entrepreneurial women with our values-driven community, offer PR opportunities, and intentionally create and grow a diverse ecosystem. As I mentioned earlier, I have a background as an investor and I have worked for a few early-stage startups -- but nothing that you do can prepare you for starting a company from scratch! As a first-time founder, there's just so much you learn for the first time on the go. I think you just really need to network, for both tangible resources and for intangible resources.?

Sometimes you have hard days, but that’s part of being an entrepreneur. You have to keep going and know that you’re not alone in your dreams or your entrepreneurial journey. Reminding myself I’m not the only one dreaming and building is always so helpful and reassuring. In a way, Dreamers & Doers? started because of a personal need - I wanted to create space and community that would connect and uplift women and entrepreneurs.

While I was working on a different company, Dreamers & Doers? very organically took on a life of its own. People sometimes ask me, “How did you come up with the idea for your community?” I really think it's more that the idea found me and once it was planted in my mind and I started building it, I couldn't stop. And now I've been doing it for eight years!?

What role do you play in the wealth space and why is it important?

I think we can each invest in many different ways. Traditionally, we only talk about investing money. Personally, I don't think we talk enough about investing our knowledge, our time, and our energy in other people, particularly in other women. At this point, I have done a few angel investments into companies and funds I believe in, but I also view Dreamers and Doers? as a way of investing in other entrepreneurs through the network I've been able to create over the years.?

Securing financial capital is so essential, especially for women and minorities who still don't get enough of it. I really believe that a pat on the back and quick advice can sometimes only go so far when someone is looking for support or just getting started. However, I do believe that we can increase our own wealth and the opportunities we each have access to by leaning into building our networks and investing in community resources. Providing access to these kinds of networks and resources allow for each of our impacts and dreams to ripple out.

One way we achieve this effect is to emphasize and provide PR opportunities to our community. As founders, we can spend a lot of money on a PR agency, which isn’t always the best use of our time and budget. We never aim to fully replace that option, but I personally know that it’s especially challenging when you’re early on in your entrepreneurial journey. Being able to get PR support and advice and opportunities from your network and your community becomes a validation of your dreams, which is so important. That confidence can really transform you just like getting capital can. Getting the word out and spotlighting what you’re building really helps you boost people’s awareness of what you’re building and working towards.?

What do you believe is the most exciting thing you’ve learned and want others to know?

I think it's so important to think about and reframe the definition of success and what it looks like. In our case, we intentionally bootstrapped Dreamers and Doers? and didn't take outside funding from investors that only cared about finances. In our society today, people often celebrate and “cheerlead” things like getting outside capital or securing that job that your parents will be so proud of you for getting. When I quit my hedge fund job to go over to the startup world, my parents thought I was crazy. At the same time, I couldn’t and didn’t let that deter me. Women did not have many spaces to talk about their money goals and their dreams and ambitions. Women are still more likely to be considered greedy if they go after money. Which is so silly! I think it's so important to create and grow our own wealth, but I think we also need to ask ourselves and determine: “What is our own definition of success? What does it look like for me?”

Some of the wealthiest people I know are the most unhappy people. There are so many different ways of defining wealth and success and how you can create it. I like saying I would rather fail at something I love than succeed at something that's robbed me of my entire soul. I would encourage you to pause and ask yourself, “How have you obtained your wealth and is it aligned with your own values?”?

Who is a person or company that inspires you in the space and why?

I love companies that focus on social good and make their profitability sustainable. There used to be a company I was so obsessed with and idolized. I would always think to myself, “I wish my company was more like that.” And then I had this insane fortune to sit next to their former CEO at a lunch! He had taken the company public and I congratulated him and initiated a conversation. I remember asking him, “When you were working for the company what percentage was drudgery to you versus like where were you actually truly happy?” I was surprised when he said "80% was horrible".?

It made me realize that even if we admire someone or something from the outside, we only have half of the story. I think admiration for what others are working on is so important because it can inspire each of us, but we can’t let it come at the cost of us not embracing our own journey and going our own way. Everyone’s journey has parts that will suck and will be a painful learning experience when mistakes are made. Being very cognizant of what is challenging us and consciously embracing the highs and lows helps us pause and understand each part of our journey is our own. The grass really isn't always greener on the other side.?

What advice would you give to someone getting started?

Maybe this was just my journey as a woman in investing and community building space, but we're still conditioned to think about what we should be doing. Even when you’re not an entrepreneur, or you're working with someone else, or you’re still in school, we frequently doubt ourselves and often ask: “What do I need to do to get good grades? What do I need to do to get promoted? What do I need to do to make my boss happy?” Your wealth journey and your entrepreneurial journey are going to be personal to you, so you can’t set out to do things for someone else instead of living for yourself.

I needed to do a lot of deep reprogramming and spend a lot of time reflecting. I realized I needed to get to know myself better. I started journaling more often and asked myself, “How was my day today? Why did I have a shitty day?” I wrote it all down line for line. I realized that while I enjoyed some things, I really didn't enjoy other things. I was able to more quickly identify moments where I was not aligned with my goals and caught myself not going in the right direction. I was able to let go of things to go after what I truly wanted.?

If you're going to invest your money, I think it's important to reflect and understand how you want to make sure your investments are values aligned. You’re not going to want to promote causes that aren't aligned with your values, so I definitely encourage you to dig deeper into where your investments are going. Investing can also be fun! You’ve got to figure out what industry, what vertical, you want to become an expert in and get to choose your own adventure in how you want to do it.?

I love that Eve Wealth does this by gathering women together in Circles as your partners in crime to deep dive on investing together. It’s so much more fun to explore and learn as a group! I think all together, investing in community with other women increases your chances of success. Being part of Eve and part of one of their Circles gives you accountability because it makes you stick to your goals and keep learning and investing in more of the things you’re curious about and care about.?

Anything else we should know?

We have an amazing monthly newsletter for Dreamers & Doers? that gets rave reviews from our community members. It’s for anyone who is an entrepreneur, at any stage of their journey. We carefully create and collect amazing resources for entrepreneurial women or anyone with their own business. Check out The Digest at dreamersdoers.com

#wealthwednesday #fintech #womenswealth #futureoffinance #investing #investmentcommunity #entrepreneurships

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Have thoughts on this week’s topic or questions for me or Gesche Haas? Post your thoughts in the comment section. Until next week. ??

You can connect with Gesche on LINKEDIN

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