Stephen Hays built What If Ventures after his own recovery from addiction and bipolar disorder, and he has openly shared that story while spending nine months traveling coast to coast to map over 700 mental health startups before investing, with a focus on helping people at the more severe end of the mental health spectrum move toward stability. His path from West Point to Wall Street to family-office investing, along with hosting the Stigma Podcast and testing mental health tools himself as both patient and investor, gives him a hands-on, personal way of evaluating founders and products rather than relying on a standard pitch deck alone.