On the Zoom call from Chicago, he leaned in, the brim of a black cap stitched with the word “ARMY” casting a shadow across his face. The cap was a reminder of where he began, a military officer before becoming a securities lawyer, before drafting legislation to be presented by members of Congress before the House and the Senate Subcommittees, before setting out plans to build the first venture stock exchange in the United States, which were aligned with the legislation to allow the creation of venture stock exchanges.
His eyes were steady, soft yet fixed with attention. He spoke with the ease of someone who had lived the flaws of the system he was describing. No ums, no ahs. Just a measured flow, calm, certain, practiced.
“The Shark Tank is the bane of my existence,” he said, before I had even pulled up the Google Doc with my questions. Caught off guard, I told him we would get to that, feeling suddenly pressed to start.
That was where our conversation began: blunt, urgent, and deeply personal.
Q
Q: From your perspective, what’s wrong with the way today’s financial system works for innovators?
A
Joe Cecala: Finance today is built on tearing down rather than building up. I saw early in my career that the system was not designed to nurture the people with ideas. Instead, it was designed to strip value away from them. When you watch how deals are negotiated, so much of it is about diminishing the entrepreneur, taking as much of their idea as possible, and handing it to someone who only has the effort of writing a check. That kind of environment is destructive. It is what I’d call dog-eat-dog. The source of creativity has to be nurtured, cultivated, and supported, or everybody suffers.
You can see it in one of the most famous business stories in America. Apple decided that Steve Jobs was no longer relevant. They got rid of the source of creativity. And what happened? The company suffered until he went off and created Pixar. That’s what creators do. They create. And if you don’t support them, if you cut them out, you lose. In Apple’s case, they ultimately had to bring him back, because the vision and imagination that built the company in the first place was the only thing that could save it.
That is what our capital markets are doing every day: ignoring or pushing out the people who actually create. And the danger is real, because when you get rid of the creator, you cut off the very engine that produces growth.
Q
Q: Can you share a metaphor that helps paint the reality that entrepreneurs face when seeking investors?
A
Joe Cecala: Well this isn’t really a metaphor, it’s reality. The Shark Tank is the bane of my existence. It’s extremely wealthy people negotiating to diminish, to tear down, to take from the creator. Mark Cuban once offered to buy a guy’s company for $30 million on the show. He wouldn’t sell, and now it’s worth $700 million. Everybody thinks, “If I could just get on the Shark Tank.” No. The whole point of being called the Shark Tank is they’re going to eat you. I used to caution entrepreneurs, especially the really good people who were trying to create. If Shark Tank were honest they’d say to them, “Be aware, you are the meal. We’re not here to help you. We’re here to take as much of your good idea and transfer it to somebody who only has the effort of writing a check.”
This is what we deal with today, an approach that results in the creator with the idea left with scraps. They lose control, they lose equity, and in many cases they lose the ability to even shape what they created. Instead of helping the entrepreneur grow, the system treats them like food for the powerful. That is not how you build an economy of innovation. That is how you kill possibility before it has a chance to breathe, and that’s why we need a market that builds up innovators instead of feeding on them.
Q
Q: This is quite an aggressive stance against a well-established institution. Do you anticipate any resistance?
A
Joe Cecala: I don’t view our work as aggressive. Our approach is collaborative and incremental. We are executing a two-phase plan that complements the current market structure: first, deliver competition and efficiency through operational excellence; second, advance a purpose-driven venue focused on the capital-access gap envisioned by the Main Street Growth Act.
We welcome scrutiny. The right way to earn trust is with clear, honest, direct communication, and by avoiding polarizing rhetoric. We are not here to pick fights with incumbents. We won’t seek out a fight, but we will stand up for what we believe in. Our focus is on facts, compliance, and constructive engagement with market participants and regulators.
Change will always draw criticism, and we expect tough questions from those who resist positive change. When that happens, we explain the objective and listen. Most stakeholders respond well when they understand how our plan serves investors, issuers, and market integrity. Our posture remains partnership and proof, not opposition.
Q
Q: What are the broader consequences for our economy and communities when innovators can’t access public markets?
A
Joe Cecala: When innovators are shut out, the whole country pays the price. The disappearance of IPOs for emerging growth companies has meant fewer businesses making it into the public markets. And when a company cannot go public, it cannot scale. For emerging growth companies, historically more than 90 percent of their job creation has taken place after going public. That means when innovators don’t have access to capital, jobs that should exist never get created.
Communities suffer too. If you are in a town where a local business could have grown, raised money publicly, and hired, that money would have stayed in your economy. Instead, it gets concentrated in giant firms that already dominate Wall Street. The public markets were supposed to be a lifeline for the next generation of businesses, but the way they function today has turned them into a closed circle. That loss of opportunity drains energy out of the very communities that built America’s prosperity.
“Instead of helping the entrepreneur grow, the system treats them like food for the powerful. That is not how you build an economy of innovation. That is how you kill possibility before it has a chance to breathe.” – Joe Cecala
Q
Q: In your view, how has the structure of today’s markets changed what gets rewarded, and what gets overlooked?
A
Joe Cecala: The exchanges today are built to reward speed and volume. This is called trading arbitrage, where you buy a share for let’s say $100.01 and sell it for $100.02 nearly instantaneously. If you do that millions of times a day, you make a fortune. The technology exists to make money in nanoseconds, and that is where the focus is.
But that does nothing to support the innovator who is trying to bring something new to the world. If you are a small company with an incredible idea, you cannot generate that kind of trading activity. You get sidelined, not because you lack value, but because the system wasn’t built for you. A company that could have the cure for cancer will be overlooked simply because it doesn’t produce trading speed. That is what I mean when I say the system ignores possibility. It is not curious about innovation. It is only curious about velocity.
Q
Q: How does Dream Exchange create a different path for innovators compared to traditional stock exchanges?
A
Joe Cecala: Our role now includes regulating the buying and selling of existing public companies, but our mission goes far beyond that. What we are building is a marketplace designed for capital formation. We want to make it possible for entrepreneurial ventures to raise the amounts they actually need, whether that’s 10 million or 50 million, without being excluded because they can’t start at half a billion.
The Dream Exchange is meant to function as a new town square, a free marketplace of ideas. My Director of Research once suggested it be called the “agora exchange,” after the ancient Greek gathering place where citizens could meet, trade, and build. That is what we are creating. A place where innovators and investors can come together openly, without barriers, so the next great companies can be born and grow into the firms that define America’s future.
Joseph J. Cecala & Dwain J. Kyles of Dream Exchange
Q
Q: Legislation like the Main Street Growth Act has been central to your mission. Why is it so important for making Dream Exchange possible?
A
Joe Cecala: The Main Street Growth Act provides the legal foundation for what we are doing. It creates the framework for venture exchanges, which are specifically designed to serve entrepreneurial firms. Without it, innovators are forced to fit into a system built for Fortune 500 companies, and that simply doesn’t work.
The Act matters because it restores better access to the public markets for small and mid-sized companies. When you are public, you don’t need permission to sell. You don’t need an intermediary to approve your decision. You can sell your shares directly to the people who believe in your vision; early supporters, customers, employees, or long-term investors who want to grow with you. That’s what true “freedom” looks like. By creating venture exchanges, the Act ensures that this “freedom” extends to innovators and investors who have been left out of the system for too long.
Q
Q: What will Dream Exchange mean not only for entrepreneurs, but also for everyday investors and communities across America?
A
Joe Cecala: For everyday investors, it means having access to opportunities that have been locked away in private markets. Right now, the average person doesn’t get to invest in a company until it’s already massive. By then, most of the wealth creation has already happened. Dream Exchange changes that. It opens the door earlier, when the companies are still growing, so investors can share in that journey.
For communities, the impact is even bigger. When a local company can raise capital publicly, that money stays in the community. It creates jobs, it fuels growth, and it spreads prosperity. This isn’t about Wall Street trading in nanoseconds. This is about building real businesses in real places, and giving every community in America a chance to benefit from the wealth public markets can create.
Q
Q: Looking ahead, what’s your vision for the role Dream Exchange will play in shaping the future of America’s economy?
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Joe Cecala: My vision is that Dream Exchange becomes the home for the next generation of innovators. I want it to be the marketplace that restores the opportunities for small to mid-sized companies, thereby increasing the “fairness” in the system. Once these opportunities are restored, the size of your company will no longer determine whether you can raise money. Instead, it is your creativity, your imagination, and your potential that matter.
If we stop creating, we stop as a human race. Our survival depends on cultivating creativity, not destroying it. Dream Exchange is that open town square where possibility is born, where supporters and creators can come together, and where prosperity reaches every corner of America. That is the future I am working toward.
Follow Joe’s Journey
Who Is Joe Cecala?
Joe Cecala is the Founder and CEO of Dream Exchange. He is a civil rights lawyer, securities lawyer, CPA, and former military officer with deep expertise in securities compliance, corporate finance, and accounting. In the late 1990s, he served as legal counsel for the entity that ultimately morphed into Archipelago, one of the first electronic communication networks to trade securities, which later became the electronic infrastructure of the New York Stock Exchange.
Over his 30-year career practicing securities law, he has supported the growth and expansion of small businesses and conducted more than 100 capital events. In recent years, he authored and advanced the Main Street Growth Act through the U.S. Congress, briefing legislators on the need for venture stock exchanges and securing unanimous support. In 2018, he established the foundations to build the first venture stock exchange in the United States. That foundation led to the creation of Dream Exchange Holdings, Inc., which, when approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission, will be the first national stock exchange backed primarily by individual investors in the country.
