Games That Make You Smarter

Start-up Diaries

Screen when recording — In our last (which also happened to be our first) Tech Tips newsletter I talked about the hardware we used for podcasting. What about the software? Glad you asked! You could use GarageBand, but I wouldn’t. Although it comes free with a Mac, I had found the sound quality using […]

Tech Tips: Software for Podcast Recording

July 11, 2016 in Start-up Diaries / Tech Tips by AnnMaria De Mars

menu for simulator showing movement options as if it was an actual phone — The new game we are developing is for iPhones, which presents a very slight problem or two. First, I have very bad eyesight so it is a hardship for me to test on the phone. Second, there are a lot of activities that would be so much simpler if I had […]

Quick Tech Tip: Your iPhone Simulator

July 10, 2016 in Start-up Diaries / Tech Tips by AnnMaria De Mars

very large, brown pig — Often when I say things like, “I’m going back to the reservation to get input from people who will use these games.” or “This game should be able to run on whatever bandwidth you can get next to a corn field.” people think I am speaking metaphorically. No. Picture of […]

Who Does Game Testing in a Corn Field?

July 9, 2016 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Last week, I had the honor of attending the Small Business Administration’s Hispanic-American Entrepreneurship Summit in Washington, D.C. Organized by SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet and her office, the day-long Summit featured speakers at the highest levels in government, with the U.S. Secretaries of Commerce, Labor, Education, Agriculture and the Interior […]

Reflections on the SBA’s Hispanic-American Entrepreneurship Summit

July 6, 2016 in 7GenGames / Start-up Diaries by Maria Burns Ortiz

Podcast setup with mikes and headsets and audio boxes — Trying to decide what would be the best topics for our newsletters and blog posts, we surveyed our mailing list (I am a statistician, after all), asking people to pick from one of four choices why they follow 7 Generation Games on social media, read our newsletters, etc. Education Start-up/tech […]

Tech Tips: Podcasting 101

July 3, 2016 in Start-up Diaries / Tech Tips by AnnMaria De Mars

buildings — When I was a kid, I always wondered what people did in those big office buildings. How did they learn how to do those jobs, whatever they were? How did they get those jobs? What do they wear? I knew what teachers did, since I went to school, and doctors, […]

How We Can Help Your Kids Become Successful Entrepreneurs

June 29, 2016 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

cat — When I get discouraged about the pace of ‘traction’ at 7 Generation Games, I remember an interview with one of the founders of Google. He said that it did not bother him in the early years that Google did not have a lot of users because they were working on […]

Cats on the Head & Other Start-up Tales

June 19, 2016 in AnnMaria / Game Progress / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

teacher saying "Correct" — It’s been a crazy week here at 7 Generation Games. Maria was first at the Native Innovation Ed Tech Summit debuting our new game, and then at the White House speaking on a panel on women entrepreneurs. As for most of the rest of our crew, we have been busy […]

What CEOs can learn from elementary school teachers

June 15, 2016 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Buffalo in a field with lake in the background — I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – coding 16 hours a day for weeks on end looks far cooler on TV and hurts your back far less than in real life. To make a long story short … we needed to create an app in a few […]

Sorry I didn’t return your call/ text/ email/ carrier pigeon

June 9, 2016 in AnnMaria / Game Progress / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

There is such thing as a stupid question. We make a point to NOT ask them when interviewing job candidates at 7 Generation Games. Here’s why… I read one of those articles going around this week about a guy who interviewed at Microsoft and was hit with one of those […]

Why We Don’t Ask Ridiculous Interview Questions

May 20, 2016 in Start-up Diaries by Maria Burns Ortiz

Characters with dog traveling across a map — Confess! Do all of you people have early morning meetings, before I am awake, planning how to irritate me? We have been focused on letting as many people as possible know about our games, including our new release, Forgotten Trail. We write blogs, have a mailing list, exhibit at events, […]

Excuse me, I must be really stupid

May 19, 2016 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

ice cream cone — A few years ago, I happened to be in Vermont on a tour of the Ben and Jerry’s factory because, hello, ice cream! When our tour guide told the story about the company, there were lots of oohs from the audience about the romantic American dream story of the early […]

Let’s Kill the Myth of the Entrepreneur

May 6, 2016 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars