Start-up Diaries

Earlier this month I attended a Tech Coast Venture Network event on Crowfunding that was hosted by Howard Leonhardt. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this event, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to go listen to some pointers from someone who has raised over $145 million to crowdfund new inventions and startups […]

How to Succeed at Reaching Your Crowdfunding Goal

October 31, 2014 in 7GenGames / Start-up Diaries / Women in Tech tagged crowdfunding / entrepreneur / Lenard Leonhardt / successful businesses by admin

Maria Burns Ortiz - NAHJ — Whether or not people decide to give you money — whether you’re talking about investors or customers — begins with your pitch. In short, if you can’t tell people what your product does, what problem it solves and who is going to use it, the odds of your company getting […]

Pitch Perfect: Why A Good Pitch Is Essential and How ...

October 27, 2014 in Start-up Diaries by Maria Burns Ortiz

tank — If I see one more tweet, video or Facebook post lamenting “if only there were women making games” or “how do we get women in technology”, I think I am going to go all Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto and steal a car loaded with weapons […]

What do women in tech need to do to get ...

October 26, 2014 in AnnMaria / Founders Corner / Start-up Diaries / Women in Tech tagged Women in Tech / Women that make video games by AnnMaria De Mars

This week I had the opportunity to attend the Tech Coast Venture Network event on Crowfunding with Howard Leonhardt (who I will discuss in my next blog). At the beginning of the event, TCVN hosted an elevator pitch contest that was followed by a short session on how to create […]

The key to a great elevator pitch is not rocket ...

October 17, 2014 in 7GenGames / Start-up Diaries tagged Elevator Pitch / TCVN / Tech Cost Venture Network by admin

For any startup founder, networking is ridiculously high on the list of things you need to do. For us at 7 Generation Games, that means attending and/or participating in a lot of events. As we continue to grow (if you want to buy a copy of our games, go […]

Meaningful Meetups

October 7, 2014 in 7GenGames / Start-up Diaries by Maria Burns Ortiz

I was at an awesome networking event on Monday night put on by Pay It Forward Labs. As we were waiting to speak to some of the expert mentors on hand (I spoke with Amplify.LA’s incredibly awesome, helpful and insightful Richard Wolpert), the guy next to me likened the whole experience […]

Networks in the Off-Line Sense

October 1, 2014 in 7GenGames / Start-up Diaries by Maria Burns Ortiz

Deer Scales

August 31, 2014 in 7GenGames / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Los Angeles NCLR — With expertise in bilingual education, part of my job here at 7 Generation Games is to not just attend and demonstrate the games at events, but also give my input on where are the appropriate places to spend our limited marketing dollars. The NCLR 2014 (National Council of La Raza) National […]

National Latino Family Expo – great event to attend but ...

August 29, 2014 in 7GenGames / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Being an entrepreneur means multi-tasking, so here I am for the second day beta-testing evrybit, attending the Unite 2014 conference and writing this blog while Diana, our blogging intern, is off doing intern things. As far as beta testing, it is good for me to do it for other products […]

Unite 2014 and my second day of Evrybit testing

August 21, 2014 in 7GenGames / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

I believe that every software project has to comply with a law best shown in the chart below. If you get something done right away, it will be very far from perfect. On the other hand, the perfect software never gets done. Every software project that I have ever worked […]

Done is better than perfect

August 11, 2014 in 7GenGames / Dog food / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

It is the end of June, which means that summer is here again and the weather in Los Angeles could not be any more beautiful! The markets are brimming with fresh, seasonal produce, the boutiques with the latest travel and swimwear styles, the beaches with Angeleans and vacationers alike working […]

Summer is Here Again!

June 26, 2014 in 7GenGames / Start-up Diaries by admin

Last post was what we accomplished. We also learned a lot, I think. First of all, when we do this again, we will be clearer up front about how much time we expect to spend on the project. I think most of us did not realize how much this week was […]

Lessons learned from anti-hackathon

June 15, 2014 in 7GenGames / Dog food / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

Games That Make You Smarter