How Do You Fund a Business After 50 Without Venture Capital? AnnMaria De Mars on Bootstrapping 7 Generation Games

Episode Summary

Most women over 50 who want to start a business don't have angel investors lining up — and AnnMaria De Mars, founder of 7 Generation Games, didn't either. In this episode of Build Your Own Boat, De Mars explains exactly how she funded her math-and-culture-based educational game company without a single six-figure investor check: SBIR federal research grants, three Kickstarter campaigns, two seed rounds through startup accelerators, crowd equity raises, and dozens of friends who each invested $5,000 to $20,000. A world judo champion turned statistician, professor, and programmer, De Mars founded 7 Generation Games at 57 and shows why perseverance, deep community relationships, and a willingness to "do hard things" — lessons she learned competing internationally in judo — are the real predictors of entrepreneurial success in midlife, not access to venture capital.

Guest Bio

AnnMaria De Mars is a technology executive, statistician, author, and the first American to win a gold medal at the World Judo Championships (1984, -56kg). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside, and has built a career spanning industrial engineering, university statistics teaching, and software development. She has founded four companies, including Spirit Lake Consulting and The Julia Group, and is the co-founder and president of 7 Generation Games, an educational technology company she launched at age 57 that builds cross-curricular math games rooted in Latino, Indigenous, and U.S. history storylines. Her latest venture, 7 Gen Blocks, is a no-code educational game builder — "WordPress for educational games" — that lets anyone build a custom learning game without programming knowledge. De Mars has been named one of Forbes' 40 Women to Watch Over 40, is an AARP Purpose Prize Fellow, and was the first woman to serve as president of a national judo organization. She is also known as the mother of Olympic judo bronze medalist and former UFC champion Ronda Rousey, and of sports journalist María Burns Ortiz, who co-founded 7 Generation Games alongside her.

Key Takeaways

• Non-dilutive funding, like SBIR grants, is often the best money a startup can get. Unlike venture capital, small business innovation research grants don't require giving up equity, yet many founders overlook them because they don't carry the same prestige as a seed round.
• Perseverance built through years of high-stakes competition transfers directly to entrepreneurship. De Mars credits 14 years of international judo competition with teaching her that success takes years, not months, and that setbacks along the way are normal, not signs of failure.
• Starting a company as a side hustle while keeping a paying job reduces risk during the leanest years. De Mars recommends bootstrapping, working without pay when needed, and scaling back lifestyle costs rather than waiting for outside investment to arrive.
• Older founders have a funding advantage most people overlook: a wider network of financially stable friends. Instead of waiting for one investor to write a six-figure check, De Mars raised her first seed round from a large group of friends who each contributed $5,000–$20,000.
• Relationships built over decades — not just age itself — open doors in education and rural communities. In many Indigenous communities in particular, De Mars found that gray hair signals authority and trustworthiness rather than irrelevance, and long-standing local relationships made it possible to get schools to test her products.
• Owning your own code, rather than building on top of a third-party AI platform, protects a startup from unpredictable price hikes. 7 Generation Games uses AI tools like Gemini and Adobe Firefly to assist with content creation but keeps its core game-building technology proprietary so pricing and product control stay in-house.

Episode Notes

AnnMaria De Mars has lived what looks on paper like five separate careers — industrial engineer, world champion judoka, math professor, statistician, and software developer — but she describes them all as variations on the same skill set: math, probability, and programming. The exception, she says with a laugh, is judo, though even there she approached competition by studying probability and looking for underused strategies rather than "the prettiest" way to win.

She and Janine dig into what 14 years of elite judo competition — in a sport where, as De Mars puts it, "people can legally knock you down, choke you unconscious, and break your arm" — taught her about building a business later in life. The biggest lesson: perseverance. Success isn't a straight line, and the willingness to "do hard things" repeatedly, for a long time, is what actually separates successful founders from everyone else.

De Mars founded 7 Generation Games at 57, growing it out of Spirit Lake Consulting, a firm she co-founded on the Spirit Lake Nation in North Dakota. The company makes math-teaching games woven into Latino, Indigenous, and U.S. history storylines, aimed at helping students — particularly those in grades three through eight — avoid falling behind in math before they even realize it's closing doors to careers like engineering, architecture, or medicine.

The conversation turns candid around funding. De Mars walks through every method she used to finance the company since traditional investors weren't interested in an idea "scratched on a napkin" from a founder who, in her words, doesn't "look like Mark Zuckerberg." That included multiple SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grant phases, three Kickstarter campaigns, two accelerator-based seed rounds (through an ed-tech accelerator in Salt Lake City and Start-Up Chile), crowd equity raises, and — critically — a large group of friends who each invested smaller amounts. She makes the case that being older is actually a fundraising advantage: by your 50s, you likely know people in stable careers who can afford to invest a few thousand dollars, even if no one is writing six-figure checks.

De Mars also traces 7 Generation Games' customer pivots: from selling directly to parents, to school and district bulk sales, to its current model of custom game development for tribal nations, nonprofits, and federal agencies, and now to 7 Gen Blocks — a no-code platform anyone can use to build their own educational game, similar to building a blog on WordPress.

The episode closes on two important threads: how age and long-standing community relationships have functioned as an asset rather than a liability in her work with Indigenous communities and rural schools, and why — despite building an "AI-integrated" product — De Mars and her team ultimately chose to own their proprietary code rather than build their platform on top of a third-party AI service, after watching what happens to businesses that lose control when a platform they depend on changes its pricing or rules.

She closes with direct advice for the woman in her 50s who is done with the corporate job search and considering starting something of her own: build it on the side while you still have income, get comfortable operating on much less money than you think you need, and delay hiring until it's genuinely painful not to.

FAQ

How did AnnMaria De Mars fund 7 Generation Games without venture capital?

She combined multiple funding sources: several rounds of federal SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grants, three Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns, two seed rounds through startup accelerators (an ed-tech accelerator in Salt Lake City and Start-Up Chile), crowd equity raises, and personal investments from a large network of friends who each contributed between $5,000 and $20,000.

What is 7 Generation Games?

7 Generation Games is an educational technology company that creates math-teaching video games woven into Latino, Indigenous, and U.S. history storylines. Roughly 90% of its users are students in grades three through eight, though the company also builds custom games for tribal nations, nonprofits, libraries, and federal agencies.

What is 7 Gen Blocks?

7 Gen Blocks is a no-code educational game builder from 7 Generation Games that lets anyone — regardless of programming experience — build their own custom educational game, similar to creating a blog on WordPress. Users can incorporate AI tools for narrative and artwork generation, then build and publish the game using the no-code platform.

Is being an older entrepreneur an advantage or a disadvantage when raising money?

According to De Mars, it's an advantage. By your 50s, you typically have a wider network of friends in stable financial positions who can invest smaller amounts, plus decades of professional relationships that create trust and open doors — particularly in education and rural or Indigenous communities, where long-standing relationships and age itself often carry more authority and credibility.

Why did 7 Generation Games decide not to build its platform fully on third-party AI infrastructure?

De Mars explains that becoming financially and technically dependent on a third-party AI provider creates risk: if that provider raises prices — which many AI companies are expected to do since most are currently unprofitable — a business built entirely on that infrastructure has to raise its own prices or lose its margins. By owning their core code and using AI selectively for content like narrative or artwork, 7 Generation Games keeps control over its own pricing and product roadmap.

Resource Stack

• 7 Generation Games — educational math games rooted in cultural storylines
• 7 Gen Blocks — no-code educational game builder discussed in this episode
• SBIR.gov — federal Small Business Innovation Research grant program referenced as a non-dilutive funding source
• Kickstarter — crowdfunding platform used for three 7 Generation Games campaigns
• TCA Venture Group, formerly Tech Coast Angels — West Coast angel investor network mentioned in the funding discussion
• Start-Up Chile — startup accelerator program where 7 Generation Games completed a seed round
• AnnMaria De Mars — Wikipedia — background on her judo career and biography

Where to Find AnnMaria De Mars

1. Website: 7generationgames.com
2. 7 Gen Blocks (no-code game builder):  https://7genblocks.com/
3. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/annmaria-de-mars-3549606
4. Instagram: @annmaria7gen

About Build Your Own Boat

Build Your Own Boat is a podcast series hosted by Janine Vanderburg — award-winning three-time entrepreneur and anti-ageism advocate — featuring women who have launched new entrepreneurial ventures in midlife and beyond. The series is part of a larger storytelling project that includes a Substack publication and a forthcoming book, all built around one goal: changing the narrative about who entrepreneurs are and making women in midlife and beyond visible as builders of wealth, freedom, and possibility.

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