Video Games and Funding Techniques with Howard Marks

Howard Marks ran two video game companies in the 90’s: Activision and Acclaim. While running these companies, he developed a love for entrepreneurship that he maintains today. Howard is the CEO of StartEngine, a company that functions as an accelerator, a crowdfunding platform, and ICO launcher.

Howard joins the show to talk about his background as an entrepreneur, as well as some modern alternative funding mechanisms that he’s working on at StartEngine. Hearing Howard’s thoughts on building a video game company in the 90’s was particularly new information to me–it’s an era of software development that we have not covered much at all.

As a side note–some listeners have asked recently why we cover subjects such as ICOs, when there have been so many dubious companies that have launched ICOs.

There are two reasons why we cover this area. Firstly, cryptocurrencies are a breakthrough computer science construct. It’s important for us to try to understand their implications. The other reason why we cover ICOs is that some technology companies require high upfront capital costs. The amount of capital you have available affects the speed at which your engineering team can move. New funding mechanisms could mean more capital for certain types of software companies–and this could be a good thing and a bad thing, depending on the company.

Transcript

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