CG Magazine promises to give you insights of entrepreneurs everywhere, highlighting real-time tools “without the corporate lingo and red tape.” The team’s focus is to help dreamers become doers.
“Niched into the entrepreneur and startup lifestyle, CG focuses on the gray area that makes or breaks entrepreneurs,” said CG Magazine Senior Editor Lee Constantine. “The idea was birthed from the experiences as entrepreneurs ourselves and after years of working with other businesses, startups from across the country and watching the ins and outs of our founder, Michael Durant, who had an AHA moment. He calls it “the gray area” that can only be realized by those that have faced all the excitement and pains of being an entrepreneur, losing everything putting it all on the line and leaving nothing on the table.”
The team calls this moment Creating Genius.
“It evolved from a blog with some traction into a company focused on helping others release their genius, which we decided our first platform will be an online digital publication. The release of our website is only the first step,” Lee Constantine explained.
The team consists of Michael Durant, Editor-in-Chief and Founder, who has over 10 years of experience online media and publishing.
“His first fully funded venture was SOREAL Magazine, which they obtained funding of over $250,000 in 2010,” said Lee Constantine. “Michael has work as interim CMO for businesses and startups for over 7 years. His brand-building and promotional success are attributed to his ability to create demand for products and services. With more than a decade of strategic planning for businesses, start-ups, entrepreneurs and nonprofits, Durant knows how to convert casual lookers into raving fans by utilizing his mastery of imagination, creative design, style, colors, and brand imagery.”
Lee Constantine fills the role of Senior Editor, and is a marketing specialist and has helped various startups downtown Las Vegas, San Francisco Bay Area, and Grand Rapids, MI with growth and branding strategies through inbound marketing and content creation.
“In the coming months, we are looking to bring on many more writers and contributors to Creating Genius,” he said. “We have been reaching out to entrepreneurs and influencers here in Vegas and across the country, we have received great support and the content is in the plenty. We need a team to sustain the quality of our publication while we grow. We also plan to bring on a new Publisher, Nathan Smith, who is an entrepreneur based in Vegas, however an Australian native. Smith is an authority in the areas of business coaching, making good businesses great, accounting, operations, sales and marketing. He brings the needed operations and financial structure to our company.”
Lee Constantine says he and his team saw the opportunity to bridge the gap between the downtown and the outside-downtown Las Vegas community.
“We see a light shining out of Las Vegas that will bring Vegas to the next era of tech, creative and well educated people build a future that is born here but released to the world,” he said. “With Las Vegas being an international city it the perfect platform and we are the perfect doer’s to see it happen.”
CG Magazine also wants to become more involved with local community.
“Our Editor & Chief and founder Michael Durant has been a part of mentoring new startups and has join the roster of Recess and Rocketeers to help up-and-coming entrepreneurs overcome the some of the hurdles they will and are facing,” Lee Constantine said.
“We are deeply embedded into the downtown Vegas culture and feel that with the growing entrepreneur and tech, creative, and arts communities, our publication will fit in well and be the platform to help get these ideas to spread,” he added. “We are a complement to other media outlets here and have already begun making partnerships with them. We are also a complement to other Vegas media channels that allow us to syndicate content and develop more partnerships that give us an even stronger presence in the media industry. The other media channels that appeal not just to entrepreneurs in Vegas, but at a national level as well. These are possible partners we are looking to connect with and serve more entrepreneurs everywhere.”
One outlet CG Magazine is partnering with is Downtown Podcast, filmed each week in downtown Las Vegas.
“The Downtown Podcast is a great influence in the downtown community and we wanted to connect with them to reach similar goals,” Lee Constantine said. “We feel that we are a great complement to help one another and we can obtain something bigger by working together. A partnership just made sense. Evelyn Sabino, Marketing Director and talented writer at the Downtown Podcast contributes articles to CG of guests on the show. The content provides so much value to CG readers and we help the Podcast reach more people on our digital medium. At the same time, CG is able to add a new medium in the form of broadcasting.”
To view an example of the Downtown Podcast and CG Magazine’s partnership, check out “Velveteen Bar: A Case of Sibling Thrive-alry” by Evelyn Marie Sabino.
He says host and creator Dylan Jorgensen and the entire team of volunteers created a great show highlighting the intelligent and creative personality of the Downtown Las Vegas community.
“The Downtown Podcast culture and Dylan’s hosting personality combined with the creative design and content of CG Magazine will help us grow our reach and influence far beyond the downtown community,” he said.
“We truly believe that the future will be based on true grit and the entrepreneur spirit. To reach the masses with an idea, you first have to connect with them,” he said. “Creating relationships in the community is the number one goal right now. The biggest help comes in support of our guiding purpose to help more dreamers become doers. CG just wants to be involved, we want to hear their stories and their struggles, and become a catalyst for their success.”