20VC: Unity Founder David Helgason on The Hypergrowth Early Days of Unity, Why Running A Company Is Like A Liberal Art, The Secret To A Successful CEO Transition and What Makes Roelof Botha Such A Special Board Member
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 29 October 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
David Helgason is the Founder @ Unity, the company that gives content creators the tools to create innovative RT3D experiences and deliver better processes for almost every industry. Prior to their IPO in 2020, Unity raised from the likes of Sequoia, Thrive, DFJ, SilverLake and then individuals including Max Levchin and VMWare's Diane Greene. If that was not enough, David is currently a Partner @ Nordic Makers, a group of ten top Nordic angels working together to be the best angel investors in the Nordics. David also serves on the board of Labster, Realm.io and Quizup.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How David made his way from founding Unity in a cafe in Denmark to the $10Bn+ public company it is today?
2.) How would David describe his leadership style? How has it changed over time? What were the biggest challenges David faced as the Founding CEO?
3.) What was the decision-making behind David's transition out of the CEO role? What was challenging? What was key to make the transition successful? How did David know John Riccitiello was the right person for the role? How does David advise other founders contemplating the same?
4.) How does David analyse his own board management style? What are the most important elements a board member can do to help the company and founder? What makes Roelof Botha such a special board member to have? How does David advise new board members today to be successful?
5.) Why does David believe running a company is like a liberal art? How does David think about the importance of vision? How does David assess the current state of the European tech landscape? What can be done to improve it? How can investor approach change for the better?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back. This is the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbing. |
| 0:02.8 | And on Monday, we released our episode with Roloff Botha, partner at Sequoia, and one of his great investments at Sequoia was Unity. |
| 0:08.8 | And so I thought it'd be awesome to welcome back Unity's founder, David Helgeson, to the hot seat today. |
| 0:13.7 | And so with that, I'm thrilled to introduce David, founder and board member at Unity today, |
| 0:17.9 | the company that gives content creators the tools to create innovative experiences |
| 0:21.5 | and deliver better processes for almost every industry. Prior to their IPO, Unity raged |
| 0:26.6 | from the likes of Sequoia, Thrive, DFJ, Silver Lake, and then incredible individuals like |
| 0:31.6 | Max Levchin and VMware's Diane Green. If that wasn't enough, David's currently a partner |
| 0:36.1 | at Nordic Makers, a group of 10 top Nordic |
| 0:38.7 | angels working together to be the best angel investors in the Nordics. David also serves on the board |
| 0:43.8 | of Labster, Realm.io, and QuizUp. I do also want to say huge thank you to a team of people who |
| 0:49.0 | made this schedule possible. Ari Helgeson, Paul Hayden, Hillmar at CCP Games, Barry Schuller at DFJ Growth. |
| 0:55.4 | I really do appreciate that and we have some awesome schedules here. |
| 0:58.9 | But before we move into the show today, I want to take a moment to mention HelloSign, |
| 1:02.4 | a great example of a company that found success in building a product focused on user experience. |
| 1:07.3 | HelloSign is an effortless e-signature solution used by millions to securely send and |
| 1:11.9 | request legally valid digital signatures and agreements. They raised a total of $16 million in funding |
| 1:17.4 | and recently got acquired by Dropbox for an impressive $230 million. Check out HelloSign.com |
| 1:23.1 | forward slash 20VC to join the thousands of companies and founders who value fast, secure and simple |
| 1:29.5 | e-signatures. And if HelloSign helps you sign that term sheet, you need to get the term sheet in the |
| 1:34.2 | first place. And I want to give a mention to Draperer-a-sprie, a publicly listed VC fund that |
| 1:38.7 | invests in high-growth European tech companies with global ambitions. Their portfolio includes |
... |
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