The Origins of Unity Development

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A tech director from Cartoon Network used Unity as a prototyping tool to show his ideas to a developer in Korea. He was frustrated because he was able to make things feel right with Unity, while the developer wasn't getting it right with their proprietary engine. Eventually, he realized that if they put all the prototyped actions together, it might feel great. The tech director contacted Unity about it, and although the game didn't make a lot of money, they learned a lot and it became a showcase for Unity development.

In this week’s episode of This Much I Know, Carlos is joined by David Helgason, co-founder and former CEO of Unity Technologies, a Danish-American video game software development company best known for the development of Unity, the world’s leading real-time 3D development platform and last valued at $6bn. Originally from Iceland, at the age of ten David moved with his accomplished journalist mother and his two brothers to Denmark. He shares how we would use his mother’s computer at every chance he had and that this infatuation with computers became the drive for his passion to work as a developer, alongside his studies in physics and psychology. By the time David finished university, he had already founded two tech companies, Panmedia - a business processes tech shop - and iCover, which developed creative CD-cover like experiences for digital albums. After graduation, David embarked on a new project with his two friends Nicholas Francis, and Joachim Ante, and that summer they founded Over The Edge Entertainment (OTEE) which was later renamed Unity Technologies. A classic Silicon Valley tale, except with a European spin, Carlos and David go through the learning curves of building startups from a young age, what really set Unity apart from its competitors, and how much heart and sweat they put behind each and every customer. Now a prolific angel investor, backing more than forty nordic startups through his syndicate Nordic Makers, there is one thing in particular that he wants to share: never underestimate the importance of following your own intuition. Links David Helgason - twitter.com/davidhelgason Unity - twitter.com/unity3d Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com