StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Ari Helgason

VC, Dawn Capital · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

Ari Helgason is an investor at Dawn Capital and a Y Combinator alumnus. He previously founded SaaS startup World on a Hanger and ecommerce marketplace Fabricly.com.

11statements → 0claims → 0claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 1.91/5average debate potential → 4.5/5argument clarity · the sources → 2said about them ↓

2 opinions · 3 insights · 6 disclosures · every statement was checked. none of them is a claim the record can settle: opinions, insights and disclosures never carry an assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Ari argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.5 / 5 directness 5 · coherence 5 · precision 4.4 · compression 4.1

answered every one of 8 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

208 words/min while actually speaking · 53.5 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 2,487 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 1/10
setup questions received 55%

Everything Ari Helgason said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Helgason: Founders should always build a cash war chest when capital is available
“I absolutely agree with that. You know, when the money's there and it's available take it. You know, things take to, tend to take longer than anticipated, and the reality is that when you have a cash buffer, your options are extended. You have the advantage of…”
Ari Helgason Jul 8, 2015 ▶ 5:14 20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital
Disclosure
Dawn Capital expects £100k MRR and 2x ARR growth for Series A
“Ours would be for a SaaS business, for example we want to see a business that's, you know, doubling annual recurring revenue run rate year on year, at least approaching fast approaching, you know, a hundred thousand pounds a month in revenue or kind of about t…”
Ari Helgason Jul 8, 2015 ▶ 8:18 20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital
Insight
Helgason: Unprofitable founders must prepare for next round from day one
“And what I really mean is that if you're going to run out of money, it's never too early to begin preparing for the next round. You really have to have a plan from the beginning as to how you're going to get that next bunch of funding in the bank.”
Ari Helgason Jul 8, 2015 ▶ 4:47 20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital
Disclosure
Dawn Capital responds to every inbound founder pitch
“At Dawn, we also respond to all Inbound direct approaches, but they're just not, they're not as powerful as getting an introduction from a trusted party.”
Ari Helgason Jul 8, 2015 ▶ 12:03 20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital
Disclosure
Ari Helgason prefers Twitter outreach over cold emails from founders
“Via Twitter. I'm quite active on there, and it's usually a better way to catch my attention than sending an email.”
Ari Helgason Jul 8, 2015 ▶ 12:54 20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital
Opinion
Helgason: London is Europe's top city for hiring FinTech talent
“If you're trying to hire teams that have, you know, that financial services experience, then London's by far the best place in Europe and one of the best places in the world to do that.”
Ari Helgason Jul 8, 2015 ▶ 15:47 20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital
Insight
Helgason: Predictable Revenue should be mandatory reading for software CEOs
“It's based on the model that Salesforce used to get from zero to a hundred million dollars in annual recurring revenue, and I really think it should be mandatory reading for every Software, CEO, or salesperson.”
Ari Helgason Jul 8, 2015 ▶ 16:32 20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital
Opinion
Helgason: Working in venture capital is less stressful than being a founder
“It's less stressful than being in the trenches as a founder. But it quite appeals to me in that you can kind of take a step back and think more strategically and be more analytical Rather than having to be in kind of animal mode every day.”
Ari Helgason Jul 8, 2015 ▶ 3:33 20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital
Disclosure
Warm introductions almost always result in a pitch meeting at Dawn Capital
“We listen to portfolio CEOs or our venture partners really anyone, anyone I trust, I'll take an intro from, and that's pretty much always going to lead to at least the call or a quick meeting.”
Ari Helgason Jul 8, 2015 ▶ 11:48 20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital
Disclosure
Dawn Capital invests in markets smaller than $1 billion
“We've invested in, in businesses that are addressing markets that are today smaller than a billion dollars.”
Ari Helgason Jul 8, 2015 ▶ 13:30 20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital
Disclosure
Dawn Capital focuses investments on enterprise software and FinTech
“So at DAWN we look at two things. We look at enterprise software, which is mainly SaaS, but also a lot of open source stuff some on premise cyber security stuff and the second vertical we focus on is, is FinTech.”
Ari Helgason Jul 8, 2015 ▶ 14:48 20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital

The other half of the tape: Ari Helgason's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 2

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20 VC 052: How To Make The Leap From Seed To Series A with Ari Helgason @ Dawn Capital Jul 8, 2015 14m
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more