Accel’s Harry Nelis on KAYAK, IPO strategy, and the right founder-VC relationship

**Carlos Espinal** (0:01)
Knowing what role a VC should play is tough. How do you coach without helicoptering, advise without pressing too hard? Harry Nelis, a partner at Accel, has spent a lot of time thinking about the right founder-investor relationship.

**Harry Nelis** (0:16)
I think investors and board members can be helpful. At the end of the day, it's the founder who needs to make it happen.

**Carlos Espinal** (0:22)
You're listening to This Much I Know, The Seedcamp Podcast.

**Carlos Espinal** (0:40)
Welcome, everyone. On today's podcast, we have Harry Nelis, a partner at Accel. He's been there for 17 years, has seen a lot of really great companies, and we're going to talk about them today. But first of all, welcome, Harry.

**Harry Nelis** (0:53)
Thank you. Thank you for having me, Carlos.

**Carlos Espinal** (0:57)
I want to start off with your background. We always like to start off with a little bit about the person before they became successful or where they are today. I know that we were chatting a little bit about some of the things that you did, and companies you started prior to being in Accel. But maybe just walk us through what you studied undergrad, and what was the first job you took?

**Harry Nelis** (1:18)
All right. Cool. So first of all, my accent is Dutch. So if you were wondering, born and raised in the Netherlands, ended up studying electrical engineering. In those days, computer science didn't exist yet. Ended up doing a PhD in essentially Applied Math and Signal Processing, and ended up at Stanford in that context. So when I was done, got my first job at HP Labs, on Paceman Road in Palo Alto, and was a scientist. So I sat in a cubicle working on graphics processors, the graphics processors that will go into workstations, and that are pretty similar or have many things in common with the kind of processors that NVIDIA makes to date. So I was a scientist for three years, was very interested in becoming more involved in engineering and engineering math. So transferred out to a workstation division of HP at Fort Collins, Colorado for a year, and then had an idea about a new product, a new business, and ended up leaving Hewlett Packard, got some seed money from friends, and became an entrepreneur, started a software company. Raised money from Greylock, who in those days, because we're talking 93 now, in those days were just setting up their office on the West Coast. Greylock originally was a Boston based firm, so raised money from Greylock and became a founder, CEO of a startup company. I was a CEO for a couple of years, then became the VP of Engineering after us having hired a quote, unquote, experienced manager and a CEO. We can dive into that later on, Carlos. So did that. That company merged with another private company. I left, didn't quite know what to do, went to business school, was at Harvard for a couple of years, and then came back to London in 99 Was first at Goldman Sachs, where I joined the PIA, their principal investment area, essentially investing in kind of later stage, private technology companies, and then joined Accel in 04, who had just set up an office a couple of years earlier in London. So that's my very short history pre-Excel.

**Carlos Espinal** (3:44)
Yeah. Well, there's a lot to unpack there. So I want to go and jump back into, especially during the time when you were a founder and working on some of your company. Walk us through, I know you were sharing with me an anecdote about your evolution as leadership in the company. Talk us a little bit more about how the company grew. What was the maximum employees that you had at what point, and then how you evolved as a CEO during that time?

**Harry Nelis** (4:08)
Yeah. So when I joined, it was not joined, when I started, I had recruited two co-founders. So it was the three of us who started this. So in the very beginning, I think it was just three people working out of our bedrooms. I think it got up to 40, 50 employees in total before it merged with another private company.
Really what I learned is how incredibly hard it is to start a business from scratch, and how incredibly hard it is to create a new product, to get customers on board, and get the market timing right. I mean, essentially, we were a few years early with our product. So I have ultimate respect for people who build businesses from scratch, that's one. Then two, I think I have a lot of empathy for entrepreneurs who have to go through a quote unquote founder transition. Whether it is parting with co-founders, whether it is giving over the reins to the company, to a new person who will come in, put his stamp on the company, bring in his people, and how hard that is to kind of hand over your baby to a new person. So I have, I think from those, it's a long time ago right now, but they were pretty formative learning, so I have a lot of empathy for people who go through that.