Article

Who's Who: Nigel Seed

Growing up in England and working in Silicon Valley helped shape Nigel Seed's management philosophy. As chief executive officer of NetShift Software Ltd., he expects his approach to translate into success.

February 21, 2002

Two significantly different eras - post-World War II England and the boom days of the Internet in the Silicon Valley region of California - have provided Nigel Seed with surprisingly similar lessons, ones that have impacted his approach as chief executive officer of kiosk software developer NetShift Software Ltd.

The tedium of the workday English experience after the war led Seed's father out of the private sector and back into the military. What Seed learned from his father was magnified during the 1990s in Silicon Valley, where he found that workers there were encouraged to have fun, take risks, and revel in the excitement of a growing industry.

"In England it was stressed that work is bad, family and hobbies are good," Seed said recently at the KioskCom Europe retail show in London. "In Silicon Valley, we practiced the concept was work can be good, work can be fun."

In the 1 ½ years since he stepped in as chief executive officer at NetShift, Seed has inculcated a corporate culture built around enjoying your work and doing it well.

At the same time, he has created lofty ambitions for the software firm. Those ambitions have attracted the interest of venture capitalists, with Shell Internet Ventures BV giving the company $5 million in seed funding in late September (See story: NetShift receives venture capital funding).

"I'm having the time of my life. It's a tremendously exciting time getting the opportunity to build what's going to be a great company," Seed said. "We're looking to all have a great deal of fun, work hard, play hard, make lots of money and make a change in the world, having NetShift be a real change agent in the industry. That's my mission over the next three to five years."

Learning early

A 48-year-old native of Lincoln, England, Seed grew up in the economically challenging years that faced England shortly after World War II. And his upbringing came with a military background attached. His father was a navigator on Lancaster bombers for the Royal Air Force during World War II, flying the maximum 25 missions.

NetShift's Nigel Seed watched the technology industry boom in Silicon Valley. He hopes for the same performance from the kiosk software company.

"After the war he got a job on what was then called the Gas Board, which was like a utility company," Seed said. "He was told to sit there and add people's gas bills. My father was quite brilliant and had a very good mathematical mind, so he could add the gas bills up faster than anyone else. He spent about six months there and said `I'm not having any of that.' He rejoined the RAF just to keep from adding people's gas bills up."

Seed learned from his father's experience, and his father -while reticent about dictating how to live life - was only too happy to advise him on his work career.

"I suppose the only career advice my father ever gave me years ago was `You've got to work for a living, so at least find a job you can enjoy,' " Seed said. "If you do that, you've scored a victory."

In the late 1980s, Seed joined Silicon Graphics Inc., where he was in charge of UK operations. Not only was the company successful - increasing in revenue from $6 million in 1989 to $200 million in 1996, Seed said - it also gave Seed insight on business practices.

"I had this really great boss who gave you operating parameters and left you alone," he said. "You reported back to the head office once a quarter or so. After about six years of unbridled freedom, the company decided to put in a plan with a more formalized structure. I ended up with a boss who was a total control freak. That was the triggering point for me to leave. This was reality; what I'd had was luxury."

Lessons to apply

After leaving SGI, Seed spent several years in the Silicon Valley area, working for DIBA and helping a friend sell the online search engine Web21. He became involved in NetShift four years ago after meeting company founder Tim Daw.

"I started with NetShift as a kind of non-executive chairman," he said. "Tim was running the company and I was turning up one day every two weeks."

In April 2000, Seed came aboard full time as the company shifted its focus from kiosk deployment toward software development and remote management. Seed now had the opportunity to apply the lessons he learned in his work experience.

"In Silicon Valley, there was a wonderful kind of work environment," he said. "You were expected to work hard but the work was exciting so you didn't mind it and you were expected to play hard too.

"It's a concept that isn't recognizable in English circles," he continued. "Work is supposed to be the place you don't like. You have to go and work so you can generate money to do your hobbies and look after your family and do the things that you do like. There's a line there: work is bad, family and hobbies are good."

Having a go

In difficult economic times, NetShift has already pulled off one success unimaginable in most technology circles - landing its VC funding package from Shell.

"The very large capital funding Nigel successfully obtained for NetShift with Shell recently is just one of the best examples of the very positive impact Nigel has on a company," said Craig Keefner, Kiosks.org Association executive director. "I hold Nigel in the highest respect as a business person and most importantly as a person."

Seed envisions growth coming quickly for the company. The company currently has about 30 employees, but he said the job rolls could expand to between 50 and 60 in the next six months.

"We're certainly working on a plan that next year we'll see more than $10 million in revenue," he said.

For fun away from the office, Seed and his family - he is married with two teenage daughters and a four-year-old son - take off for skiing trips and other outdoor activities. But as he strained to explain exactly what he does outside the office, Seed realized how difficult it can be to talk about life when you are wrapped up in your work.

"The trouble with jobs like this is you get so involved in them that the minute you're asked what you do outside of them you sound like a real bore," he said.

But while he is staying busy, Seed is having fun. And that is what he wanted when he set out in the working world.