Nate Williams pedals his way to innovation

Nate Williams classifies himself as an operator-investor. The East Coast-bred, West Coast-based Union Labs VC founder started his career at Intel Corporation before “catching the startup bug,” as he puts it, in 2006. This pivot saw him help run three companies in connected devices and serve as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Kleiner Perkins, before transitioning into venture capital and starting his San Francisco-based pre-seed and seed firm. Today, he has over 20 investments in his portfolio, all centered around backing ambitious technical entrepreneurs solving the world’s most pressing problems, particularly in climate, prop tech, and mobility.

But if you strip back his pedigree, you’re left with another core layer of Williams’ identity: he is an avid cyclist. More than a hobby, cycling is something Williams sees as perfectly entwined with his work and his values — a mode of movement that has fostered community, expanded his network, and shaped who he is as an operator and investor.

How did you develop your passion for cycling?

I've been riding bikes since I was young — riding them outside, off-road, jumping them. But I got back into cycling a lot during grad school after I had to get surgery for a knee injury after years of playing lacrosse. They told me the best way to recuperate was to use an exercise bike so I did that for a bit, went to spin classes, but people just kept saying how much better this was outside. I later transitioned to outdoor cycling after moving to San Jose for my first post-grad job at Intel. I bought my first bike in 2008 and was hooked.

What was it about it that hooked you?

So many things. I loved the independence, the camaraderie of riding with other riders, and I just got to experience the Bay Area in such a different and more granular way than if I was driving. I was seeing the parks, the conditions of the trails, the green nature and ironically many helpful ways to skirt traffic of the busiest Bay Area streets.

That’s really interesting — in some ways, cycling gets you more connected to your work, but in others, it’s a way for you to disconnect from it.

Definitely. I was a C-level executive at three startups, and I've now invested in over 35 companies. Everything is stressful, but you have to step back and release that somehow. And I found that cycling helps me do that.

Is this something you encourage other operators to tap into?

I wouldn’t encourage a founder to go out and do cycling specifically or anything like that. But I do encourage them to find something that can get them away from the stresses of running a startup, whatever that looks like. For me, that’s cycling. For someone else, maybe it’s painting, reading, journaling, hiking or running ultra-marathons.

Do you think there are specific qualities that could make particular activities, like cycling, and especially impactful outlet for founders over others?

One of the things about endurance sports or ultra-endurance sports like cycling, running, or swimming is that they involve these repetitive motions that allow you to get into a flow state. With cycling, you have the act of turning the cranks and peddling over and over again. Plus, you just really need to focus on what's ahead of you. You don’t have your phone out, you're not thinking about the next meeting. Instead, you're thinking about how you’re going downhill at 45 miles per hour, on bike tires that are half an inch wide, wearing a 10th-of-an-inch lycra — not super protective. So there's part of that can just become really focused — where the combination of a tough cardiovascular workout and all of these elements helps you really clear your mind and be very present.

I’m curious about how your identity as a cyclist has shaped how you show up as an investor, mentor, and leader. Do you feel like you’re often drawing parallels and connecting the dots between more of the soft skills you’ve learned from cycling and things that come up in your work?

I compete in somewhere between four and six events per year. And I think it's fun to have cycling as a hobby, but it's also good to compete because it allows me to take a look at how far I can push myself, and also what the results are. I've learned more from failing in these races than probably winning races. If you're racing against 1000 people, the odds that you win are pretty low. But in every event, you can learn something about preparation, how you performed in that moment, and just how you showed up.

And that’s directly connected to a lot of what I do as a venture capitalist, too, which is giving founders the frameworks to think about their problems and potential solutions. I’m not necessarily giving them answers because the founder typically knows more about their specific problem space than I would ever know. But I can help them approach the problems with the right mindset and pattern recognition of dealing with a crux moment. Examples that happen fairly frequently are the hiring of a co-founder, closing the first commercial customer, and raising follow-on capital.

And that's like my view of cycling. If you're in a race and experience a flat tire or have a minor crash, having prior experience helps to get you through that instant stress. Am I going to be able to finish? Will I be able to make the top 10? What condition is my bike in? All these scenarios can be planned for and experienced coaches will have you changing flat tires in advance so when it happens in race condition, it’s like second nature.

Just to double-click on that for a second, is there a unique problem that you see come up often for climate and deep tech builders, specifically — separate from some of the common ones that come up for all founders?

An area where I see an issue in this space is that you have these really technical people who have amazing product development skills, but who sometimes struggle with understanding how to monetize, gain customer traction, and market it. My specialty as an entreprenuer was go-to-market, having led multiple marketing teams, sales teams, and corporate development teams. So my expertise allows me to help founders walk it back to figure out what the customer value proposition is.

Sales is the one function in Silicon Valley that has always been maligned. We've bought into this cult of a technical founder. But realistically, you can’t scale a startup without a highly technical founder and another senior leader who understands generating revenue. That’s the world we live in. Sometimes that can develop through a solo founder but many times it happens through the formation of a founding team.

As an investor, what innovations in climate tech are you most excited to see unfold in the coming years? Are they the same or different than what you hope to see as a cyclist?

Climate and deep tech are certainly having a moment right now so there are literally dozens of innovations that are really exciting. Two that I would mention are the changing energy architectures of our physical world - homes, schools, offices, factories and the rise of robotics. On the energy side, the increase in solar and distributed energy resources (DERs) will change how (and where) we power our world. On the robotics side, we are seeing reductions in cost coupled with increases in functionality to deliver many new businesses. Specifically, one of our Union investments, Urban Machine, uses robotics and computer vision to effectively recycle wood which reduces the need to cut down virgin lumber and ship it to cities thousands of miles away.

Where cycling and my day job intersect quite often is how we envision urban planning of the future. What is the pace of autonomous vehicle rollouts? How could drone or scooter delivery change the demands of our streets and sidewalks? Even breakthroughs in safety can be applied to blue-collar crews and manufacturing processes. Lots of interesting overlaps.