Nicolas Van Hoorde

Nicolas Van Hoorde's story keeps returning to one origin moment: the almost accidental explosion of Delta Investment Tracker in 2017. He describes it plainly, "Delta was echt een instant hit. Ik denk dat wij op een paar maanden tijd van nul naar een half miljoen gebruikers wereldwijd zijn gegaan" ¹, and elsewhere pins the same growth to "minder een half jaar tijd" ³. That speed became both the company's greatest asset and, later, its central vulnerability, since a product born inside the 2017 crypto hype cycle would end up living or dying by that cycle's swings.

The recurring theme across every source is structure: who owns what, who decides what, and how early those questions get settled. With six founders, Van Hoorde is candid that responsibilities and shareholding were never explicitly matched to actual roles, and that this ambiguity was tolerable in good times but became explosive once things got hard. "Je merkt wel dat bij een opricht van een bedrijf als uw constructie eigenlijk al een beetje fout zit is dat zeer moeilijk recht te trekken en dat creëert denk ik onnodige spanningen en moeilijkheden," he says ¹, and he traces the eventual co-founder conflict directly to that same root cause ³. In hindsight, given that he and his co-founder could build the whole product in-house at almost no technical cost, he thinks an MVP plus angel investors would have been the more logical route than bringing in a majority capital investor at incorporation ¹. The paradox he keeps circling back to is that the disagreement itself became clarifying: "De onenigheid heeft daar enigheid gezorgd" ²³ — conflict forced a shared conclusion that selling was the only way forward.

Financially, Delta's fate was tied tightly to the crypto market, and Van Hoorde is unsentimental about how exposed that made the business: "Naar het einde van 2019 wij wel al zeer hard doorhadden dat de relatie met de cryptomarkt ongezond was" ¹. The subscription model built in December 2017, he notes, was what actually protected the company through the 2018 crash, since users had already locked in yearly subscriptions during the boom ³. That near-miss pushed the pivot toward multiple asset categories and, eventually, toward finding a strategic partner rather than trying to ride out crypto's volatility alone.

Selling the company is where his account is most self-critical and most emotionally honest. He admits to oscillating between two irrational poles during the deal process: at one moment "zo emotioneel over Delta verkopen dat dat mijn beslissingen die rationeel zouden geweest zijn wazig maakte" ¹, at another so invested in the deal succeeding that not selling would have felt like total failure. Neither state, he's clear, was rational, and the lesson he draws is that founders should focus from the outset on how the company can keep operating as before, rather than fixating on the transaction itself, because that mindset is what makes a durable long-term collaboration possible ³.

Staying on as CEO after selling 100% to eToro required, in his words, "puur mindset": setting ego aside and embracing what the new backing enables rather than mourning what was lost ¹. He frames the post-acquisition arrangement as "best of both worlds: we hebben de onafhankelijkheid en de koers van de hippe jonge startup, maar tegelijkertijd ook de backing van een gigantisch corporate bedrijf" ³, adding that the risk of that exposure is countered by the freedom it buys. Crucially, he credits eToro's management for grasping quickly that Delta's magic was its team and its way of working, and for largely staying out of the way: "De magie van Delta is het team en het team heeft alleen maar een magische kwaliteit als de huidige manier van werken zoveel mogelijk behouden blijft" ¹. He was aggressive early on in shielding Delta's culture from any corporate interference, but came to balance that instinct by deliberately pulling knowhow from the parent company back into Delta ³.

Underneath the deal-making, Van Hoorde returns often to self-belief as the real lever of his own development. Losing part of the founder group's trust, as an inexperienced entrepreneur, cost him confidence in himself; the explicit trust shown by the acquirer afterward rebuilt it and permanently changed how he handles doubt ³. He states the lesson directly: "In jezelf geloven en tegen eigen zeggen dat je goed bent in bepaalde zaken, want dat heeft mij het meest vooruitgebracht" ³. And when weighing what the whole experience was worth, he's unambiguous that the personal and professional lessons outweighed the payout: "De ervaringen en de lessen die ik erop uit getrokken zijn voor mij veel meer waard dan het financieel" ³.

The concrete takeaways he offers other founders cluster around a few practical points: define roles and match them to shareholding at incorporation, because fixing a bad structure later is far harder than getting it right upfront ¹³; treat contractual retention after an acquisition as a real test, noting that being nearly three years into a twelve-month obligation and still staying is itself proof the deal was sound ³; build recurring revenue early, since it can shield a young company from a downturn in its core market ³; and remember, when advising others how to invest, to simulate a portfolio first, invest only money you're prepared to lose, and diversify. He is also frank that even years later there's no full consensus among the founders about timing, some feeling Delta was sold too early and should have been carried through the crypto winter, others feeling it should have been sold sooner still ¹ — a reminder that even a well-told success story carries genuine, unresolved doubt underneath it.