here are the startups i started so far
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0 - creating and selling magazines
when i was 6 years old my dad bought me a computer and a printer. we also had some comedy
books
in the house. so i created a maagazine with small comedy stories and sold them to my uncles
etc.
1- small cafe in a market
i worked every weekend every available time i could find while i was in high school. i was
working in market as a cashier. after many years of people asking for "pogaca" (only balkan
people will understand) and i'm saying no. i rented a small place in the market then bought
some
tables and a "pogaca" fridge. it wasnt a good idea!
2- car vacuum vending machine
again high school. i bought a vacuum vending machine, rented a space in a gas station, put
it
there, machine was simple you put 1 euro(tl) it worked 5 minutes. this machine provided me
all
the money i needed when i was in high school. however later my lease ended and i stopped. it
was
a good idea.
3- importing detailing stuff
when i started college i was importing car wash and detailing stuff from the us. i was
selling
them online and via wholesale by going door to door. it didnt take off.
4 - carnavale
in my sophomore year , i tried to start a car sharing, rent by minute platform in ankara
,the
capital of turkiye, which later failed due to lack of will because i was studying at the
time.
but when i was creating this brand i had to explain this novel idea to lot of people via
video i
made by working with illustration artists. this gave me the idea of selling explainer
animations
to companies to explain their concepts like i was.
5- işkutusu
animation production company, this was the first business that took of (a bit). i was
selling
animations to startups, small companies etc. later i rented a garage in istinye. i turned
this
garage into a very cool studio. this business later became part of olo medya.
6- işbitirici.com
online therapy site, which i started in 2014. we made the platform , used webrtc technology
to
conduct online sessions via psychotherapists. we had few sessions, the business could work
greatly, however i was 22 and lacked some perseverence i guess, somehow we stopped doing it.
also because i was making money on my other business, i thought i should be focusing on it.
id
didnt take off.
7- olo medya
işkutusu grew so we had to start an actual llc company. olo medya had 2 main arms, one was
the
animatiın business the other one was an advertising technology. this was the first "real"
business i created. i had employees, accounting, entreprise clients etc. i was 22 at the
time .
first aour explainer videos got attention and we made deals with film producers, for
animation
tv series. i created 2 tv series at the time with a team around 5 people, i directed and
personally edited around 100 animation videos in 2 years. olo medya s second arm was the
technology business. after google chrome stopped supporting adobe flash some of the online
advertisers had a problem of counting the impressions and clicks on their ads. so i found a
guy
in greece who is an expert of video players, bought the tech for $20/month and sold this
technology as a service to many big online publishers and brands.
when i was 23 at some point i was making around $150.000 arr which was an incredible amount
for
a junior college student in istanbul. i froze my college to handle the business operations
for 2
years. the business somehow lost traction but still doing okay. however around that time my
father offered me a job, he told me to come help him manage his company, which was a
$250.000.000 arr company. i said yes beacuse i wanted to do big numbers, like every most 23
year
olds. i closed my home and my company and moved back to ankara. 15 days later i got fired
from
family home and business. within few weeks i lost everything. it was hard on me so i lived
in
some village home alone for 6 months to get my shid back together and i did.
8- omay grup
when i was 21 i started omay but didnt actually pursue it, i sold few websites thats all.
when i
finished college i decided to rebuild this business, so i was selling websites that are
built on
different cms platforms like wordpress etc. i also started managing some ads, and some
creative
work bla bla and this turned into a digital agency. i hired some people rented an office and
did
some hard work until covid. after covid the business boomed a bit. i gave service to more
than
50 clients in many countries. all sorts of digital consulting but mainly it was b2b
marketing.
to this day omay is still active.
9- omay textile
29 years old, i got married. my father in law and i became friends. we walked 10 kms every
weekend and had these long business talks . he owned a sizeable fabric factory. he saw what
i
was doing with digital marketing and he kind of persuaded me into selling fabrics in bulk.
from
my previous experiences i wasnt so keen to close my company once again, so i bootstrapped
(did
this as side business) a textile business, producing and selling fabrics in bulk. but i
didnt
wanted to business with family so i built my own thing. the business was basically this, i
was
showing samples to the clients. they were ordering bigger samples like 100 kgs. i was
producing
that too. then if they like the product they will place orders like 2-10 thousand kilograms
of
fabric. i found few outsource fabric producers in southeastern turkey. visited them couple
times, built good relations, went to their homes, weddings etc. everything was great. sales
was
booming i was en route to 7 figures arr. i was selling fabrics to the biggest brands in my
country. the fabrics we did were great, durable, cheap etc. however one day in february i
woke
up and saw in the news that southeastern turkiye hit by an enormous disaster. the factories
i
worked with was out of reach. many dead. of course these people were my friends and
acquaintances so it was devastating for me and for my business. i had to cancel many orders,
at
that time i just opened a 3 story building one level for r&d , one was a showroom, and the
other
one was our offices. we invested some amount. also we did a lot of investement to r&d .
because
the factories were offlibe i had to work with lower level producers, which cost us our
bigger
clients. also it was operational hell, i had to deal with a lot of different purchasing and
logistics without any experience and knowledge. many scammers are operating, and a lot of
practices that look like normal activity but scam in this line of business. after a while
business losses became unbearable. this was the worst business i have ever done. i stopped
doing
this. closed everything, sold every stock left. took and oath to not do physical business
again.
one positive note, i know tons about yarns, fabrics an clothing. i design and produce most
of my
own clothes(not by hand via producers)
10- expandia
after i closed textile, i moved to switzerland for an unplanned duration. i was financially
and
mentally wrecked by the textile business. i decided to rebrand, rebuild my agency. omay had
very
nice clients in switzerland and it was very nice to work with them. also i speak french,
that
directed me as well. i turned omay into expandia, built expandia as a b2b marketing/revops
brand. later my clients were demanding more services, so we added cybersecurity and some
operational services. expandia is still active. its not an incredible business but it makes
the
soup, and i enjoy doing it. this business helps me to fund the next company which im
building
right now.
11- buffsend
cold outreach saas. i developed buffsend to scratch my own itch. i was paying a lot of money
on
hubspot, apollo, lemlist etc . i realized i can code this myself. so i created buffsend. at
first it was kind of an internal tool, but i couldnt hold myself and turned it into a saas
product. you can send sequential emails, call, do basic crm stuff with buffsend. but i dont
want
to continue this project as is. its not my best work and there are lot of competitors and a
limited market. so i dont want to bother much. but i will turn it to sometihng that will
work in
a bigger market when i have the time.
12- unnamed project
usa based tech company. soon...
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