Through its annual StartupClub poll, Startup magazine named me one of the five most influential leaders in Türkiye’s entrepreneurial ecosystem—and ranked me second. I am delighted to share the list with legendary entrepreneurs and investors. The magazine asked me several questions while preparing the issue. Although my responses did not appear in its print edition, I wanted to share both the questions and my answers here.

• Why do you think you were named one of the people who have most influenced value creation in the ecosystem? Which of your contributions, achievements, or approaches makes you proudest?

I have been involved in entrepreneurship for about twenty-five years. During that time, I have participated in the emerging and expanding ecosystem in many different roles—as an entrepreneur, customer, manager in an established corporation, investor, coach, and mentor. This has given me an opportunity to experience every side of the table. Along the way, I founded a technology company and transformed it from a services business into a product company capable of rapid growth. I raised investment and grew the business. Then it failed during an unexpected economic crisis. I pivoted the failed venture and re-established it after the crisis passed. This time I grew the company further and sold it. I used some of the proceeds to make angel investments. I also worked as a manager in business development and entrepreneurship-related roles at major corporations. As an academic, I researched the characteristics and functioning of entrepreneurial ecosystems, and I continue to conduct significant research in this area with my doctoral students.

In recent years, I have repeatedly brought angel investors and entrepreneurs together, helping them resolve disagreements and align their interests in investment agreements. Alongside founders, I have worked to change the habits of early-stage investors unfamiliar with the financial mechanics of startup growth, such as demanding very large equity stakes or control of ventures in ways that restrict their development. Working with one of Türkiye’s most capable teams, I helped develop a leading incubator from an almost nonexistent starting point into one of the world’s notable incubation centers. All in all, during these twenty-five years I have had opportunities to support hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ventures in different ways. Throughout the ecosystem’s emergence and growth, I have tried to live by two principles: “be authentic rather than merely appearing to do the right thing,” and “stand with the entrepreneur’s interests in every circumstance.” I hope and believe these principles have resonated with many of the entrepreneurs and investors I have met.

• How do you assess the current state of Türkiye’s startup ecosystem?

Historically, Türkiye has faced insufficient capital accumulation and a savings deficit, financed development through borrowing, and grown production and consumption through rural-to-urban migration and urbanization. The country has experienced periods of impressive growth, but international investors tend to favor shorter-term rather than longer-term investments and traditional industries here.

Consequently, although Istanbul’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and Berlin’s have developed over roughly comparable periods, Berlin attracts far more international investors. German and other European Union capital also flows to a greater number of entrepreneurs, significantly supporting both the number and valuation of startups. In Türkiye, the Ministry of Industry and Technology, together with the Ministry of Treasury and Finance, makes important contributions to addressing this gap and deepening the availability of funds through TÜBİTAK TEYDEB, KOSGEB, and development agencies.

Some sectors, especially gaming, have also advanced considerably in recent years. The ability to reach end users directly through app stores and online marketing provides an important advantage. While many of our conventional ventures have B2B models, B2C startups in gaming have achieved significant success. The range of different kinds of startups in Türkiye is also richer than in many other countries.

Türkiye’s medium-sized domestic market previously encouraged many entrepreneurs to treat exports as a secondary concern. Currency volatility increasingly forces them to plan for export markets from the very beginning. In addition, as remote work has spread after COVID-19, Turkish startups must offer world-class software developers salaries and working conditions comparable to those available in developed economies. To afford those costs, startups need to operate in global markets, generate revenue at the relevant scale, and attract investment. We must permanently abandon the mentality of “let’s finish the Turkish market first and consider exports later.”

It is encouraging that ventures valued at over a billion dollars have recently begun to emerge in Türkiye, that the first company valued at more than ten billion dollars has grown to a global scale, and that a seed-stage gaming startup recently attracted an early investment of potentially record-breaking size. These trends can continue only if the ecosystem producing such companies also becomes correspondingly deeper. We need far more ventures valued at $300–500 million to sustain an increasing number of billion-dollar companies and generate a globally connected transformation of value added, based on technology and knowledge, that can reshape the wider economy. Entrepreneurs who achieve successful exits must, of course, reinvest part of the resulting capital into the ecosystem.

• What is your biggest dream for the ecosystem? What do you hope to do in the coming period, and how would you particularly like to support its development?

Türkiye’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is in a much stronger position than it was ten years ago. To sustain that progress, my greatest hope is to see local ecosystems develop specialized strengths in particular verticals, alongside Istanbul. Ankara already has a distinct scale of its own. Izmir’s ecosystem has also begun to grow. In addition to my role as a faculty member at Istanbul Technical University, I serve on the advisory board of an incubator established at Izmir Institute of Technology, contributing to this development. Ecosystems beginning to emerge around technology parks in Antalya, Bursa, Eskişehir, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Mersin, Muğla, and Samsun could make major contributions by deepening their strengths in fields distinctive to each location. Istanbul, drawing on the scale and technology-oriented workforce of these local ecosystems, could then become a global entrepreneurship hub for these cities and for neighboring countries in the wider region.

Türkiye should also establish its own outstanding accelerator programs for accessing investment and scaling. We already have successful incubators and accelerators. But I believe we need more elite programs—something like Türkiye’s Y Combinator—that are exceptionally selective and hard to enter, yet provide enormous benefits and advantages once a venture is admitted. I am working with colleagues who bring expertise in particular industry verticals to prepare such a specialized program in the coming period.

Finally, technology development zones—technoparks—that have played, and continue to play, important roles in Türkiye’s technological progress need to develop more expertise in deep technologies. Simply producing software may once have been enough to qualify as R&D when the technology development zones legislation was introduced. Today, however, software development alone is not necessarily sufficient to count as R&D, and much of the software business has become almost entirely location-independent. Technoparks therefore need to move toward closer integration with universities, prioritize deep technologies, and use university research infrastructure to produce competitive technological products.