2014 – Started my professional career in Istanbul, Turkey, in a bank as IT project management specialist.
2015 – Attended a business model workshop with my first startup idea. I was going to build a blockchain based real estate trading platform. But before explaining my idea I had to spend 20 minutes to explain what blockchain was. So I decided to pivot to something simpler.
2016 – Launched my first startup. It was a subscription based e-commerce business. I was shipping black socks to men working in corporate. I won a startup pitching contest with this simple e-commerce startup,. The big prize was a ‘Silicon Valley Tour’. I visited Silicon valley for the first time in my annual leave. (I was still working full time as an IT project manager.)
Around the same time, I also finished my graduate studies. I received a MSc on Financial Engineering and Risk Management.
2017 –After my visit Silicon Valley, I was ready to quit my job and start my journey but my employer made an offer I could not refuse. They offered me a job in Corporate Venture Capital arm of the same group. I worked as an analyst and scout. I interviewed founders, reported to committee, conducted due diligence and financial analysis during my time.
2018 – After working with entrepreneurs for around a year, I was ready to start my own adventure. I finally quitted my job and made jump.
2019 – After failing two tech projects at early stages, I started a DTC furniture business. We grew the business pretty fast but could not survive the pandemic since we were too leveraged.
2021 – I sold my business and moved to the US. Initially it felt like a failure and it took a while to get over it but in time things settled and new horizons showed up.
2023 – I was granted permanent residency from UK but I refuse to leave San Francisco because I wanted to witness history being written and maybe be a small part of it. I started to study Computer Science at Foothill College and improve my technical foundation..
2024 – Started to work on my startup Boontext!