The Bridge between East and West - My Trip to Istanbul

Photo Credit: Richard Hsu

It’s 4:15 am and I’m in the Atatürk airport in Istanbul, Turkey. Just a few hours ago I was having dinner on an offshoot of ?stiklal Cadessi (street) in a hip, New District, Istanbul neighborhood. Around the table were Turks, Americans, Mexicans, a Finn and a Chilean. The common thread tying all of these folks together is their involvement in two impressive organizations I’m glad I now know: Startupbootcamp and The GO Project. A day earlier these two groups realized the outcome of 3+ months of incredibly hard work — 9 startup pitches that began as over 500 applications, involved 100+ mentors, and over 2200 hours of intensive learning, pivoting, and building. If it weren't 4am I’d still be tired just thinking about this.

Why Istanbul?

Right after I left Lyft I was contacted by a former colleague of mine who had himself left earlier in the year. He had joined The GO Project; a new startup whose mission is to bring innovation and some “silicon valley swagger” to developing ecosystems well beyond the bubble of the San Francisco Bay Area. They had successfully completed a series of projects in Santiago, Chile and were now 1.5 months into helping run the Startupbootcamp accelerator in Istanbul. As part of Demo Day they had planned two panel discussions — one on the Turkish business climate “then and now” (of which I knew nothing) and another on trends in entrepreneurship and innovation (which I suppose I’m qualified to speak about after my experience with Lyft). After some negotiation with my wife — ISIS is in fact recruiting in Turkey now and the Demo Day required me to leave the day after our 5-year anniversary and stick her with 5 days of single-parenting responsibilities in her busiest work month of the year — I agreed to go and touched down in Istanbul the evening of September 14 after 15+ hours of flying and a 10 hour time change.

My Experience

I’ve never been to Istanbul and certainly never looked at the startup scene outside of San Francisco and New York. Why bother, right? Wrong. Over the course of the four days I visited Istanbul I developed a whole new perspective on building a business in another part of the world. And my main takeaway? We’ve got it pretty easy in Silicon Valley. Not to shortchange all the hardworking entrepreneurs I meet every day back home, but there are challenges in other parts of the world that you can’t comprehend without seeing them firsthand. Although I learned quite a bit more than this, here are my three biggest learnings from The GO Project and Startupbootcamp Istanbul’s inaugural Demo Day:

The broader startup ecosystem in Istanbul is vastly underdeveloped and we should do more to help.

In a population of over 14M people there are few angel investors and mentors, a very large resistance to change, and a focus on 6-month break-even financials (I don’t know that the concept even exists in Silicon Valley these days). In addition, there are thousands of entrepreneurs but very few acceleration programs for them. YC doesn’t exist here. General Assembly doesn’t exist here and there is no Tradecraft Growth School. In short, it’s an uphill battle from financing and talent to regulation and politics. That’s why The GO Project is here as well as a small-but-growing movement to make real change in Turkish tech entrepreneurship. But the rest of the Western world can help even more. We can help by sharing our learnings and mentorship with these entrepreneurs, we can help by encouraging their government to be supportive and get out of the way, and we can encourage through access to an easier and more supportive fundraising process.

An underdeveloped ecosystem won’t stop the entrepreneurs.

The nine pitches I heard were polished, innovative, and addressing really big challenges in the Turkish and global economy. In addition to the stress and challenge of building and pitching a product they also had to do it in English which is not the native tongue for the majority of entrepreneurs involved in the program. Surprisingly to me there was a good split of B2B and B2C businesses. Everything from the painful workflow between designers and developers (Zeplin), to crowd-sourced research and marketing (SenceBence, pronounced Sen-juh Ben-juh), to iBeacon technology called DealBeacon (315 Studio), to logistics and tracking (Tag2Sense) and moderation of forums (SmartModeration). There were also some very impressive consumer businesses as well. CepStop (pronounced Jep Stop) aims to make buying, selling and guaranteeing second hand cell phones easier and more trustworthy; IntelligentPapers created an impressive, digitized textbook product for K-12 schools (in a B2B2C model); Zulala is better organizing your consumption of media, and Bir Cüzdan is drastically simplifying the mobile wallet.

In the States, the majority of these startups would have no problem raising angel investment, seed funding, and likely a Series A. In Turkey, most of them were pitching their hearts out for just a small amount of money. They know the deck is stacked against them, and they’ll overcome it with passion and incredibly impressive core products.

The pay-it-forward tech community of Silicon Valley is alive and well in other parts of the world.

The Valley may be known for enormous valuations, massive exits, and the phrase “let me know how I can be helpful to you,” but I witnessed a camaraderie that materialized in every corner of my experience. Of course I’m not talking about merchants in the Grand Bazaar calling me “Friend.” I’m talking about people expressing genuine interest in each other’s work, witnessing young entrepreneurs come together to help each other refine their business plans, and a level of hospitality I haven’t experienced in many other places. During my visit I was invited to attend a regional summit in Seoul, speak at the next Startupbootcamp demo day in Berlin, and move to Amsterdam for 3 months to help other startups work on smart transportation. Not to mention I apparently have 4 or 5 different places to stay the next time I’m in Istanbul. I also had the pleasure of spending most of my time with Richard Hsu, my fellow panelist — TEDx Ambassador to China, former founder of the agency Wieden+Kennedy in China, incredibly talented photographer, and a real character. Meeting Richard and the rest of the attendees was a truly humbling experience for me.

One final note — one of the most impressive startups I learned about wasn’t even part of the accelerator, but a sort of AirBnB for food started by two impressive women and named Favoreat. It’s rare to see female founders in a country like Turkey; even if it is a little more Westernized. Makes our challenges in Silicon Valley with women in entrepreneurship seem trivial in comparison. They have a beautiful product, a great supply base and fast-growing demand, but the potential investors they’ve talked to want to see them launch in the U.S. before they’ll invest. My advice to those investors: help them succeed in Turkey, because if they can grow it successfully there they can replicate it just about anywhere.

Photo Credit: Richard Hsu

Inspiration for the future

In summary, what I saw in Turkey was inspiring and filled me with optimism for other cities and countries just getting started building an ecosystem of entrepreneurship. I came away with a newfound knowledge and respect for the work being done by The GO Project, Startupbootcamp, and dozens of Turkish entrepreneurs young and old. I learned about issues that we take for granted in California and did my best to listen more and talk less. I’m incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity. Next up for The GO Project is to move on to Myanmar where the challenges they experienced in Turkey may seem like a walk in the park in comparison. For me, I’ll take my newly acquired perspective, a concept that Richard developed while we were spending time together in Istanbul, and see how I can help be the bridge between East and West.