Trump Cannot Decide on Turkey's Future, Startups Can

Turkish Lira got everyone’s attention over the past weeks, but the drastic currency devaluation presents a unique opportunity for the entrepreneurial ecosystem and technology has a stronger role to play in refurbishing the country’s economy while also providing hope for a better future.

Technology exports will decrease the current deficit

The current deficit has been Turkey’s main vulnerability for decades and the government took a number of actions in hopes of reducing it, including incentives for export companies and push towards energy self-sustainability. 

Tech exporting companies have great long term impact on nation’s future, given the huge margins and very scalable business models. Well aware, government is slowly putting startups on top of its agenda and the third wave entrepreneurs continue to building market independent businesses in Turkey.

Out of the 10 Turkish startups present at Wired’s Top 100 Startups in Europe, 7 have their major revenue and customer base out of Turkey!

Turkish ecosystem is in the midst of a transition

Turkey still has the largest economy in the region and the youngest population in Europe, but all the setbacks in recent years resulted in a largely underserved market with serious funding gaps. Political challenges and the turbulent local market pushed the new generation of entrepreneurs to pursue their passions globally and create tech-exporting businesses. 

Salaries might be shrinking in Dollar terms, but IT will continue to have higher salaries making it super attractive and driving more talent. The highly skilled and young workforce, already standing out in the region, will become the core competitive advantage for globally-competing Turkish companies with low costs and no employee turnover.

Able to achieve early sustainability, Turkish startups can easily get to unlimited runway and have the freedom to iterate with the business until explosive growth.

Turkey’s leading HR management SaaS startup, KolayIK, now offers free 2 years access for enterprises that switch from international providers that require foreign currency contracts. The biggest disadvantage can become the biggest strength...

Government doubles down on technology and entrepreneurship

Challenging geo-politics and the economic turmoil united the nation around a shared vision of the future and the government started to take the necessary steps. The National Technology Mission, included in the government’s First 100 Day Agenda, lays down the fundamental infrastructure that will transform the country into an innovative economy. 

Campaigns to bring back the strong diaspora talent, incentives for new R&D centers and technoparks within universities are critical to raise the human capital levels. Mechanisms like Tech-InvesTR, a fund of funds structure to systematically channel public resource to support local VC funds, are put in place to create a functioning ecosystem with enough funding throughout the value chain.

Expanding nation’s core tech competencies

Subsidies for hardware technology manufacturing companies and push towards industry 4.0 transformation is essential to become an extroverted tech-exporting economy that has more to offer than low labor costs. The government even increased public scholarships for doctoral students focused on industrial technologies. 

Long trapped in the middle income and technology gap, Turkey will focus on emerging areas including space tech, new-age communication and advanced military technologies - also critical in becoming a fully self-sustainable nation.

Now it is time to Take Off

Government is actively taking action to make the ecosystem more attractive for investors and strengthen Istanbul’s position as the regional hub. The Take Off Startup Summit aims to bring together the rapidly growing startup ecosystems in MENA and Europe with more than 200 startups from 40 countries focused on energy, environment, food, agriculture, education, logistics and space.

Aimed to be the biggest free startup summit in the world, Take Off Summit brings big names like Jack Ma of Alibaba and our dearest advisor Kamran Elahian. The event marks the opening of the New Istanbul Airport, largest in the world, and shows the government’s emphasis on startups that will shape the country’s future.

Trump problem is temporal, startups will be the everlasting solution

Still at the dawn of its tech revolution, Turkey has much more to offer than a young and tech savvy population. Public attention rose over the past few years and put startups at the top of the agenda for many public organizations and corporates as the entrepreneurial scene in Turkey made leap forward. 

The negative market outlook will result in global-facing startup powerhouses as the country progresses towards common goals around visionary entrepreneurs.