Etohum announces the new internet entrepreneurs to be invested into in 2010. The 15 entrepreneurs selected among 1500 applicants will participate into a 4-day etohum Entrepreneurship Camp to be held in February, in Rixos Premium Belek, Antalya.

Bringing the entrepreneurs who have knowledge and business idea on the new economy together with companies and professionals who may make investments in this area, etohum announced 15 Internet entrepreneurs to be invested into in 2010. Announced at a meeting held in the Bahçeşehir University, on January 30, with the participation of Ziya Boyacıgiller, founding partner of Airties; Mevlüt Dinç, founder of Sobe, and Ali Abhary and Dave Dorner, founders of Biletix as speakers, 15 entrepreneurs are entitled to participate into the 4-day etohum Entrepreneurship Camp to be held in February, in Rixos Premium Belek, Antalya.

Established with the aim of increasing the number of the internet companies in Turkey, supporting the entrepreneurs, and providing a marketplace for the entrepreneurs and the investors to create and develop the internet ecosystem, etohum followed a meticulous process to select 15 internet entrepreneurs to be invested into. Having received applications from 1500 internet entrepreneurs in 2009, etohum selected 200 candidates in the first phase and subjected them to face-to-face interviews to shortlist 40 candidates.

15 entrepreneurs were selected following the presentations made before an advisory board composed of 16 members, including Nevzat Aydın and Melih Ödemiş, founders of Yemeksepeti.com; Burak Divanlıoğlu and Serkan Borançılı, partners of GittiGidiyor.com; Aydonat Atasever, founder of Cimri.com; Tümay Asena, the CEO and partner of Nokta A.Ş.; Emre Kurttepeli, founder of Mynet; Hasan Yalçınkaya, founder of Pilli.com; Cumhur Kuşçuoğlu from Esas Holding, and Erdem Yurdanur, founding partner of Mackolik.com.

15 entrepreneurs to be invested into in 2010 are as follows:

• Roodbox.com: Developed by Ulaş Akpınar and Osman Özmen, two undergraduates of the Bilgi University, Department of Advertising, this project is a unique seconds game, which shares a certain percentage of the advertising revenue with the viewers of the advertisement.

• Anneysen.com: Established by Pınar Şimşek and Aylin Çakır, graduates of the Boğaziçi University, Department of Business Administration, Anneysen.com is a social networking site for mothers and mothers-to-be.

• Tvdegordum.com: Co-founded by Erkin Günay and Canan Özkal, Tvdegordum.com is a platform enabling the televiewers to obtain information on the brand, model, and points of sale of the products they saw on TV shows or series and to buy them.

• Karniyarik.com: Established by Siyamed Sınır, Kaan Meralan, and Doğuş Ertemur, Karniyarik.com is a vertical search engine enabling its users to find any priced thing they look for on Internet.

• Balerin.com: Established by Lütfi Gündüz, Balerin.com is a unique e-business enterprise focused on a particular market segment, with the aim of being the largest shopping website in the Turkish cosmetics industry. It sells only cosmetic products and offers mainly the most affordable prices on Internet.

• YollaYolla.com: Developed by Göktuğ Okan Oğuz and Haldun Uraz Boralılar, this project is a membership platform where users have the opportunity to try and use the products they have a yearning for.

• DersVerilir.net: Founded by Burak Tuyan, DersVerilir.net aims to bring the tutors and the students or the parents together.

• Filoline.net: Established by two experienced partners, Bertan Özdemir and Burçak Sayınsoy, this project is a platform arranging the communication, information flow and trade between the vehicle owners and service and products providers.

• Grupanya.com: Established by Can Mustafa Köne, Baran Dilberve, and Onur Yıldırım, Grupanya.com was originated from the idea of enabling people to purchase the activities, which they have wanted to do but found it expensive, at such prices that they cannot find anywhere else, when a certain number of participants have been attained.

• Ofansif.com: Developed by Çağatay Kıyıcı, Ogan Güner, and Reha Erbatura, this project is a “social network” and “social media” site where soccer fans come together and meet all their information and sharing needs related to soccer on a single platform.

• Bogazharbi.com: Developed by Ali Murat Sürmen, Berkan Uslu, Burak Çavundurluoğlu, Hasan Alpay Yasin, İlhan Yılmaz, and Ömer Emre Özen, it is a 3D video game project on Dardanelles War. Designed in the First Person Shooter (FPS) category, the game represents the battlefields with the most real-like scene designs, models, and animations.

• Dressar.com: Carried out by two senior students of the Boğaziçi University, Faculty of Computer Engineering, Halil Akın and Mehmet Arıkan, this project enables the customers to try on clothes easily on computer, through video camera (Augmented Reality). Due to this enterprise, customers can try on the catalogues of dozens of stores without going out and order the products they want to buy via Internet.

• Sopido.com: Established by Murat Kaya and Onur Yüksel, Sopido.com is a social shopping website, which profiles products rather than persons, contrary to the social media, and thus gathers the brands and products together in a single medium to which the users can access from anywhere they want.

• Nefius.com: Established by Fatih Bugan, Nefius.com is a “Concept-Centered Data Organization” system. It is an innovative infrastructure, which can be used in many areas where information is processed. It rearranges the Internet content in various ways by subjects and the expectations of the users; shortens the access time to information, and reinforces the content with new information.

• Lorientalis.org: Carried out by Deniz Şen, Ersin Ateş, and Yusuf Avcı, this project is an Internet platform, which aims to encourage individuals to be a part of the environmental issues and create socially responsible and eco-sensitive communities.

Burak Büyükdemir, founder of etohum, talked on the matter as follows: “Founded with the aim of bringing the internet entrepreneurs together with investors and supported by leading actors of the industry, such as GittiGidiyor.com, Yemeksepeti.com, Nokta.com, Mynet, Reklamz, and Mackolik.com, etohum enabled 10,000 people to come together through more than 100 meetings held within 2009. Moreover, more than 50,000 people were reached and introduced with all the activities of etohum, with the 24/7 broadcasting of etohum.tv on Internet. etohum also guided new entrants with various camps we organized. Last year, 2 companies, which had gone through etohum process, found its angel investors. Pabbuc.com and Ortakantin.com were incorporated with their new investors and started looking forward into the future more expectantly.”

Burak Büyükdemir continued his comments as such: “Most probably, many expect from the candidates such projects as production of the oxygen which will go to Mars, a nanotechnology innovation or a search engine excelling Google. However, there are not any such projects among the 2010 candidates of etohum because, at etohum, we focus on investors rather than ideas. That is the underlying idea of the ‘entrepreneur – investor rendezvous’ theme. In other words, people come together through etohum. At etohum, we believe that people are more valuable than the ideas. This certainly does not mean that there will not be any new and creative ideas. We will also see many new and innovative projects over time. There is not any reason why we cannot see the business models we read about in developed countries. We just have to work harder. We will all get better each year.”

15 entrepreneurs to be invested into will participate into the etohum Entrepreneurship Camp in February!

Entrepreneurs supported by etohum will participate into a 4-day Entrepreneurship Camp to be held in Rixos Premium Belek, Antalya, in February, with the sponsorship of Rixos Hotels. Training the entrepreneurs on various areas from drawing up a business plan to making presentation to the investors, the camp will also entertain the well-known and successful names of the e-business industry as guests. Ali Sabancı, founder of the Pegasus Airlines; Burak Divanlıoğlu, Serkan Borançılı, and Tolga Kabataş, founders of GittiGidiyor; Nevzat Aydın and Melih Ödemiş, founders of yemeksepeti.com; Emre Kurttepeli, founder of Mynet; Sina Afra, Turkey representative of eBay; Tümay Asena, founder of the Nokta Internet Technologies; Erdem Yurdanur, founder of Mackolik.com, and Sedat Kapanoğlu, founder of eksisozluk.com, will meet the new Internet entrepreneurs and share their experience with them.

Restoranrehberiniz.com, established by Erhan Kaya, offers you detailed information on a great number of restaurants in Istanbul. The information includes menus, recommendations from the chiefs, comments from users, maps, polls, food types, opening hours, etc.

Roodbox.com is the project of two undergraduates of the Bilgi University, Faculty of Advertising, Ulaş Akpınar and Osman Özmen. It is a unique seconds game, which shares a certain percentage of the advertising revenue with the viewers of the advertisement.

Mia-posta.com was established by Etel Özsarfati with the “’Life guide for the urban women” motto. The users of the website find each morning an e-mail message in their inbox, which includes daily recommendations on the city and life, written by a sharp-tongued character, Mia.

Zumbara.com is a social change project developed by Ayşegül Güzel. It is defined as a time bank, which enables individuals to use their capacities for helping each other and which employs time instead of money.

Anneysen.com was established by two female entrepreneurs, Pınar Şimşek and Aylin Çakır, who graduated from the Boğaziçi University, Faculty of Business Administration, in 1997. It is a social networking site for mothers and mothers-to-be.

Tvdegordum.com is a platform, which enables the televiewers to obtain information on the brand, model, and points of sale of the products they saw on TV shows or series and to buy them. It was co-founded by Erkin Günay and Canan Özkal.

Wishorb.com was established by Gökhan Çeliker and Emre Ertan, aiming to enable its users to realize their wishes through social media.

Neredenaldin.com was established by Eren Yalçındağ, as a website where the consumers who have made online shopping can write whether they have been satisfied with the e-business site and guide the future shoppers.

Duellog.com was established by Osman F. Küçükerdem, Akın Günel, Harun Şencal, and Afşin Çelik, as a niche social network, which enables young people to socialize through sport competitions.

Karniyarik.com is a vertical search engine enabling its users to find any priced thing they want on Internet. It was established by Siyamed Sınır, Kaan Meralan, and Doğuş Ertemur.

Etkinlink.com is system based on the online promotion and ticket sales for small and medium-sized events organized by individuals or corporations. It was established by Sarp Erdağ and Kemal Taşkın.

Orgalink.net was established by Mert Dağlaroğlu and Irmak Arkman Sosyal, as a content sharing network. It aims to share contents entered by members and editors in many areas, such as Motion Pictures, Music, Books, Video Games, TV Series, Cartoons, and Animations/Manga.

Gezegence.com is a user-shared travel project established by Özhan Yiğer. It aims to provide the travelers with information on countries and locations, as well as history and culture, health and security, climate and special days.

Unisbul.com, “a career website for the undergraduates and fresh graduates,” was established by two university students, Uğur Akkuş and Cemil Erol. It provides companies with the opportunities to put free advertisements, to access quickly to the undergraduate recruits with required qualities, and to make one-to-one contact with the registered undergraduates.

Bideneyim.com was established by Uygur and Batuhan Gümüşlü, as an online social network for the procurement of short-term young employees to various areas such as promotion, event management, fair organization, advertising, etc.

Bebelog.net, established by Kamil Kılıç, is an interactive community site where all information on babies is shared with families and relatives, as from the pregnancy until the fifth year. The firsts, the special days and health status of babies may be shared through photos and audio and video records.

Asker.com was established by Cem and Cenk Duran to provide the ranks and files and their relatives with all necessary information on military service and enable them to send each other free letters and photos.

Belgele.net targets the university students and fresh graduates, and proposes them an affordable and fast remedy for the problem of “certification of information,” which is faced in the recruitment and career progress. Established by Altuğ and Evren Gürkaynak, the system enables the users to take online paid certificate exams and free subject tests, and to print and ship the certificates on demand.

Whispurr.com is a service for micro-messaging and personal social networking via Internet and mobile media. The Internet enterprise was established by Hakan Guzelgoz, Stefano Rocco, Giuseppe Insalaco, Conor Devine, and Kevin Noonan, in Ireland.

HangiUniversite.com was established by Hasan Yaşar and Burak Kılanç. It is an Internet enterprise aiming to introduce and compare universities and their faculties and departments in Turkey, as well as sharing the comments of the students and graduates.

Balerin.com was established by Lütfi Gündüz, as an e-business enterprise focused on a particular market segment, with the aim of being the largest shopping website in the Turkish cosmetics industry. It sells only cosmetic products and offers mainly the most affordable prices on Internet.

YollaYolla.com is an online club with membership system, where users have the opportunity to use, try and experience the products they have a yearning for. It was established by Göktuğ Okan Oğuz and Haldun Uraz Boralılar.

AlisverisRobotu.com is a shopping guide, which helps the users in searching product and price information in online and physical stores, and deciding in the most effective way what and where to purchase. It was established by Ertuğrul Yılmaz and Çağdaş Tatlıcı.

DersVerilir.net aims to bring the tutors and the students or the parents together. It was founded by Burak Tuyan.

Filoline.net is an online platform, which arranges the communication, information flow and trade between the vehicle owners and service and products providers. It was established by two experienced partners, Bertan Özdemir and Burçak Sayınsoy

Grupanya.com was originated from the idea of enabling people to purchase the activities, which they have wanted to do but found it expensive, at such prices that they cannot find anywhere else, when a certain number of participants has been attained. It was established by Can Mustafa Köne, Baran Dilberve, and Onur Yıldırım.

Nurturia.com is a social platform created for families having or expecting a baby. Established by Damla Doğan Altınören and Gökhan Altınören, it makes it possible to record the child-focused memories and to share news about babies or children with relatives and friends.

Doopole.com is an Internet project which enables the users to produce content for the future and to share their plans and activities. Doopole provides its users with the possibility to organize events, propose them to other users and thus generate an income. It was established by Anıl Türetken, Barış Kara, Berat Dağlar, and Muhammed Yıldırım.

Ofansif.com is a “social network” and “social media” site where soccer fans come together and meet all their information and sharing needs related to soccer on a single platform. It was established by Çağatay Kıyıcı, Ogan Güner, and Reha Erbatur.

Bogazharbi.com is a 3D video game project on Dardanelles War. Designed in the First Person Shooter (FPS) category, the game represents the battlefields with the most real-like scene designs, models, and animations. It was created by Ali Murat Sürmen, Berkan Uslu, Burak Çavundurluoğlu, Hasan Alpay Yasin, İlhan Yılmaz, Kadir Duygulu and Ömer Emre Özen.

Dressar.com: Dressar is a project, which enables the customers to try on clothes easily on computer, through video camera. Due to this enterprise, customers can try on the catalogues of dozens of stores without going out and order the products they want to buy via Internet. It was established by two senior students of the Boğaziçi University, Faculty of Computer Engineering, Halil Akın and Mehmet Arıkan.

Sobeee.com is a location-based mobile social sharing and communication platform established by Serhat Sarı and Oğuz Gürler.

Sopido.com is a social shopping website, which profiles products rather than persons, contrary to the social media, and thus gathers the brands and products together in a single medium to which the users can access from anywhere they want. It was established by Murat Kaya, Onur Yüksel, and Ersan Bilik.

Lalaloo.com is a matching project initiated by Aslı Kubilay for professionals over 30 years old and from SEG AB+. The project accepts members only upon recommendation.

Morbant.com is a web 2.0-focused social network for the students of ODTÜ, Boğaziçi University, İTÜ, and Bilkent University. It was established by Ozan Önen.

Nefius.com was established by Fatih Bugan as a “Concept-Centered Data Organization” system. It is an innovative infrastructure, which can be used in many areas where information is processed. It rearranges the Internet content in various ways by subjects and the expectations of the users. It shortens the access time to information. It reinforces the content with new information.

Lorientalis.org is an Internet platform, which aims to encourage individuals to be a part of the environmental issues and create socially responsible and eco-sensitive communities. It was created by Deniz Şen, Ersin Ateş, and Yusuf Avcı.

Doktorium.com enables the pharmaceutical representatives and companies that have enrolled in the system to get appointment from the physicians to whom they want to make presentation about their pharmaceuticals and to be in continuous interactivity with the physicians. The project was created by Atilla Oğuzhan Durgun.

Since 2 projects were not submitted to the etohum advisory board on time, they could not be included in the pivot list and be presented.

Preparing to announce the new Internet entrepreneurs they will support in 2010 at its meeting on January 30, etohum organizes a 4-day Entrepreneurship Camp for the candidates in February. Many well-known and successful Internet entrepreneurs such as Ali Sabancı, Emre Kurttepeli, and Sina Afra also participate as guests in the camp to share their first-hand experience.

Bringing the entrepreneurs who have knowledge and business idea on the new economy together with companies and professionals who may make investments in this area, etohum will announce 15 Internet entrepreneurs into which they will make investments in 2010 at its meeting on January 30. The candidates who will be supported by etohum will participate in a 4-day etohum Entrepreneurship Camp to be held in Rixos Premium Belek, in Antalya, from February 18 to 21, with the sponsorship of Rixos Hotels.

Giving trainings to the candidates on various areas from drawing up a business plan to making presentation to the investors, the camp will also entertain the well-known and successful names of the e-business industry as guests. Ali Sabancı, founder of the Pegasus Airlines; Burak Divanlıoğlu, Serkan Borançılı, and Tolga Kabataş, founders of GittiGidiyor; Nevzat Aydın and Melih Ödemiş, founders of yemeksepeti.com; Emre Kurttepeli, founder of Mynet; Sina Afra, Turkey representative of eBay; Tümay Asena, founder of the Nokta Internet Technologies; Erdem Yurdanur, founder of Mackolik.com, and Sedat Kapanoğlu, founder of eksisozluk.com, will meet the new Internet entrepreneurs and share their experience with them.

Burak Büyükdemir, founder of etohum, talked thus on the event: “2010 will be the year of the new Internet companies. The companies that are founded on recession periods are able to organize their business processes more efficiently than their competitors. At etohum, we believe that these companies will grow very rapidly, after the crisis has been overcome. Most of the Internet entrepreneurs founded during the 2001 crisis have become large-scale companies. And now they lead the new Internet entrepreneurs. Companies founded in those times, such as yemeksepeti and GittiGidiyor, support the new entrants and share their experience with them through etohum. In addition, a huge increase has been achieved in the user number, due to the proliferation of the high-access Internet service in Turkey. As a result, Internet has become part of the daily life. Many foreign Internet websites have been flooded by Turkish users. Many companies plan to shift its advertising expenses towards Internet. Therefore, Internet companies founded in Turkey are expected to be the favorite of investors in 2010.”

You can get more detailed information on etohum Entrepreneurship Camp at the web site of etohum at www.etohum.com.

Contact person:
Umut Ersoy
Marjinal Porter Novelli
0212 219 29 71

umute@marjinal.com.tr
www.etohum.com

We will announce the names of fifteen new internet startups that we shall support during the year 2010 on a weekend meeting to be held by Etohum in Bahcesehir University on 30 January 2010, Saturday.

The candidates who made their applications during 2009 will submit their presentations to a group of investors and experienced internet entrepreneurs in January and try to get into the top fifteen finalists after a tough selection process. In 2009, more than 1,000 entrepreneurs appealed to etohum. After having one-on-one meetings with the selected 150 candidates, the list was shortened to 40 applicants. Following the presentation of these 40 candidates to experienced internet entrepreneurs in January, there will be fifteen projects left for etohum to support.

Etohum meeting, where new 15 companies will be announced, will host Airties and Maxim Founding Partner Ziya Boyacigiller, Sobee founder Mevlut Dinc and biletix.com Founders Ali Abhary and Dave Dorner as speakers on 30 January 2010, Saturday. Etohum weekend meeting schedule is as follows;

30 January 2010 Saturday Schedule
10:00 – 10:30 Registration (coffee & tea)
10:30 – 10:45 Etohum 2010 Welcoming Speech – Burak Buyukdemir
10:45 – 11:00 Speech on Bahcesehir University & Co-op Program
11:00 – 12:00 Ziya Boyacigiller – Airties and Maxim Founding Partner
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch Break
13:00 – 14:00 Mevlut Dinc– Sobee Founder
14:00 – 14:10 Coffee Break
14:10 – 14:15 Award Ceremony for Designer Contest – Hasan Yalcin
14:15 – 15:15 Ali Abhary / Dave Dorner biletix.com Founders
15:15 – 15:30 Coffee Break
15:30 – 16:00 Etohum 2009 Candidates Progress
16:00 – 17:00 Etohum 2010 Presentation
17:00 Closure

Date: 30 January 2010, Saturday
Time: 10:00 – 17:00
Place: Bahcesehir University / Fazıl Say Hall – Beşiktaş / Istanbul

Please kindly fill the following form if you will be attending the meeting.

We are organising a weekend Etohum meeting on Saturday, 25th of July. Internet entrepreneurs will meet at Mynet-ITU ARI 2 Teknokent Building A Conference room between 9:00 – 12:00 am.
At the weekend Etohum meeting, the designers who are ranked at the top places in the t-shirt competition with a main theme of “entrepreneurship” organised in cooperation with tasarti.com will be given their trophies. Additionally, we will give all competitors the t-shirts they have designed as presents.

We will be listening to the story of the website tatilsepeti.com which was founded by three young entrepreneurs who have achieved success under the age of 30 , Mr. Nedim Paltura, Mr. Suat Gücel and Mr. Kaan Karayal and this successful trend they have maintained in 5 years.

The t-shirt competition with a main theme “entrepreneurship” which we started on June 7th ended. We’d like to thank to all creative designers who have shown their interest in the competition. We received 40 t-shirt designs. Based on your votes, we decided to print 2 design on a limited number of t-shirts with tasarti.com. The designs of Can Oktay Heper and Mohaç Yücel were sent to be printed from tasarti.com. These t-shirts will be available soon.

Next week, we will auction these t-shirts signed by their own designers on the website Gittigidiyor.com at a value of TL 1 each. After the designers, we will offer the t-shirts signed by Internet pioneers who have been working hard to develop Internet in Turkey for sale. We will donate the money collected via the sales to Turkish Education Foundation (Türk Eğitim Vakfı). The two designs will be printed on a total of 150 t-shirts and the only distribution channel will be Internet sale.
We will organise Etohum weekend meeting at Mynet –İTÜ Teknokent on Saturday July 25th, at this meeting we will print the designs of the all designers competing in the competition on t-shirts at tish-o and give these t-shirts to them a presents. Additionally we will give the t-shirts of the designers who are ranked in the top three. We will announce detailed information about this weekend meeting soon, but would like to remind you in advance, do not be engaged in another activity on Saturday July 25th between 9:00 – 12:00 AM.

We aim to repeat this t-shirt competiton next year in spring and as a result achieve limited number of designs with an Etohum entrepreneurship theme every year. We thought we’d better inform this to the collectors now.

When you check the website Tasarti.com, you might think it as a t-shirt selling website. However their business model is far from selling t-shirts. Based on a similar business model which has been successful in the international market, they bring the designers together on a shared platform and there appear extraordinary t-shirt designs which you cannot find anywhere else. They do not send all designs to be printed, they choose only those which have received the highest scores from the visitors of the website. Another point where they differ from similar businesses is that the quality of the t-shirt print. The prints are done with mouldings at the plants where brand t-shirts are printed. Thus the colours do not fade after being washed.

We will welcome the founder of this Internet website Mr. Bülent Haksal at the next meeting which will be held at Maçkolik. We will try to find by asking questions why he initiated such a business.

Companies mostly develop their products/services by using only their own resources and knowledge. Sometimes they might ignore the feedback they receive from their customers. Especially as a common practise, of filling out paper forms in the old economy and analysis of these forms by company managers take very long time as well as being a costly process. One of the biggest benefits of Internet for businesses is that it gives the opportunity for them to communicate with their customers on real time and listen fast to their ideas. These businesses can develop innovative services while listening to the thoughts and ideas of new generation brand users. Companies which are one step ahead can include their customers into these processes.

The founders of ideshot.com create a platform which enables the brands to meet with their customers and listen to innovative suggestions. Ideshot users contribute to the open innovation by giving suggestions for the companies which are members of the system. We will listen to Ideshot.com which was created by two young entrepreneurs at the Etohum meeting on June 10th 2009. This Etohum meeting will be held at Bersay Communication Institute.

There has been a major increase in the use of Internet for social purposes. That the active Internet users create a profile in one or more social network is a one of the results reached in various researches. In Turkey social networks, notably Facebook are being used frequently. Hayhuy.com is a new enterprise which got out of the beta process within the past days and entered into the social network market.

Shortly, Hayhuy.com is a social networking website based on matching the profiles which are created based on the answers to questions of a questionnaire. Hayhuy.com which was created by Soda Medya which also owns website such as Sinema.com, Tedarik.com promises a fun social network environment for its users.

We will welcome the founding partners of Hayhuy.com at our meeting this week at Cevahir Mall Schiller.

“kimgelsin.com” founded after a cloe analysis of the demands on the Internet by Mohaç Yücel, Ceren Yücel, Selçuk Uzun ve Volkan Çınar who are specialised in their own line of work but also interested in music professionally will be the guest at our next Etohum meeting. “kimgelsin.com” providing news mainly related with music activities and creating demand for the said activities has the quality of being a business model which includes detailed information about the musicians and which can address to a large scale of age. We will invite the founding partners of kimgelsin.com to our meeting at Mackolik complex.