Ventures that will be supported by Etohum and that will receive investment from Etohum fund in 2011 were announced. It was announced that the 15 successful ventures were selected from amongst 2200 entrepreneurs and 1000 ventures that applied.

Etohum which plays an active role in invigorating the new economy by linking successful entrepreneurs with investors selected the 15 ventures in the new economy that might be invested in. Among the 15 ventures are Medra, Gamester, Betikus, Oyuncakdenizi, Gezara, Sinavo, we-decide.net, sepeteindir.com, pembepanjur.com, keyground, Gereko, Proje Shop, Smartnews, memlekettengelsin.com and uzmankirala.com. Founders of the 15 ventures will attend the 5 day Etohum camp that will take place at the Antalya Rixos Sungate Hotel in February.

The ventures that were announced during the Entrepreneurship Summit held at Bahçeşehir University with attendances by Index Group CEO Erol Bilecik, Logo BS CEO Tuğrul Tekbulut, Simitsarayı CEO Haluk Okutur, KOSGEB President Mustafa Kaplan and Berk D. Demir from StumbleUpon as speaker already started meeting with investors.

Etohum which was founded to increase the number of internet companies in Turkey, support entrepreneurs and establish a marketplace for entrepreneurs and investors so that an internet eco-system can be formed and supported, carried out a thorough study for the selection of the 15 internet entrepreneurs that will receive investments. In 2010 the number of internet entrepreneurs who applied to Etohum was 2.200 and a short list containing 40 people was selected after face-to-face interviews with 200 participants who were selected in the first round. The entrepreneurs in this short list made presentations to the Etohum fund founders during January.

The 15 entrepreneurs selected to be suitable for investment amongst these 40 ventures were selected by an investment committee including Yemeksepeti.com founders Nevzat Aydın and Melih Ödemiş, GittiGidiyor.com ortakları Burak Divanlıoğlu ve Serkan Borançılı, Cimri.com Founder Aydonat Atasever, Magnet founding partner Ersan Özer, Nokta.com founding partners Tümay Asena, Burçin Didinedin, Mynet Founder Emre Kurttepeli, Mackolik.com Kurucu Ortakları Erdem Yurdanur and Tarkan Onar, Reklamz founder Orkun Tekin, markafoni founding partner Sina Afra, Youth Republic founding partner Kerim Türe, investor Dr. Haluk Elçi, Yonja.com founder Kerim Baran, Ari Keşişoğlu who continues his career in the internet sector abroad and etohum.com founder Burak Büyükdemir.

Etohum which introduces new economy entrepreneurs with investors who can make investments in this field will also be investing new entrepreneurs with the 250.000 capital funding set up in 2011.

The 15 ventures selected for investment in 2011 are:

Medra: The company named Medra was founded Burak Oğuz, H. Özgür Batur and H. Kerem Cevahir, 3 friends who graduated from METU Computer and Electrics-Electronics Engineering departments and their first product MyDLP is an open source coded project allowing people and companies to protect their private information.

Gamester: The social game company named Gamester was founded by Volkan Taban, Onur Karcı and Turan Yiğitbaşı; their first product called Townster is a city planning and real estate game in which players may set up their own cities and get rents or buy buildings from the cities of their friends to become a real estate king.

Betikus: The first product of the venture Betikus which was founded by METU graduates Deniz Aslı Soykurum Çetin and Atılım Çetin is Gideros; a mobile game development application. By using Gideros game developers may write the code for a game once and release it in more than one platform at the same time.

Oyuncakdenizi: oyuncakdenizi.com founded by ITU Geology Engineering and ITU MBA alumnus Serkan Hondur is a site where you can buy toys from.

Gezara: gezara.com founded by Onur Sencer, Hüsnü Babayiğit and Dağhan Ekmekçioğlu is a location-based exploration application. This application is a tool aiming to meet the needs of people when they are outside and to ease their lives. This application helps you find places, activities and discounts in your vicinity and may show and guide you to places that are of interest to you in any category.

Sınavo: sınavo.com established by M. Murat Demir and Özgür Erten who graduated from Izmir University of Economics Computer Engineering department is developing a service that transforms solving problems on the internet into a game thus increasing students’ efficiencies by tracking their performances.

We-decide.net: We-decide.net founded by Berkeley alumnus Erdem Ovacık and Stanford alumnus Kutlu Kazancı enables users to create, purchase and sell ideas and develop them via a virtual idea market that will help corporations in their decision procedures.

Sepeteindir.com: sepeteindir.com founded by Kocaeli University graduate Kaan Veral is an e-commerce site which sells different products alongside a different discounted product for each day.

Pembepanjur.com: Pembepanjur.com founded by Haluk Akın and Seda Berber in 2010 is a service providing scientific matching to its service for “long term and serious relationships”.

Keyground: Keyground founded by Cem Evren Ateş and Can Ateş is a video platform that decreases broadcasting costs while enabling a fast and quality broadcasting opportunity for corporations in need of video broadcasting over the internet.

Gereko: Gereko.com founded by Ayşe Biçer, a METU 2010 Industrial Engineering alumna is an internet platform for everyday cases such as “I will move, I need a carrying company”, “I need a nanny for my baby”, “I need an organization company for my wedding” in which people and companies that give such services may sign up to communicate with you and give quotation for your needs.

Proje Shop: Proje Shop founded by Yıldız Technical University Computer Engineering graduate Yüksel Eminoğlu is developing software enabling B2C and B2B ready e-commerce infrastructures and online shops.

SmartNews: SmartNews founded by Çukurova University Industrial Engineering graduate Erdem Özkan is a system developed to enable users to reach news that are and will be popular in social media. An algorithm that mathematically models the social media presence of users in order to statistically predict which news will be popular forms the foundation of SmartNews.

Memlekettengelsin.com: Memlekettengelsin.com founded by three young entrepreneur partners Veysel Karakaya, Ali Can Akkaş and M. Emre Gül sells Turkey’s local tastes and products via the internet.

Uzmankirala.com: uzmankirala.com founded by 22 year old Murat Turan, currently a student at Bahçeşehir University Software Engineering department is an e-commerce platform that links expert freelancers with employers who wish to get work done on a project basis.

Other 25 projects

Kuponomi.com: Kuponomi.com founded by ITU Architecture graduate Sani Levi is the trading place of missed deals. It is a market place in which you can make use of deal coupons purchased from group deal sites that you cannot use any more.

Animalwars: AnimalWars founded by YTU Computer Engineering graduate İrfan Kaya and ITU Computer Engineering Department graduate Hüseyin Kuşçu is a multi-player role playing game (RPG) targeting mobile medium. Players may carry out different quests with animals that they raised; communicate, commerce and compete with each other online.

Petarkadas: Petarkadas.com founded by Umut Akyol and Şafak Akyol is a community site in which people can have a good time and find information regarding all pets (dogs, cats, birds, rodents, reptiles…), socialize and find homes for homeless pets.

Malzemem.com: Malzemem.com founded by Tuğberk Keselioğlu and Timur Tandoğar is an online store for construction materials that delivers over 10.000 products from sectors such as construction, lighting, electricity, hardware, pool, sauna, occupational safety etc. to anywhere in Turkey in 3 days.

Gayrimenkulübü.com: Gayrimenkul Kulübü founded by Gökhan Acar is a real estate investment club in which individuals who want to purchase estate may form organized groups to receive discounts of up to 30% from construction companies.

Gamezboy: Gamezboy founded by Uğur Tuncel is a mobile game company. It has developed 4 successful games Fetih, İstila, bu karayı al parayı and davul ve zurna that can be found in the Nokia Ovi Store.

Kucukoteller.com.tr: kucukoteller.com.tr founded by Bilkent University graduate İzim Bozada aims to give a service enabling specially discounted prices for boutique and small hotels and special travel preferences in Turkey.

e-eczadeposu.com: e-eczadeposu.com founded by Eskişehir Osmangazi University Electricity-Electronics Eng. Department graduate Ekrem Aksoy and İbrahim Aksoy is a new platform that will be active in the drug procurement system between about 120 prescription medicine distribution companies and 24000 pharmacies all over Turkey.

Terapi.com: terapi.com founded by Önder Eren and Hakan Tekinaslan is an online therapy portal that links psychologists, psychiatrists and coaches with people who are in need of these specialists.

Grupguru.com: Grupguru.com founded by Sabancı University graduate Sarp Centel and Bahçeşehir University graduate Sarp Erdağ makes it easy for you to follow the deals in your city. It collects all the deals valid for your city in one place and suggests deals that might interest you.

6q.net: 6q.net founded by Okan Yıldırım, Ramazan Akman and Mustafa Arslan is a company developing online games. The company that has focused on quiz shows, word, board and card games has over 10 games in its product portfolio.

Shoppio: Shoppio founded by Gökhan Beseb and Mehmet Umut Atasever is a technology venture aiming to start the first Social Market place application in Turkey. This application enables companies/individuals to sell their products or services via Facebook listing or online sales methods.

Goma: GOMA founded by ITU electronics faculty Ozan Dikerler and Övünç Dalkıran who is still a student at ITU Computer Engineering department is a web based mobile application development application.

Games’nGamers: Games’nGamers founded by Ahmet Cemil Cerenoğlu is a social network project aiming to solve the common problems of massively multi-player game players.

Mofcon: Mofcon founded by Sakarya University Electrics Electronics Engineering department graduate İbrahim Yıldız is a B2B social business network project.

Taksimobil: TaksiMobil which is a new generation taxi calling system developed by Munich Technical University Electrics/Electronics Engineering Department graduate Alper Öztürk uses the GPS technology of mobile devices to forward the customer calls to the closest free taxi. When the taxi driver accepts the call the customer receives real-time information containing the license plate, distance and estimated arrival time of the taxi.

Sporcutv: Sporcutv.com founded by Burak ulukanlı, Oya Sarıer and Erhan Bağrıaçık is a platform that aims to connect the sports sector online.

Foo Messenger: Foo Messenger project started by Burak Bayburtlu and Ertuğrul Gerçeker is a messaging service for smart-phone users but unlike the instant messaging programs it connects via the cell phone number.

Doktorfil: Doktorfil project founded by Onur Özkol, a YTU Electronics and Communication Eng. Department graduate who is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Bosphorus University Computer Engineering department and Erdem Özkol is related with the sales and internet services of wireless blood pressure measuring devices, wireless scales, wireless blood sugar measurement devices.

Cheetah Mobile: Cheetah Mobile founded by Bilkent University Computer Engineering student Emrah Ayanoğlu is a game company that will be established to develop mobile applications and games.

Lokaid founded by METU Electrics and Electronics Engineering graduate Koray Balcı and METU Mathematics Department graduate Orçun Topdağı is an internet service forming the common infrastructure of cell phone applications. It transforms the position data provided by new generation cell phones to location (café, cinema, store, etc.) data. It enables users to share these locations in social networks. It creates a platform for developers who can use these data to give different services to users.

Hementemizle.com founded by Turgut Yazıcı, Fatih Şaki and Pars Kunt will bring together dry-cleaning suppliers online in one place and give service to consumers.

Zibumi founded by Elif Buğdaycıoğlu, Serhat Bayılı and Zeynep Bilirgil Direskeneli is a game company. It currently continues its operations at the METU Teknokent Galyum Ankara address. You can find information about their flash games at www.zibumi.com and their project information at www.zibumigames.com.

Firmanya.com founded by Ceki Mitrani and Metin Bencuya is the world’s first group-buying web site for corporations. It operates by daily notification e-mails sent to the members about services and products regarding companies and company employees at discount rates of up to 80 %.

In 2010 – 2011 Etohum period we created the Etohum fund with support from Nokia for investors with mobile projects. In addition to the Etohum Fund we supplied Nokia – Etohum support to the mobile projects of entrepreneurs who applied during the August – December time period. As a result of the evaluation of projects suited for mobile environment together with Nokia, the below ventures were selected as projects that will receive a 60.000 TL investment.

AlisverisRobotu.com, is a shopping guide where users may search for product and price information from either online or physical shops helping them to make an effective decision about where to buy which product. The venture was established by Ertuğrul Yılmaz and Çağdaş Tatlıcı.

Animalwars, AnimalWars founded by YTU Computer Engineering graduate İrfan Kaya and ITU Computer Engineering Department graduate Hüseyin Kuşçu is a multi-player role playing game (RPG) targeting mobile medium. Players may carry out different quests with animals that they raised; communicate, commerce and compete with each other online.

Gamester, The social game company named Gamester was founded by Volkan Taban, Onur Karcı and Turan Yiğitbaşı; their first product called Townster is a city planning and real estate game in which players may set up their own cities and get rents or buy buildings from the cities of their friends to become a real estate king.

Etohum (eseed) which is the new meeting address of Internet entrepreneurs announced with a weekend meeting held on January 31st the first 21 internet entrepreneurs who have investable ideas! Since August 1.200 people in total applied for Etohum with 500 different projects, the selection criteria of Etohum are strategies related with the realization and development of ideas.

Etohum which brings entrepreneurs with knowledge and business ideas about the new economy and the companies and professionals who can invest together announced the 21 enterprise projects it will support with a weekend meeting held in Istanbul Technical University (ITU) Maçka Faculty of Business Administration with the contributions of Management Engineering Club.

Among 1200 entrepreneurs and 500 projects applying since August, Etohum selected the Internet enterprises which can be invested on by evaluating the strategies related with the realization and development of ideas.

Burak Büyükdemir, founder of Etohum said, “as Etohum, since the first day our company was founded, we say to Internet entrepreneurs not to wait for the stork to bring you the baby. If you have the idea of having a baby no time will be enough to contemplate about it. You have to hit the road to realize your idea”. The activites we have organized in this regard never have a competitive nature. For us as Etohum the important thing is that the enterprises which can be invested are realized or are about to be realized. In this period we analysed closely 50 projects and we had face to face meetings with about 100 people in these projects. We listened to the projects which were only on paper and on idea level one by one. But on every occasion we say that the entrepreneurs should first invest on themselves. 21 projects we selected at the end of this period have all the qualities we look for.

The stories of realization of “investable” Internet enterprises and projects selected by Etohum are as follows:

• Cvyolla.com
This Project belonging to Onur Çakır and Meriç Kul who had the same major from Middle East Technical University and then completed their master degrees abroad is a career site and starts with the model inwhich candidate who is looking for job sends his/her CV to companies. Çakır and Kul who left their jobs to realize their own ideas developed this business model when “cvyolla.com” becomes a career site with ISKUR certificate. “Cvyolla.com” now continues working to provide different services from other recruitment sites and to find its place in the Internet market.

• Gercekten.com
Erdal Bozkuş who organizes many important concerts, national and international organisations with his company established in 2007 under the name Atlantis Music Production has developed a Project with his close friends. “gercekten.com” which has a model that will bring famous people and their fans together via Internet delivers today the signatures and images of famous people in television, cinema, music or sports world addressed specifically to each individual to the doors of their fans.

• Ideshot.com
Metin Kahraman and Harun Peşken who had worked in several companies in the Internet sector established first a company named Angelabs A.Ş. In summer 2008 the two partners thought that companies’ needs for developing new ideas are not adequately met via the internet. As a result a business model that collects innovative ideas and suggestions related with the products and services bought by them and sent to the relevant companies and thus aims to strengthen mutual communication has been realized. Today “ideshot.com” provides an interactive environment between brand consultants who offer new and quality ideas with brands found in the platform.

• Kartguru.com
Özgür Alaz who graduated from Istanbul Technical University Department of Management Engineering started his career as a Marketing Trends Expert by providing consultancy service on new Technologies and trends to firms. In addition to this, Alaz informs individuals working in the marketing area about the novelties with the blog Marketallica he updates regularly. “Kartguru.com” on the other hand has been developed as a comparison and suggestion service aiming to facilitate financial and shopping related choices of individuals. “kartguru.com” which is a free of charge service aims to assist consumers to make savings with credit cards, to diminish banks’ new customer acquisition costs and to create a new card sales channel.

• Kimgelsin.com
Mohaç Yücel, Ceren Yücel, Selçuk Uzun and Volkan Çınar who are specialized in their own fields and at the same time who deal with music professionally have established ‘kimgelsin.com’ after analysing the demands on the Internet closely. “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.

• Kolokyum.com
3 successful and young architects called Ceyhun Baskın, İnanç Eray and Evren Başbuğ have founded together the DistArchitects Architecture Office after graduation. The architects who won several awards in many competitions combine the Internet and the architecture and analyse very closely the needs of their colleagues in the new economy. “kolokyum.com” founded for this purpose aims to be the sharing platform of architects. “kolokyum.com” where professional ideas can be shared related with the architecture plans to serve in a vertical market with its video infrastructure where conferences, seminars and interviews can be found.

• Ogrence.net
“ogrence.net” realized by Bilkent University Computer Engineering 2008 graduate Doğan Kaya Berktaş
and METU Electric and Electronic Engineering student Yekmer Şimşek is a web based solution which provides interaction between private teaching institutions, parents and students. Established with the idea that many private teaching institutions do not have their own software and those who have do not work efficiently, “ogrence.net” is a business model developed to provide private teaching institutions operate over the Internet.

• Pabbuc.com
Pabbuc.com founded by Serdar Yaman and Göker Ezberci who graduated from Izmir High Technology Institute Department of Physics sells shoes, bags and accessories over the Internet. “pabbuc.com” which was founded by Serdar Yaman who knows the shoe market due to his father operating in the sector and who worked previously in various software companies and by Göker Ezberci who after working in technology companies founded his own hosting firm has been operating since 2006.

• Sunumax.com
“sunumax.com” founded by two brothers Sadık Kocabaşa born in 1986 and Cem Kocabaşa born in 1990 is a business model where an animated character similar to a tv reporter explains the related site to target audience. Kocabaşa brothers who provide service to many corporate firms with this technology continue their works for the speak-up of online characters with semi artificial intelligence or the interaction with sites with certain commands.

• Userspots.com
Mustafa Dalcı born in Ankara in 1983 who graduated in 2006 from METU Department of Statistics and who now continues his post graduate studies in METU Informatics Institute Department of Communication Systems is now working as a Web Developer since 2006 in METU Informatics Administration Presidency. Userspots developed by Dalcı whose fields of interest in communication sector are semantic web, human-computer interaction and usability, tests the site and software with users, tracks the eye movements of users with eye tracking device and determines the results found on the site and interprets them and in the end provide solutions with an analysis report.

• Cepkod.com
Oğuzhan Alpay a graduate of METU Electrics and Electronics Computer Engineering Department who then completed Koç University MBA program and who also studied one term in London Business School and Mustafa Alpay a graduate of Bosphorus University Mechanical Engineering Department founded Imovasyon in August 2008 with the support of Bosphorus University Technology Development centre to realize their technological and innovative business ideas. Two partners who then developed “cepkod.com” currently work on a mobile software which will provide Internet connection with real time events.

Other candidates which will be invited to Etohum camp;
• Founders of Maksidurak.com
• Partners of Evimizinherseyi.com
• 8 different games developer teams from METU Teknokent Animation Technologies and Game Developing Centre

Project owners will participate in the entrepreneurial camp with Etohum!
Burak Büyükdemir who told they would hold an entrepreneurial camp for the owners of the projects elected since February, added as follows: “This year we will invite 30 entrepreneurs to this camp. Here we will have 5 days full of activities aiming practicing on business plans, presentation techniques, business law, finance and similar subjects. Also the entrepreneurs will have the chance to meet with Internet entrepreneurs who have been successful in Turkey and to obtain coaching and consultancy from them during the camp. Abovementioned activities will continue after the camp. In our follow-up meetings, the entrepreneurs will have more chance to explain themselves to the Internet community. By mid May we will bring companies, persons and professionals who, we think, could be the right investors and entrepreneurs together in a closed meeting. Next year we will start the same process again and work to maintain and increase gradually the interest in Internet entrepreneurship.”

Those entrepreneurs who wish to get information about Etohum activities or join the meeting will only need to go to the address www.etohum.com

The unemployment rate among young population in Turkey has reached to 28% in the last month according to the statistics of TUİK. Every year millions of university graduate join the workforce of the country. Targeting only this segment, Kariyergenc.com was opened last month. Nurettin Özdoğan has been working for a year to realise his project of “head hunter” which he came first with in the e-fikrim competition last year position. He changed his business model to operate in career sector and founded kariyergenc.com together with Hasan Toprakkaya and Sinan Kaplan. They found their investors very recently. We will invite the founding partners of kariyergenc.com to our meeting at Mackolik complex.

A special etohum meetup was held on 30th of October. This time Mackolik hosted etohum. We listened the story of uygulamapazari.com from its owner Erdem Yurdanur. It is a marketplace for mobile phone application developers.

After the meetup, there was a live performance from “Paste Tense” music group.

Means of access to Mackolik: via Google Maps or Mackolik Complex Address

The photos taken during the meetup can be found at etohum Facebook group.

Tolga H. Tatari (left) & Ahmet E. Sarı (right) at etohum meetup

As European ecommerce luxury shopping community buyvip.com recevied investment of an undisclosed size from Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, 3i and Molins Capital Inversión, same business model has been recently launched in Turkey. Last week on 4th of September in our etohum meetup, our guests were co-founders of the firm; Tolga H. Tatari and Ahmet E. Sarı. Markafoni.com has been launched few months ago as Akinon Project Development firm’s project. Additionally they have angel investors.  As used in other exclusive shopping clubs, markafoni.com accepts customers only with reccomendation. They sell luxury brands with 50-70% discount. Although they made agreements with many luxury brands in Turkey, there are many difficulties convincing Turkish firms in these kinds of ecommerce models. Turkish internet market is new to shopping online apparel. Markafoni.com reached many internet geeks in last months. WOM effect of the project so far is successful. We will follow the project closely.

More photos of meetup

Etohum meetup – Ali Servet Eyupoglu (mekanist.net) and Burak Buyukdemir (etohum.com)

This week our guest was Mekanist.net, social review site especially focusing on restaurants in the begining. Ali Servet Eyüpoğlu is the co-founder of this startup. Although traffic jam problem in Istanbul because of Iran’s president Ahmadinejad precaution there were more than 30 people in the meeting. Mekanist.net business model is very similar to yelp.com but Ali Servet told CRM based income model for the firm. He expects to bind restaurants with online CRM tools and will ask montly payments to use these online administrative pages. Restaurants will be able to communicate with their prospective customers using these tools. They will be also able to use online marketing tools. He additionally told that they will not be focusing on events. Their priority is social reviews. In next weeks they will rearrange their entering pages for social purposes. Participants were more aggresive this time, they have strongly questioned him. Considiring his age and experience level, he successfully managed to answer most of the questions.

This week we launched etohum web tv with televidyon.com (revision 3 business model) All guest startups will be online after meetups. There will be interviews with meetup participants about Turkish internet sector and their business. Etohum.tv is in Turkish but hopefully we may add subtitle when we find more sponsor to etohum.

Mert Hurturk on Techcrunch – Webrazzi meetup

On 7th of August our guest startup speakers will be Octeth.com. Mert and Cem Hurturk two brothers founded this company in early 2000s. Their main focus is email software called “oempro” sold more than 15.000 customers in last 8 years.

Wridea.com is an international project “a web service first to avoid ideas being forgotten, then to organize and improve those ideas by giving you the opportunity to share your ideas with friends and necessary tools to improve your ideas by yourself and individually.” in their words

Our next meeting will be in Profilo Shopping center on 7th of August at Sciller cafe. We will hopefully change the location in next weeks.

Serdar Kuzuloğlu co-founder of televidyon.com

Last Wednesday on 30th of July we met with Serdar Kuzuloğlu. He is co-founder of televidyon.com revision3 business model in Turkey. Kuzuloğlu who is technology editor in Radikal newspaper additionally worked in Doğan Corp. He left this position this August in order to focus more on televidyon.com. There were more than 60 people in this meetup. Timur Sırt and Serdar Kuzuloğlu started teknosohbet.tv a year ago. It was a chat web television about technology. In last months the 3 founder have converted their business plan to web television platform for all internet users. Anyone who will continuously produce web videos may open their channell on televidyon.com. Timur is technology editor in Sabah newspaper which is one of the 5 most selling national wide. Şükrü Andaç is the third founder of the MYK-media. He works in another newspaper Milliyet as a technology editor. Serdar is in charge of the firm. They have 4 different technology channels now but will broaden their focus on different subjects such as music, food and movies etc. We are planning to change the cafe for next meetings. Although its central location there is a high noise and it’s hard to listen the guest speakers. Furthemore the staff here is not hospitable.

Profilo shopping center – Schiller cafe – Etohum meetup

On 23th of July we have met in Profilo Schiller. Takasmerkezi.com was our second startup guest. Onder Eren is the founder of the startup. He have mavikelebek software firm which have already worked with barter firms.  He is computer engineer. He founded two other firms which were bankrupt, so he is expreinced entrepreneur. There are 4 people working with him in takasmerkezi.com project. Takas means swap, barter exchange. Merkez means center, centric, focal, centrical. The aim of the project is shopping without any money based on swap. This is not one-to-one product swap or barter but you collect money unit which enables you to buy any other thing on the site. In my point of view this is the step before money has been invented. We can call “money -1″  . If you have something to sell you list your product here and if someone buys it you have money unit here which will be used for your shopping. This is chicken-egg dilemma. İf there are many products here you may shop easily. If not it is hard to start economy. The income model is based on commissions from successful transactions. Takasmerkezi plans to launch whatswap.com mainly focuses on Europe and US.