START-UP STORIES

Yemek Sepeti

Nevzat Aydın and Melih Ödemiş were classmates at Boğaziçi University, Department of Computer Engineering. Cem Nufusi was a professional in the tourism sector. After completing his education at Boğaziçi University, Nevzat Aydın travelled to the United States and received an MBA from the University of San Francisco in Silicon Valley. During this period, his interest in e-commerce increased. Especially the interest in takeaway services in San Francisco attracted his attention and he developed this idea and shared it with his classmate Melih Ödemiş when he returned to Türkiye.

The two friends started to do research on the applicability of this idea in Türkiye. During the research process, which lasted about 5 months, they organised surveys and conducted interviews with restaurants. As a result of their research, they decided to create a business model based on “meal package” orders. However, they needed an intermediary to realise this business model in cooperation with restaurants. At this point, they included Cem Nufusi, one of their childhood friends who was active in the tourism sector, in the project and formed a full team.

In September 2000, in a 40 square metre room, “Yemek Sepeti Gıda ve Pazarlama Elektronik İletişim ve Tanıtım Limited Şirketi” was established. Nevzat Aydın was appointed as general manager, Melih Ödemiş as IT manager and Cem Nufusi as sales and marketing manager.

Since the internet was not yet widespread at that time, they started to receive orders by fax. However, in 2001, with the increase in internet usage, they switched to the online platform. Initially, yemeksepeti.com, which started its service with 26 restaurants, was receiving 40-45 orders per day. Over time, with the widespread use of the internet, the number of orders increased and by 2004, they were receiving 1000 orders a day. In 2008, this number increased to 10,000 and they received their first investment from the European Founders Fund.

In 2009, they decided to expand to international markets and started to serve in Dubai under the brand name “Foodonclick.com”. In the same period, they entered the Russian market with “YemekSepeti İzrestorana.ru”, but they terminated this project in November 2012 because they could not achieve the expected success.

In 2010, they launched the mobile application and started to receive 30,000 orders daily. During this period, the number of employees in the company reached 100.

In 2012, they received an investment of 44 million dollars from General Atlantic. This was also General Atlantic’s first investment in Türkiye. The number of daily orders increased to 50,000.

In 2015, global food ordering platform Delivery Hero acquired Yemek Sepeti for $589 million.

Trendyol

Trendyol initially started to take shape in the living room of Demet Mutlu’s house in Bebek, Istanbul. However, Demet Mutlu’s ideas soon exceeded the boundaries of this house and Trendyol grew rapidly by converting an apartment into an office. Sidar Şahin and Emre Kurttepeli, the founder of Mynet, were the first partners of the venture, which was launched with a capital of 300 thousand dollars in the first stage. With the investments, the company achieved a great success by increasing its value 500 times in just 16 months.

Since 2010, Trendyol has grown by collaborating with hundreds of thousands of SMEs in addition to the products it supplies itself. In 2018, 86.5% of the company’s shares were sold to Alibaba for USD 728 million and in 2021 for USD 1 Billion 78 Million with a capital increase of USD 350 million. Demet Mutlu still continues to serve as the CEO of the company with a 6.96% share.

In 2021, Trendyol’s brand value exceeded $16.5 billion, thus becoming Türkiye’s first “decacorn” company. The founder Demet Mutlu Üçok’s determined and persevering approach and customer-oriented strategies are behind Trendyol’s success. In addition, the data-driven attribution model, effective campaigns, and offering a fast and secure shopping experience by adapting quickly during the pandemic period were also effective in the company’s success.

Following the success in Türkiye, Trendyol started to actively operate in 27 countries in Europe. Reflecting its success in Türkiye, Trendyol developed applications such as Trendyol Market, Trendyol Express, Trendyol Food and Dolap and offered them to the market. Among the countries served by the company are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Croatia, Denmark, Italy and many other countries.

Opening its first office in Germany in 2022, Trendyol reached over 1 million customers by the end of the first year. Trendyol Collection, produced entirely in Türkiye, offers more than 800 brands to customers in Germany, including nearly 200 Turkish brands and global brands.

Insider

Hande Çilingir and her partner Serhat Soyuerel, who stepped into the world of entrepreneurship with a language school called ‘English and More’, later decided to establish their venture called ‘Insider’. The duo, who wanted to operate in the field of technology, initially thought of turning to the e-commerce sector, but then started working on a different idea.

Çilingir and Soyuerel realised that countries that cannot export technology, software and codes will become dependent on other countries. For this reason, while establishing the Insider initiative, they focused on understanding the needs of the market. They analysed companies doing similar business.

At the end of a six-month process, they completed their market research and created product ideas. Hande Çilingir and the 5 partners who founded Insider adopted the idea of establishing a product company that aims to meet the needs of e-commerce sites. In this way, they aimed to export technology from Türkiye. Later, experienced names from companies such as P&G and Oracle joined the team. They started with a total of 6 founding partners. The recruited team consisted entirely of Turkish engineers and software developers. Insider started to provide services to companies and brands that provide online services or sales.

Insider aims to increase customer loyalty and growth of companies selling online. To achieve this, it operates as a multi-channel customer experience platform. As a startup, Insider also has growth targets. It realised its first overseas opening in Moscow, about nine months after its establishment. It then continued to expand into the Middle East and Eastern Europe.