When you stand on the banks of the Bosphorus, Istanbul, you can’t help but feel at the center of the world. Connecting the east and the west, the Mediterranean with the Black Sea, the Bosporus has made Turkey a strategically important location since antiquity. It’s entrepreneurs carry that torch today.
Turkey links Europe, the Middle East, Russia, and Central Asia, making it fertile land for the nation’s entrepreneurs. In 2021, startups raised over $1.5 billion in funding – almost ten times more than in 2020. But a faltering economy and sky-high inflation (the Lira fell 44 percent in 2021) have undermined their success. Is it time the country’s innovators looked elsewhere?
Fatih Güner, founder and CEO of startup development community, Komünite, believes global markets provide the financial security Turkey’s creators need. Productize your skills rather than sell your time, Güner argues. Today, Komünite has partnered with Acquire to help Turkish entrepreneurs transcend the faltering economy to build, scale, and exit startups.
“The tumbling Lira has forced Turkey’s entrepreneurs to think differently about their future,” Güner said. “We help them upskill and productize their abilities to sell internationally and then support them from execution through to exit. Even a five-figure acquisition in USD is worth a fortune in Lira, and will help creators achieve financial security for their families.”
Komünite is a multi-functional support platform that fosters entrepreneurship through community learning, microfunds, and crowdsourced development. Its Creator Fund, for example, invests in new digital products that Güner’s team markets on entrepreneurs’ behalf. Makers needn’t do anything but make, avoiding the hassle of setting up companies and payment providers.
Güner also offers Venture Building: a service-for-equity model in which Komünite develops in-house ideas through to deployment with the help of its community talent pool. In other words, Komünite calls upon its members’ skills, which it has nurtured, to execute promising business ideas. Long term, Güner hopes Komünite will become Turkey’s first startup studio.
“We think of Komünite as a lifelong learning platform,” Güner said. “Platforms like Udemy are too unilateral, and more interactive options like CodeAcademy lack social interaction and support. Komünite combines community learning and mentorship to help entrepreneurs build passions into profitable businesses, and Acquire will help them get Acquired.”
Acquire wants to become the world’s most founder-friendly startup marketplace. Already, it’s announced partnerships in India and Africa, and Komünite joins this growing network rethinking M&A. With access to over 100,000 buyers, M&A professionals, and resources, Komünite can get its members’ startups Acquired quickly, easily, and at the highest price.
“Entrepreneurship thrives when the ends justify the means,” Andrew Gazdecki, founder and CEO of Acquire, said. “If you’re worried about inflation or other economic factors erasing your hard work, you’re not going to innovate. Acquire is a global marketplace because everyone deserves a fair shot at success, and we’ve partnered with Komünite to deliver that for Turkey’s entrepreneurs.”
Walk along the Bosphorus and the ground swells with history, of wars won and lost. Today, Turkey is home to the world’s largest refugee population, for whom entrepreneurship is not just an escape from inflation but a second chance at life. As Komünite’s entrepreneurs help raise the economic tide, so too might all the nation’s inhabitants find a better life for themselves and their families.
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