Over at The Next Web*, Sekip Can Gökalp posted a more than interesting introduction and update on the status of the turkish web scene (you may also check the recent Techcrunch* Istanbul meet-up to find out more). The term start-up is mostly a newborn baby, investors are few but there are a lot of events and passion for the web, plus a big and yet unshaped market to target at.
The scale might be slightly different (probably less different than our actual demographics), however the story seems to be the same at both sides of the Aegean and I do think that opportunity lies ahead. Yes, speaking of expansion and growth, why not start from our neighbors first (and vice versa), after all our cultural differences and everyday habits are less different than what we’ve been taught to, plus the tools to help us are now available.
What’s more, I’d really interested in meeting in person our fellow entrepreneurs from Turkey (or our other neighbors, too; from Italy to Cyprus and the Balkans to put it very roughly), creating a strong local network of entrepreneurs and cultivating relationships for synergies to grow – among others. An initial idea is to organize a common event, somewhere in between; but what do you really think on all these actually?
* We mention them really often but it seems that the guys we hosted during the last year in greek Open Coffee meetings (aka The Next Web and Techcrunch UK) have really matured into the primary sources of information about the european web start-up scene — go grab their rss feeds if you haven’t yet.
6 comments
That will be an awesome idea cos we are looking for partners to start stayin branches all over the balkans and our first goal would be to start a stayinistanbul.com
The size of the market is critical. In this part of the world we still view the market as local (=national) and global. From local to global is a big jump, especially if ‘ ‘local’ is a small country. We need to put in the picture all the intermediate stages: regional and pan-european.
I think we need to develop events at the regional level first and then move to mainstream European events. This has to be backed from VCs, angels and entrepreneurs as well. So, yes, we must and can organize an event with the Turks, as well as the Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbians etc.
@nikan “Local is more regional than national”, nice and comprehensive quote.
Thanks for the trackback George.
I know many many people who’d love to come to Athens or host you all in Istanbul. We should definitely look to organize an event to bring everyone together. What nikan says is truely important, regionality is a big deal. There would be many similarities of the Greek and Turkish market.
I know very little about the Greek market, but I would love to meet you guys and talk about it.
Cheers!
great idea. I also would be glad to participate in such a meetup
Very good idea. I agree with nikan that we need to put in the picture all the intermediate stages from local to global. It is a great parallel target to organize a regional OC with our neighbors or even a Middle Eastern Europe OC.I would be glad to help and participate.