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Sequels and Startup Clones
I was just browsing Google Zeitgeist 2011, and noticed that 7 out of top 10 movie searches in Turkey were sequels. I thought, "ah, shame on the Turks, for not rewarding originality". Then I made my way to the list top grossing movies globally, and ...
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Apps - Not so Fast
The internets are abuzz with the reverb from the presentation by Forrester's George Colony at Le Web, with his three thunderstorms proclamation, one of which is that the apps universe has a lot more momentum than the network dependent internet/cloud ...
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Local Marketplaces and Network Effects
I am sensing a tipping point in the usage of LinkedIn among Turkish professionals. My invitation volume from Turks has increased by at least an order of magnitude since the beginning of the year. While I have historically been very promiscuous with...
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I'm a VC
Great, fun video from the team at Foundry Group.
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Turkey's Bright Internet Future
Last week Sina Afra had a good post on why Turkey has turned into a hot internet market, as a follow on to Robin Wauters's post on Trendyol's new round in Techcrunch.All of this attention is obviously triggered by the tremendous year Turkish internet...
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Ignore the Noise - Keep the Focus
The financial world seems to be in shambles again.
Pictures of 2008 are flashing back in my mind. I spent the bulk of 2008 to execute a fairly hairy deal in an effort to raise $50m to invest in my vision of Turkish internet back then. ...
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Google+: The Anti-Twitter
We have all seen Google Wave and Google Buzz, and probably have concluded that Google won't be able to leverage its email-driven social graph through features. They need to come up with thicker value and attempt to solve a problem, which neither Wav...
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The Filter Bubble
I have been thinking about personalization for the last few months as it has become a common theme among all of my investments. On the one hand it is the idea to jump at you when you start thinking of the disruption possibilities when you have power...
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eBay Takes Majority at GittiGidiyor
eBay announced today that it has increased its stake in GittiGidiyor, Turkey's leading ecommerce company to 93%. This is a landmark transaction for Turkish internet. Congratulations to Serkan, Burak, Tolga, Aydonat, and the team at iLab! This is t...
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+1 May Be Google's Way In
The internets are abuzz this morning wiih +1, Google's Like button to counter Facebook's. I continue to believe that Google sits on top of a very valuable social graph with Gmail, but has not had the chance to make it usable yet. Unlike Buzz or Wav...
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How Defensible is the Social Graph?
I was about to retweet Chris Dixon's blog post on social network interoperability (@cdixon is one of the clearest thinkers at the abstract level on the connected economy), but then I decided it's probably worth a blog post.If you read my blog, you'l...
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Twitter Killed My Blog
"Rewritten by machine and new technology, and now I understand the problems you can see." The Buggles - Video Killed the Radio StarI realized today, with amazement, that it has almost been 3 months since my last blog post, and that this is just my 7...
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The Future of Media: The Flipboard Edition
In 2005, Fred Wilson authored a blog post titled "The Future of Media". It remains extremely relevant and insightful, 5 years after its publishing, and has been proven right throughout a few major waves of innovation, such as Facebook and the iPhone...
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App Inventor
Google recently announcedApp Inventor for Android, which allows non-programmers to easily build applications for Android phones. The idea is not a new one, and as Google explains, it's been built on the efforts of many other initiatives.However, it i...
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No Conflict, No Interest
Angel investor Naval Ravikant has a good post on the Venture Hacks blog, focusing on the potential conflicts of interest when an entrepreneur is engaged with an investor. This is an issue that comes up frequently in my experience, so I think it woul...
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How to Get to Your Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
Derek Sivers is a great blogger, as well as an inspiration to me as an entrepreneur. And in his latest blog post, he touches on an issue, how one goes about hiring a programmer for an idea they want to bring to life, that I find very important and u...
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Turkish Broadband Growth
First, apologies for a quite period on this blog. I have been buried in some new initiatives, which I will share soon.However, this piece of news that crossed my screen today (via webrazzi) tipped me over to break the silence: The Turkish broadband...
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Broken Email
The "email is broken" meme is not new. I continue to depend on email for the bulk of my professional activity and have done a decent job managing my mailbox relatively effectively, unlike some others, who have declared email bankruptcy (I have no d...
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How to Think About Your VC
I am reading Jeff Bussgang's book and came across a great quote. If you are an entrepreneur talking to a bunch of VCs and trying to make sense of the process, or trying to decide if you can be partners with that guy across the table from you, I don'...
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Marshmallow and Startups
Tom Wujec's 6+ minute TED2010 presentation provides a few critical thoughts that, in my opinion, applies directly to startups. Enjoy.