After Istanbul-based gaming company Peak's recent sale agreement with U.S.-based mobile gaming giant Zynga for $1.8 billion, all eyes have turned to a next possible billion-dollar venture.

Nazım Salur, the founder and CEO of fast-delivery startup Getir, which is seen as a billion-dollar startup candidate, is against foreign sales being seen as the only way out. Even though sales deals boost Turkey’s morale, there is a need to think thoroughly under which conditions an entrepreneur inks the deal, Salur said, stressing that sales to foreigners are not the only way out.

"I appreciate those who do. They show that good projects are coming out of Turkey. We cannot say anything to those who want to sell. I would be happier if the founders also had shares," Salur said.

"I would be more pleased if it remained in the hands of the founders as well. When it reaches a certain size, a sale to foreigners should not be the only way. I dream of a digital ecosystem where domestic startups are permanently domestic-foreign mixed. I say that they should be sold as neither ‘chicks nor chickens.’ In fact, I think it would be good to win from the ‘egg.’ We now want the majority capital in billion-dollar startups to be in the hands of entrepreneurs and investors from Turkey," he explained.

Unfair discount for Turkey

Salur emphasizes that Turkey is not an ordinary country, and many success stories must come from a population of 84 million.

"The figure of investments we receive is actually not very big," he suggested, referring to the latest funding of $38 million Getir had secured from a group of investors in Silicon Valley at the end of last year. "It is perceived to be very large in Turkey. However, Getir deserves bigger figures."

Salur stressed "an unfair discount" was being applied to technology startups from Turkey during the investment period.

"We also see that this changes as new technology startups from Turkey achieve new successes. However, as the amount of investment needed by the startups increases, the chance of finding investors decreases. We are having trouble finding $20 million, let alone $100 million. As such, investors from abroad can easily make technology startups that do data work accept (their) terms. Turkey should find new ways for entrepreneurs who do not want to sell all or even the majority of their shares," he said.

Post-pandemic growth

Getir will continue to grow both abroad and at home, Salur continued, stressing that the future abroad for Getir and similar businesses is promising once the travel bans due to the coronavirus pandemic are lifted.

"We will continue to take steps to expand business abroad. Many new players started entering the field. This job turned out to be quite right. However, we will also experience a time when those who manage to take this operation more accurately will survive. We need to achieve accelerated growth – not a copy and paste job. Managing accelerated growth is much more difficult," Salur explained.

Istanbulites are lucky

The idea of buying a product in 10 minutes in a giant metropolis like Istanbul, where 18 million people suffer from heavy traffic, is seen as a privileged and time-saving service.

People in Turkey like to solve problems quickly. It is an important feat to take a ferry to cross the Bosporus in five minutes since passing from one continent to another over the bridge can sometimes take one hour. So, the idea of getting what you want in 10 minutes in a city like this arises. Salur said such a service as Getir offers is not provided in London or New York, but in Istanbul, Turkey.

No Getir without data

Salur described the big data business that sustains this job and creates a new category.

"This cannot be done without data. It would not be a sustainable business. Every work has a digital projection. We find a way to do things more efficiently. There is an application and courier side visible to the consumer. However, the thing that makes Getir is the data analysis. The essence of Getir is made with a great deal of technology. It is essential to have the right products, to make them available 24 hours, to arrive at the right time. For this to be processed correctly, the feedback of the customer with the data must be read correctly. We do this with around 100 software developers and 25 data analysis teams. This number is increasing steadily. The technology team was half as much as we owned a year ago now," he explained.

4,000 products in Getir More

Salur also explained how the idea of delivery in 10 minutes changed. "In the beginning, we carried some of the products in cars," he said.

"We thought about 300 products would be enough. However, the customer has placed us in a different spot. We have now increased the product range we brought in 10 minutes to 1,500. So, this is where the customer brought us," he noted. "Now we have managed to increase the number of products to 4,000 in Getir More. The average delivery time for Getir More will be 30 minutes. We no longer have products in the back of the car. This model was valid only for 300 products."

High interest in the pandemic period

The Getir CEO explained the change in the relationship with the consumer that has taken place during the pandemic period with interesting examples.

"In the era of the pandemic, consumer interest first grew extraordinarily. But then this started to normalize. The consumer, who used to use us for their complementary purchases, started to see us as the main player. Our service changed the movement of other players. While we were the complementary player for the consumer, we have now become one of the main players," Salur added.

Value of couriers now recognized

Underlining that couriers do an important job, Salur said: "Before the pandemic, couriers did an important job as well. However, in such a period, their value began to be recognized. Of course, health workers have done a very important task. Couriers also made home deliveries in such a period, risking their health."

"People put so much pressure on us that we had to start the online tip application quickly. After the contactless shopping application, people have repeatedly said that they want to pay a tip to the couriers. We immediately implemented the change by writing code that would allow online tipping on the application quickly. We will do our best to respect this profession," he added.

Low number of startups reading data

Turkey's data cannot be kept in Turkey simply by building a data center. There is almost no method other than a foreign capital investment to grow technology startups in Turkey.

To change the mentality, which perceives foreign sales as the only way out, solutions and not slogans should be put forth. Strong local capital support must be created for technology companies, whose main shareholder is specializing in data analysis in Turkey, to grow.

No data reading without consent

We see that every day, new data violations occur and data is processed and converted into money outside of the consumer's control. This situation causes serious data and cybersecurity problems for any country.

Nowadays, when technology and digitalization are developing rapidly, the biggest problem of institutions and individuals has become data security and cybersecurity. Every activity you undertake on the internet is tracked. It is very important to know if this tracking is outside of your consent.

Efilli Rıza, the first company to receive and host cookie settings in Turkey, allows websites to provide detailed information about the cookies information they want to collect from the users who visit their website and manage the permission, while website creators can select the required cookies for their site to function properly.

Ercan Gümüş, the founder of Efilli Rıza, which came to life with the support of Turkey's leading information and communication technologies company Türk Telekom, said: "Our motto is that what is in Turkey remains in Turkey. We set out with this goal. According to the 2018 data, there are 1.1 million domains in Turkey, and we have a lot of work to do in this sense. We received TL 500,000 in support from the Small and Medium Industry Development Organization (KOSGEB) and Türk Telekom and also benefited from TEB Enterprise House support. All of the consented data collected with Efilli Rıza is stored on servers in Turkey. You can be sure that your data is completely safe."

Explicit consent

As our presence in the digital world expands, the number and sensitivity of the data we share increase as well. While states have taken some precautions to protect data, the Personal Data Protection Act (KVKK) that came into force in 2016 is now known to everyone as the law that regulates and limits the methods of collecting, storing and processing individuals' sensitive data in the digital world.

According to the KVKK, it is mandatory to obtain explicit consent from the data owner in every application that somehow accesses personal data. While no information can be sent to you without your permission, your information also cannot be used. In the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law, which is valid for European countries, data permission has been made obligatory. This law covers all citizens of the European Union, regardless of location. For this reason, the Consent Management Platform entered our lives as a need, especially for companies doing business with Europe.

Permission

The Consent Management Platform is a system that allows website visitors to manage the cookie data they share with sites they access and enables companies to examine these permissions and optimize their tracking systems. Efilli Rıza allows you to easily see the permit preferences of visitors while letting your visitors customize their permissions. Visitors can then choose which platforms their data will be provided to and close options they do not want.

Managing cookie settings

Cookie settings have to be managed on websites. Although the cookie settings passed in the KVKK, the law has not yet shown its strength in Turkey. It is very important to collect your data under the law to improve the performance of your site, customize the user experience, provide easy access, show your users who you share their data with and get permission before sharing. The percentage of users using cookie settings in Europe is 40%. Another 20% will soon start using them. From now on, this will become much more important in Turkey.

The Efilli Rıza system strengthens reliability thanks to the freedom of choice provided to visitors and fully responds to the sensibilities of the visitors. It is very important to make sure that all the data collected is collected and stored in accordance with the KVKK. This system also allows you to focus on your business without fear of encountering sanctions during the inspections. In addition to storing the collected data entirely within Turkey, the approval history of the third-party tracking systems used can be analyzed and users can get approval by doing A/B testing.