We continue to
provide examples of recent failed attempts.
33 – Kliksa.com
Kliksa, a
subsidiary of Sabancı Holding, was an e-commerce site established in 2012.
Kliksa, which changed its design to the marketplace model with an investment of
10 million dollars in 2014, started to look for new investments towards the end
of the year. 2015. The failure of Sabancı, one of Turkey's largest holdings, in
the e-commerce market, where profit margins are very low, was an indication of
the difficulties awaiting entrepreneurs. The biggest mistake of Kliksa, which
will continue to operate as an outlet within Teknosa, was to change models.
Changing both its design and business model, Kliksa's customer loyalty began to
decline.
Lesson: Building
your startup well from the start and managing change well is vital.
34 – Weblebi.com
Founded in 2002,
Weblebi, one of the oldest and largest e-commerce sites in Turkey, ceased its
activities in 2008. Weblebi, which allegedly received investment offers a few
years before the closure, has been in the news many times, especially recently
with many complaints. The most important reason for Weblebi.com's closure was
administrative errors. Comments such as the late arrival of the product, its
non-delivery, and the wrong product affect the consumers negatively. It is a
great misfortune for an enterprise, especially due to the nature of the Internet,
that these articles remain for years.
Lesson: The
customer is king.
35 – Vimjo.com
Vimjo, which
entered the e-commerce market in 2010 in the health and personal care product
vertical, was quite popular for a period with its campaigns, TV advertisements
and cargo system within three hours to Istanbul. The site, which also opened an
offline store in Ümraniye, was planning to expand throughout Turkey. Founded by
Murat Küçükoğlu and his brothers Mehmet and Mesut Küçükoğlu, the site was
locked in 2012 with a million-dollar debt. The main reason for the closure of
the site is that it does not manage stock well and is far from corporate
management.
Lesson: Start by
reading business books.
 |
| FAİLED STARTUPS -3 |
36 – Turkstudent.net
TurkStudent,
which was founded in 2001 as a Germany-based social network, had more than 500
thousand members. Having received its first funding support in 2008, the site
also received investment from Çember.net owner Çağlar Erol in 2010. It lost its
popularity over time and was closed due to reasons such as not meeting the
benefits that young people expect from a social network and being used and is currently used as a chat site.
37 – Kacmaz.com
It was opened in
2007 to sell a discounted item every day. The site, which increased up to 3
products a day over time, started to sell products that were in stock the day
before. Hundreds of sites with similar business models were launched between
2007 and 2010. Like Indiragandi.com, Gundebirurun.com. The reasons such as the
poor quality of the products, the inadequacy of the customer services, the late
delivery of the cargoes were the end of all these sites.
Lesson: Whatever
you do, do it perfectly.
38 – Tio.com.tr
It was
established by Teknoloji Holding with the aim of owning Turkey's largest global
product pool. It provided the opportunity to compare product features, prices
and vendors. It included many different categories such as the opportunity to
sell from many sites with a single membership, giving points to the seller,
opening a store for brands that are not sold on the internet, selling
second-hand products to individual users. In fact, at the beginning of 2008, it
was the first site to publish the mobile phone shopping application, which
could be considered a revolution for that period. Despite all this, it was
closed in 2008 due to financial difficulties.
Lesson: Sometimes
it doesn't happen when it doesn't.
39 – Pots.com
Tencere.com, a
foodtech startup, was a site that made homemade meals. Shortly after opening
last year, you can place an order on iOS or Android or Yemeksepeti.com on the
platform where Aslanoba Capital also received investment. It was possible to
pay with cash, credit card or meal card at the door and online with a credit
card. After a while, the site started to use the same distribution channel as
Aslanoba's other food technology venture, Mealbox.
40 – Designlock.com
Launched in
August 2012, Designlock was a site established to sell different and
design-oriented products. Offering different and unique designs to its users
every day, the DesignLocks team consists of former employees of Rocket
Internet, which decided to withdraw from the Turkish market. Engin Gökdiken,
co-founder of Designlock, explains the reason for the shutdown: “Our metrics
were pretty good. Our biggest mistake was trying to operate in an immature
market in Turkey. People interested in design were a very limited audience. Our
second shortcoming was our weakness in purchasing. Our margins were not
adequate for our volume. The most important item to fix overall is the
purchase. E-commerce means retail. Unless you have a strong purchase, keeping
growing organisms afloat with small margins is nothing short of a dream. It is
not easy to achieve extraordinary success without innovation.
Lesson: When it
comes to buying in small quantities, losing is inevitable!
41 – Gruptayim.com
Founded by Gökhan
Ayantaş and Ali Kasımoğlu in 2012, Gruptayim.com operated in the category of
niche opportunity sites in the consumer electronics field. The biggest
difference of Gruptayim.com from other opportunity sites was that it put
products on its shelves. But it wasn't enough…
42 – bonubon.com
Founded in April
2012 as a joint venture between Garanti Bank and Doğuş Internet, Bonubon.com
has become the new player in the group shopping market. The end of the project,
which was implemented with the support of Garanti Payment Systems and Garanti
Technology, was no different from other opportunity sites. The end of sales was
due to the fact that Bonubon sold products at higher prices than its
competitors, as we mentioned before, because of market saturation, counterfeit
products, and the departure of users from the market due to problems such as
late arrivals. attempt.
43 – Clover Game Studio
Clover Game
Studio, which achieved the success of being the most downloaded Turkish game in
the world for a while with Reveal The Maze, the first game they designed, later
released its second game called Candy Chain. The general problem of game
studios, the inability to create a source of income, also showed itself in
Clover Game Studio and the company was closed in 2014. Clover Game Studio,
which was chosen as one of Turkey's top 10 startups by Wired magazine in 2013,
also entered Turkishtime's top 100 startups list in the same year.
Lesson: No matter
how good the e-commerce or game idea you have in mind, if you can't build your
income source, wait for a while.
44 – Saklısehir.com
Saklisehir.com,
which entered the opportunity market in a niche area in 2011, offered products
and events related to Ottoman culture to its users. Founded by Ömer Ekinci, the
site provided the opportunity to learn the art of marbling and glassblowing at
affordable prices. The startup, which was in high demand in the first days of
its establishment, joined the caravan of sites that were closed after about 15
months. Ekinci, the founder of the site, lists the mistakes they made as
follows: “I tried to be successful in e-commerce as a side job, without leaving
my main job, Desnet. I was fed from my parent company without any serious
capital. But e-commerce is not done without capital as it is thought. The entry
barrier has now increased to 1 million TL. I also aimed to reach the breakeven
point in a short time, but it took a long time to be patient… I worked with a
young and inexperienced team instead of an expert team, which was a big
mistake. Finally, I entered an area like the opportunity sector, where
competition is stifling, differentiation is difficult, profit margins are very
low, and field operations are high, and I could have built a different business
model.”
Lesson: There are
multiple lessons. Read Ekinci's self-criticism again.
45 – Supernomads.com
Supernomads.com,
which set out in 2011 with the aim of becoming a worldwide initiative, was a
site working with the Airbnb model. Developed by Mavi Kelebek New Media,
founded by Alper Yamaner and Bora Ulutaş, the aim of the initiative was to
offer world travelers an accommodation experience where they can get to know
the local culture and make new friends. hotels. The site, which has competitors
such as Airbnb and HomeAway on a global scale, had to spend serious promotion
and advertising in order to be successful. The inability of the Supernomads,
who set out with low capital, to receive investment, can be shown as the main
reason for the failure.
46 – Estore.com.tr
Established in
1998 as one of Turkey's first online e-commerce sites, Estore made a big splash
when it was sold to Çukurova Group in 2006. The site, which later established a
sales channel on Digiturk under the name of Estore.tv, was once shown as the
biggest competitor of Hepsiburada.com. Estore.com.tr was closed in 2008 due to
administrative errors and mistakes made in Estore.tv.
Lesson: Choose
your managers well.
47 – gamoba.com
It was a vertical
e-commerce startup founded in September 2012 by successful entrepreneurs in
their fields. Among its founders were Sina Afra, Tolga Tatari, Ahmet Emre Sarı,
Emir Aral, Hakan Baş and Alper Afşin Özdemir. The game was a vertical site in
the console space. It closed in November 2013.
48 – Gurunzi.com
Founded by Tolga
Esin and Can Elbeyli in February 2012, the initiative was based on the logic of
promoting products by celebrities in the areas of style, food, personal care
and children with video. The initiative, which has a very different and
creative style from the e-commerce startups in Turkey, was closed in February 2013.
The founding
partner of the company, Tolga Esin, explains the mistakes they made as follows:
“It was implemented with a business model that took a long time. However, the
most important factor we missed was the change in costs with the involvement of
big players in the e-commerce sector. Companies that have become aggressive to
dominate the market have increased the average cost of acquiring customers.
This made it impossible to participate in the competition. We could not reach
the levels we wanted in terms of scale. It would have been easier for us to be
more conservative about the capital to be included in the competition during
the planning period and to secure this capital before implementing the project.
In addition, the low share of founders working full-time in the project during
the search for investment was also seen as an important risk factor for
investors and hindered the progress of negotiations.”
The Lesson:
Entering the market at a time when costs were rising and profit margins was
falling was one of Gurunzi's biggest mistakes.
49 – filimk.com
Founded in 2006,
Filimk is positioned as a video surveillance site. After users become a member
of the site, they can add videos to the system and vote for other videos. Another
feature of the site was the live broadcast section. In the section where you
can instantly monitor all events taking place on the site, you can be instantly
informed of comments, votes or video submissions made by users. The site's
revenue model was ad-based, which is why the site was shut down.
50 – Petofoni.com
Petofoni, which
can be defined as an opportunity site for pets, was an e-commerce opportunity
site founded by Emrah Eşkin. Aiming to reach pet owners with high discounts,
the initiative was put into service in 2011 and offered service alternatives
such as hairdresser, hostel services and training for many pets, especially
dogs and cats. Due to the large number of e-commerce sites for pets, it did not
survive and was closed after a few months.
Lesson: Stay away
from the highly competitive market.
Sources:
Turkishtime, toptalent.co
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