3 minute read
Trailblazer Demet Suzan Mutlu
The entrepreneur who created Turkey’s first decacorn
Dropping out of Harvard to start a business, Demet Suzan Mutlu scaled Trendyol to become Turkey’s leading ecommerce platform and its first decacorn
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Some of the biggest tech businesses are built on ‘failure’. Like Microsoft's Bill Gates and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Demet Suzan Mutlu dropped out of Harvard and started a business that has soared from dining table to decacorn.
The Turkish entrepreneur founded Trendyol in 2009 and over the last 12 years has taken the ecommerce startup to dizzying heights – from a single shopping site to an ecommerce marketplace model valued at US$16.5bn.
Not only is Trendyol now the leading ecommerce platform in Turkey but it lays claims to being the country’s first tech unicorn – and following a US$1.5bn raise last year, became its first decacorn.
Pretty impressive considering it was launched just 10 years prior at a dining table by then 28-year-old Mutlu. Being the CEO of a tech company, being a woman and being young is rare – but Mutlu makes it look effortless.
Growing the business – from dining table to decacorn
After studying at New York University, where she graduated with the highest GPA in the economics department, Mutlu spent time working in brand management for companies like Altria, Procter & Gamble and Reckitt Benckier, in Switzerland, Japan, the US and Turkey, before beginning her MBA at Harvard Business School in 2008.
Spotting a gap in the fashion ecommerce market in Turkey, she took a punt, dropping out of Harvard and bootstrapping US$300,000 of her own funds to set up shop – launching a platform aimed at making fashion accessible for everyone.
US$16.5bn
The valuation of Trendyol, now a decacorn, in 2021 following a funding raise
US$750m
Investment made in Trendyol by China’s Alibaba Group in 2018 making them a major shareholder
60%
The percentage of online fashion sales in Turkey Trendyol takes
27
The number of countries in Europe that Trendyol delivers to. They have offices inIstanbul, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Luxembourg
US$300,000
The personal funds Mutlu used in 2009 to launch her fashion portal
1 million
Number of packages being delivered to customers on a daily basis
260,000+
Number of sellers on that Trendyol has on its books
US$1.5bn
Trendyol’s most recent raise in a funding round, which achieved decacorn status, and was co-led by SoftBank, General Atlantic and Princeville Capital, and sovereign wealth funds Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi’s ADQ
The punt paid off with We founded Trendyol Trendyol reaching US$150m to create a positive within the first 16 months and growing to become Turkey’s impact in the countries leading ecommerce platform we serve. We bring this – evolving from a marketplace to a ‘superapp’ by combining into action by supporting its marketplace platform with instant food delivery through its the digitalisation of our own courier network (Trendyol sellers, empowering Go), digital wallet (Trendyol Pay), and Turkey’s leading secondlocal manufacturers hand C2C channel (Dolap). The and advocating women’s Trendyol group has seen its valuation skyrocket by over 20 participation in the digital times in the last three years. This exponential growth is economy and production thanks in part to a surge in online buying in Turkey (66% in 2020) during the pandemic – but is largely thanks to Mutlu’s visionary leadership, hard work, and what she calls having “the right ingredients”. “I’ve built my finance skills, I’ve built my ability to raise funding from VCs, my ability to understand consumers, my ability to manage people, the ability to write a business plan, the ability to understand operations, to build a supply chain.” It is this combination of factors that helped Trendyol secure the confidence and dollars of multiple big-name investors, from Alibaba (now a major shareholder) to Tiger Global, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to Softbank – a significant achievement when you consider that just 10% of VC funding goes to women-led companies.
Creating a positive impact in the community
It's not just Trendyol’s substantial growth in the regional and global ecommerce space that is attractive to investors, but its ability to do so while leaving a positive impact. “We founded Trendyol to create a positive impact in the countries we serve,” says Mutlu. “We bring this into action by supporting the digitalisation of our sellers, empowering local manufacturers and advocating women’s participation in the digital economy and production.” And that impact is tangible. Not only has Trendyol won the trust of more than 30 million customers, making it one of the
