Erdem Yurdanur: “It all started with a dream”...

For 25 years, the entrepreneur and technological investor, Erdem Yurdanur has been writing projects and developing games in fields that interest him and that he loves. He achieved international success while realizing his dreams. Yurdanur, who recently sold its two companies, Maçkolik and Masomo, to the British, is now preparing for new achievements with its 30 years of experience with Admost.

Erdem Yurdanur, the creator of mackolik.com, is a computer engineer entrepreneur born in Uşak, graduated from Boğaziçi University and has been living in London since 2013.

After 5 years of professional experience at Arçelik, where he started working immediately after graduating, Yurdanur founded the software company called Coretech with five of his friends. With many software programs developed in 25 years, Mackolik.com founded in 2002 by Yurdanur, has become Turkey’s largest sports site.

“Many entrepreneurs or investors knock on my door” “I loved football and I saw a lot of people around me interested in it. The database is my area of expertise and football is a subject that can very well be dealt with on the database. This is why I dreamed of creating the largest football database in the world and I was able to achieve it, said Yurdanur.

In 2016, Maçkolik.com sold all its shares to a British company.Then, in January 2019, the second successful attempt to sell Masomo to a British company led the way.

“I am happy to have won the title of the first Turkish entrepreneur, thanks to the two sales which allowed me to open these two companies. Because the second sale proved that the first was not a chance success. Now many entrepreneurs or investors are knocking on my door, ”explained Yurdanur about the sale of mackolik.

“Perform, which acquired Maçkolik, was one of the world’s leading online sports media companies and was trying to grow around the world through acquisitions.

I met them in London in 2011 and we got to know each other. They said they could take our majority share, but I was not thinking of selling our majority share at the time.In 2012 this time

we wanted to sell our business and they were immediately interested. Following very short negotiations, we initially sold 51% of our shares and the rest in 2016. In 2013, we moved to London as a family.

Masomo, one of Yurdanur’s successful companies, was sold in January 2019. We are still in the earn-out period right now. This game called Kafa Topu and an English called Head Ball that we developed with my British and Turkish partners, has become very popular in the world. continued Yurdanur.

“It has been downloaded over 50 million times worldwide and is still downloaded by at least 100,000 people a day. Seeing the success of this game, the other big gaming companies contacted me and we agreed with Miniclip, who thought it was best for us and also made best offer, and we sold all our shares.

“The biggest problem in Turkey is a hollow admiration for foreigners” Yurdanur, who has sold its two successful businesses, has new dreams on its mind and new projects on the agenda. One of the projects is Admost ... Admost is a product that generates more profits by optimizing the advertisements displayed in mobile games and also performs a profit / loss analysis of users of these games and applications. The first clients of Admost are Maçkolik and Masomo, and besides them it has more than 40 other clients shortly joined in. “It is a product on which I have spent a lot of time, and I have tried to pass on all my 30 years of experience , and I think it will be successful; added Yurdanur. “In fact, what I have tried to do with this product is to show the Turkish people that a technology product can also come from Turkey, not just from others, that they should have a lot more con

fidence in them. I think Turkey’s biggest problem is a hollow foreign admiration and being unable to see our own success. “The Admost project team in Turkey is made up of that of Maçkolik with whom Yurdanur has worked for at least 15 years.

“It takes me half an hour to decide to invest in a business “

“I contribute to them both financially and in terms of information and network, and I try to help them develop”, states Yurdanur, who has invested in more than 20 start-ups .After 25 years of entrepreneurial adventure marked by many failed projects, Yurdanur is today enjoying international success. “People think that I succeed in everything I do, but what they ignore is that the number of my failures is much higher,” said Yurdanur.He continues saying: ‘’ Each successful project provided me with unique information about the type work that does not work and why.This is why, it generally does not take me more than half an hour before deciding whether or not to invest in a business.”

“People think that I succeed in everything I do, but what they ignore is that the number of my failures is much higher,”

Almost every day, people from everywhere who want a new project idea or a new investment consult Yurdanur. Yurdanur states that it is his principle to give everyone a positive or negative answer.

“Some people write projects without really thinking about it, without any research, and I respond to them by explaining first how to approach someone rather than giving them my opinion on the project. I look at the projects of people who have a decent approach, and if I’m interested, I talk to them by Skype or face to face. Many different factors are gaining importance in this process. I look at the project itself as well as if the contractor and my frequency match. Sometimes I am wrong, but I think I am successful. After all, each unsuccessful choice increases my success rate with the next choices. “ states Yurdanur.

Do not hit the road saying “I will do any kind of job”

26 Turkish British Magazine I January - February 2020 invested in 4 to 5 companies and paid a heavy tax each year. Yurdanur draws the attention of those who take the road with the idea of “I will come here and I will do any job” on the fact that the possibilities that they difficulties they may encounter are very great, “London is an expensive city and if you don’t have a lot of income you may find yourself looking to resume your lifestyle in Turkey, “he said. There is a very interesting network here, if you trust yourself and have a good product, you can target not only the UK but the whole world from here, so you should always meet different people without getting bored. Otherwise, life here can become unbearable.” added Yurdanur. People should live where they feel happy Yurdanur who expresses his joy in living with his family in London says that what he missed most is the hot weather in Turkey ...

Yurdanur, whose two daughters, 15 and 18, are studying at the American School in London, can spend a lot of time with his wife, a biochemist doctor. “Because we live in the center, we can reach everywhere very easily.” said Yurdanur, speaking of his days in London.

“I love jazz, I am a member of a jazz club, I go when I can. My wife likes to sing Turkish classical music, she sings in a choir. While we like to try food from different countries, there is a Turkish restaurant where we feel at home, the Ekin restaurant on Belsize Road,where we like to meet with our friends there every time.”

Yurdanur spends his holidays with his family in Turkey for 2-3 months on Summer sailing boat on the sea. If i had to choose between London and Turkey, I would say the Greek islands, including the Aegean Sea ...

Yurdanur believes that people should live where they feel happy. “Every geography on earth is precious and important to me. Yurdanur concludes by saying: “I do not make a distinction between people according to where they come from, what religion they believe in , what race they belong to, what language they speak, but appreciate them according to whether they are hardworking, whether they are honest, if they are of good will or not.”

“I think most of the readers of this magazine live in the UK, so I suggest they look at the world from this perspective and try to make it a habitable place for humans. If they look like that, they will feel home here and they will be happy.But if we make those distinctions, we will be make it hard to live for the future generations .”

Who is Erdem Yurdanur? Born in Uşak in 1968, Erdem Yurdanur completed his nursery, primary and secondary education in Uşak. In 1985, he entered the computer engineering department of Boğaziçi University which was his first choice and graduated in 1990. 1 month before graduation from school, he was recruited by and agreed to work for Arçelik, part of the Koç Group companies and Turkey’s largest private company at that time, and he started in the IT department of Arçelik after school was completed. “Beygir.com was very popular but we couldn’t make any money” In 1995, the computer engineer left Arçelik with 5 other friends and founded one of the first software companies in Turkey named Coretech “So my entrepreneurial adventure started and I have always been very fond of this adventure for 25 years,” says Yurdanur. “We did an excellent job for 5 years with Coretech, our first company. Since Internet was not very popular at the time, we made software for large companies and we had a team of 80 people.

I was responsible for projects abroad and a software that we developed for Unilever has been accepted as standard worldwide and we have installed it in more than 20 countries. At Coretech, we have developed software for many companies such as P&G, Tefal, Pfizer, but after a while I started to think that software development for others was not very sustainable, and that we should rather earn money by using software instead of selling software and from 1999 on the basis of a project which was initially educational but which later became a professional project, we founded Beygir.com , the largest database of horseracing races.

We liked Beygir.com this site which attracted a lot of attention and which was one of the first sites in Turkish in Turkey, but we could not earn much money “.said Yurdanur explaining the process that followed thereafter. Mackolik.com has become Turkey’s largest sports site In 2002, following Beygir.com, we created Turkey’s biggest sports site Mackolik.com. We started our B2C activity with Mackolik. com under Koktail A.Ş. created in 2002 and so we separated from Coretech, which conducts B2B activities. In 2009, I left Coretech with my actions and I focused only on Internet and mobile business, “explains Yurdanur.