What Makes Turkish Founders Excel Is What Holds the Ecosystem Back
Rivalry made Istanbul the mobile gaming capital of the world. Now it stops the ecosystem from learning, and the winners rarely stay.
Being close to many Turkish founders and investors, I've had the privilege of watching this ecosystem balloon up close. I've praised the sometimes ruthless rivalry that built it. I believe talent density, hunger and rivalry made the impossible feel possible. When the founder who looks like you on the other side of the Bosphorus makes it, why can't you? Add a generous surge of venture capital, and the puzzle town of Istanbul became the mobile gaming capital of the world.
But I also believe that same rivalry now works against the ecosystem. Most Turkish founders never drop the scarcity mindset, no matter how many millions of downloads their games rack up or how many zeroes their latest round carries.
I see three structural problems: founders don't share what they know, the talent pool is closed, and the winners leave once they've won. None of them is a talent problem. All of them can be fixed.
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Rivalry built the capital
Every ecosystem starts with one person who says something insane and then makes it true. In Türkiye it was Sidar Şahin at Peak Games. Zynga bought Peak's card studio for a hundred million dollars in 2017, then the rest of Peak for 1.8 billion in 2020. Akın Babayiğit told me that Sidar didn't leave behind a method. He left behind proof that it could be done in a place where nobody believed it.
The proof compounded. Peak alumni went on to build Dream Games, valued at five billion dollars after CVC came in, and Rina Onur, Peak's co-founder, went on to build Spyke. Gram and Rollic trace back through the same building. And the next wave keeps coming: Grand Games went from zero to $500 million in two years.
Read more: How Grand Games went from 0 to $500M in two years
Density does that. When you can walk to the office of the person who just did it, ambition stops being abstract.
Nobody shares what they know
You'd assume you could learn to craft the perfect puzzle level just by walking down İstiklal Street. Wrong.
I've organized events in Istanbul ranging from intimate gatherings of 50 founders to events with 1,000 developers. One thing holds true. Turkish founders very rarely get on panels or do fireside chats. And many of the most successful ones don't show up at all.
In Istanbul, the rivalry that made founders hungry also makes them guarded. Every founder relearns lessons the founder down the street has already learned. The lack of knowledge sharing is a problem.
The rivalry that built the ecosystem now prevents it from evolving.
Every competitor is also a poacher
Then there's the bigger problem: the talent pool. Turkish gaming companies hire only Turks, and only in their city. There's no remote work. It's 12-hour days, often six days a week.
Istanbul has almost 16 million people, according to TÜİK, but only so many great designers, programmers and PMs. For a Turkish founder, every competitor is also a poacher. And we all know what you do with poachers...
That's how the rivalry turns from healthy to toxic. You can't share notes with someone who's trying to hire your lead designer.
Own a piece of your rival
There are two fixes, and neither one requires founders to become less competitive.
For the talent shortage, use co-development. It gives you talent on demand without the overhead. Supercell, for example, actively uses co-development to keep its internal teams compact. Diaspora hires are the other release valve. I have worked with many brilliant Turks abroad, and they are still the hardest workers in the room.
For the rivalry, angel invest in each other. When you own a slice of your competitor, their success is your success too. If your rival beats you to the exit, you aren't left empty-handed, and suddenly you're on the same side. Capitalism fixes what goodwill can't.
The winners rarely stay
The third problem starts after the exit, and fixing it takes a change of mindset.
Turkish founders are the hungriest I know. At the same time, in my experience, they aren't passionate about games. They're passionate about the business of games, which is exactly why they're so good at it. And because it's business rather than passion, once the hunger is satisfied, they peace out.
Sidar Şahin showed at Peak how to build a marvelous company, and he also set the example for what to do once it sells: ghost everyone. Compare that to Supercell's Ilkka Paananen, who personally mentors and invests in the next generation of founders.
Can you imagine the startup scene in Istanbul if successful Turkish founders methodically invested their time and know-how in the next wave?
I was wrong about the bubble
Four months ago, I called the Turkish gaming market overheated and expected valuations to fall as failures compounded and the market saturated. I was wrong.
More big exits are coming, and they'll heat up the market further without fixing any of the three structural problems. The winners will keep hiring the best people in Istanbul. The emerging rivals will keep getting overfunded by VCs who missed the best deals and will pay anything for an "ex-Peak team." Most of them will copy the winners' playbook with a fraction of the resources.
Read more: Questions Istanbul founders stopped asking, with investor Akın Babayiğit
A select few will escape by tapping a broader talent pool through remote teams and co-development.
Founders who stay build ecosystems
So I push the founders I work with to do three things. Escape the shrinking talent pool through co-development and diaspora hires. Angel into each other's rounds. And take secondaries in their monster rounds instead of selling at the first great offer and peacing out.
I'm not blaming founders for selling and moving on. A great exit is the reward for building something great, and Türkiye has earned plenty of them.
I'm only saying that hunger builds companies. Founders who stay build ecosystems.
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