Etohum 2010 Balance and 2011 Plans

The etohum applications that started in August ended in December. After we finalized the selection period in the beginning of January and carried out the one day meeting with the Etohum 40 entrepreneurs about presentation and communication with investors on January 8, Saturday; 5 minute presentations were made to the etohum fund on January 15 and 16. We will announce the 15 ventures that we selected after all these steps during the Entrepreneurship Summit that will take place on January 29, 2011 Saturday at Bahçeşehir University.

Different from the previous selection years, we decided to make investments to etohum entrepreneurs from the etohum fund and started meetings with some entrepreneurs from January 17. We hope to announce the investments that are finalized until January 29th on the same date. We aim to support these entrepreneurs with whom Etohum fund participants will be partners so that they will rapidly develop and grow. In addition to these will supply office space at Etohum Garage to those from amongst the etohum 40 who will need a work space under the partnership conditions that we will soon announce.

We will announce the entrepreneurs that we will support with the 60.000 Nokia – Etohum fund that we set up together with Nokia and those that Nokia will support on January 29th. We will also support these ventures that are developing projects for the mobile environment as etohum during the Entrepreneurship Summit with the participation of Nokia Turkey General Manager Conor Pierce.

We are going to Antalya during 16 – 20 February with girisimcilerucuyor.com. We will make a 5 day Etohum Rixos Camp. The 40 Etohum companies that we selected this year will be able to attend as guests. In addition speakers, investors and the founders of Turkey’s leading internet companies will also attend. We are planning to supply the attendants with various practical information and ensure that experiences are shared. (The Rixos camp program of last year and a short video of what we did and the comments of participants).

This year etohum applications start in February. We will start meeting with new internet entrepreneurs by January 1. We will ensure that they make presentations to the etohum web of investors every 2 months. Etohum Investors Club will regularly get together to listen to the presentations of these ventures. We will also allow entrepreneurs who are seeded to these presentations. We will continue announcing etohum 40 and etohum 15 in January as we do every year. Etohum Fund will continue to evaluate 40 entrepreneurs for investment every year but from now on the entrepreneurs will not have to wait for the 1 year process to end. You may start filling the etohum form to start your application process.

The ‘Presentation Day’ program during which the entrepreneurs that applied etohum in 2010 but who were not among the selected etohum 40 will have a chance to present their projects to everyone will be broadcast live via etohumtv and we will enable each entrepreneur the chance to explain their project in 5 minutes. The entrepreneurs who want to present their projects at sunumgunu.com that will take place on 26th of March Saturday should apply etohum.com. During February we aim to start the Entrepreneurship Documentary program in which the entrepreneurs will share their daily lives with us. We will select 10 internet entrepreneurs and expect them to share their daily schedule with us at etohumtv. Girisimcilerucuyor.com program continues with Antalya camp. The next program will take place in Ankara on the 27th of March and in Izmir on the 2nd of April. If we complete the organization in Izmir we are planning to spend Sunday in Izmir as well.

I would like to summarize the developments that took place during 2010. (In August I had written about what took place during the first 7 months, developments during 2008 – 2009). The entrepreneurship ecosystem in Turkey is developing rapidly. We are facing a growing economy. Last year we made 41 Etohum meetings, camp and etohumtv shoots. There are a total of 387 episodes at Etohumtv (televidyon, vimeo); I believe that these will be regarded as a documentary in the following years. We invited over 140 speakers to all the meetings. They shared developments and their experiences with us. The meetings that we held during 2010 are as follows; You may reach photos of all meetings via flickr, videos via vimeo, presentations via slideshare. To follow Etohum at twitter, friendfeed and the facebook fan page