How Connected2.Me started.

This article is written by Nardine B. M’barek, a Contributor Author at Startup Istanbul.

Ozan Yerli graduated from Bilkent Univesity in 2013 where he studied physics. He is a young entrepreneur who is very passionate, and is the CEO of the online platform ‘Connected2.me’. He was one of our guests during Startup Turkey where he shared with us the success story that is related to the establishment of his business.

 Ozan Yerli is a young and motivated entrepreneur, he had the idea of launching his own online platform called ‘Connected2.Me’ in August 2011. This online platform represents a global messaging space where more than 25 million users are registered. It has unique and noticeable features that other messaging platforms do not have such as the anonymity since it allows its users to talk to other people anonymously and without having to put up any personal information or revealing their identity. It also has another feature which is allowing its users to use the platform both on the web - using a laptop - or on their smartphones through the application that the company provides. 

In the application version of the platform, each user is given a personal link which she or he can share with other people in order to be able to directly chat with them. Of course, other users do not need to register when you share your link with them, they are just given some random and anonymous nicknames that would allow them to chat directly. No need to add them to your account, share your social media links, or even your name, it all runs anonymously and that is the main purpose of the platform. 

As a whole, Connected2.Me could be described as a social network that gives anonymous identities to each user and allows them to chat without the burden of revealing their identities or anything personal. The platform has very good traction so far, they have more than 3 million registered users, and get 200 thousand new users every day, and every month, they acquire 100 thousand new users.

The business was first launched in Turkey, that is why almost half of the users are Turkish people. Following that, when the platform became global, they became to attract users from all over the world and actually gained a huge and very important number of users day by day. 

When they participated in our annual startups’ competition in Startup Istanbul, they presented their work in front of important people and entrepreneurs, as well as Venture Capitals from Silicon Valley. They were the winners of that edition which, according to Mr. Yerli, was the beginning of a whole new life for them. It made their business gain attention and allowed them to finally share the idea that they had in mind with the whole world.

During that event, Dave McClure, the founder of 500 Startups was also a guest of ours and one of our jury. After hearing the presentation of their business, he went to them to talk and actually suggested to meat during that same day. They were invited to his hotel and ended up driving him to the airport since he had to catch a flight. On their way to the airport, they discussed the idea of Connected2.Me furthermore as Mr. Dave McClure asked them numerous questions concerning it. He was impressed with the idea, and thus invited them to the next event of 500 startups.

https://youtu.be/rft5StE-GRM