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55 startups flew to the heart of Azerbaijan, Baku to showcase their latest innovations and pitch their ideas to potential investors in line with ICYF’s 7 pillars which include total economic empowerment of the youth. The successful 3-day culture meets business style mega event was more than just an amalgamation of culture and business as it also served as an open invitation to the world from Azerbaijan as the country opens its doors to businesses and investment especially in the newly liberated regions that are an integral part of Azerbaijan culture and the economy at large. The event, which was organized by the Islamic Cooperation Youth Forum (ICYF) and the Small and Medium Business Development Agency (SMBDA) of the Republic of Azerbaijan under the patronage of the Ministries of Economy and Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan, was held under the theme “Towards Enhancing Intra-OIC Investment Opportunities: Investment to Sustain Peace and Development in Karabakh”.

55 startups from 16 different countries participated in the investment and culture summit. Our startups are selected from the early and growth stages and they are working on the verticals of food, agritech, smarttech, logistics, smart city, environment, renewable energy, fintech, games, application, green industry, aviation, space tech, VR, healthtech.

During the program, it is planned to conduct 170 online and 150+ offline meetings. As a result of other negotiations, it is expected that cooperation and investment will arise from our other startups.

As foreign investors, 29 investors including global fund representatives from 16 different countries, attended our summit. Global investors with a fund size of more than 500 million dollars were allowed to directly contact Azerbaijani startups and accelerators. Incubation centers in the Azerbaijan ecosystem have had cooperation talks with accelerators to make joint investments and organize programs. This summit has created a great opportunity for the entrepreneurs of Azerbaijan and the region to open up to the global.

At the event with 10+ deals and news will be coming soon along with 4 potential investment  ?

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When asked to give advice to young entrepreneurs who want to build a company, Zukcerberg suggests starting by identifying a problem and then finding solutions for those problems. That is what he did with Facebook. Then you can build a company out of this process. Unfortunately, there are many who decide on building a company and then start to look for problems and their solutions. This will lead to wastage of time and resources.

Once founding a company, Zuckerberg emphasizes perseverance in facing challenges. He gives his personal anecdote, in 2006 Yahoo offered a billion dollars to buy Facebook which at the time had 10 million users. Most of the management in Facebook wanted to accept the offer and left the company when Zukerberg refused the lucrative offer. However, Facebook made more success shortely and increased its market value exponentially proving the benefits of perseverance.

Zuckerberg also gives importance to quick learning and adaptation to circumstances. To stay at the top of your game in a competitive market, you have to be at least as fast as your best competitor. He founded his company at the age of 19, and as such is always looking for talent despite age or other attributes. His advice for employers is don’t get stuck at the conventional hiring strategies. Look for people who can get the job done in the best way.

Useful link: Mark Zuckerberg : How to Build the Future

The post The Facebook saga: A few lessons from Mark Zuckerberg first appeared on Young Business Hub.

by Michael Seibel

This article aims to collect the information in Y combinator for our entrepreneurs and give it as raw information. The fourth of these articles, which we named as startup 101, is “how to plan an MVP”.

Let’s begin ?

The minimum eligible product is only those with sufficient features, the product offered to the first users, the product to be requested for feedback (wiki). In the lesson, the ridiculous thing is that you can only give the first step and give them a value, first of all, imagine ?.

The first users you’re going to MVP with are essential to who you are, because these are the people, you’re solving the sizing problem of. You need to talk to these people before you write any more code.

Before releasing the product, the main goals of the startups are very simple. These:

Quickly Publish (MVP): You need to publish the first product quickly, even if it’s bad.

Find First Users: You don’t need to appeal to everyone, just find first-stage users.

Get Feedback: Do not think that the feedback you will receive from the user in the first version is meaningless before the full version is released. The product you have in mind may be a great thing for you, but perhaps it may be a product that these users will never/will ever use/need.

Iteration: Update your product constantly, iterate constantly, constantly improve.

There are basically two types of MVPs based on your initiative and solution: Lean and Heavy MVP.

Lean MVP

It is the category with many initiatives. You have to MVP very quickly, it should be weeks, not months. Many startups do this with a landing page and a spreadsheet. Publish with limited feature so you just need to solve the most basic problem of users. Only serve a small number of users and iterate over them. Your product’s vision should encompass everyone, but a small number of users is enough for an MVP. MVP should not be seen as something very special. For example, when Airbnb first came out, it did not even have a payment system and a mapping feature, it was coded as a shambles. The original version of Twitch was Justin.TV, there was only a chat box where you could watch Justin’s life in very bad resolution and talk to other viewers. These later became billion-dollar companies, but at first they were very bad.

Complex (Heavy) MVP

There is no such term, but a name given to describe the event. In some cases MVP may not be very fast. These can be solutions for areas with intense rules and laws such as insurance and banking, or solutions for areas that require intensive labor such as drones, rocket technologies, biotechnology. Initiatives like this need to start with a website that tells you what you’re doing, so it’s easier to talk to people and you’ll give them something to refer to.

With the launch of the product, you will meet your customers for the first time. This should not be exaggerated either. For example, when Facebook, Google or Twitter went live, nobody remembers. With MVP, you need to get your first customers and continue with them by constantly improving your solution.

Tips for making a quick MVP:

• Set a Time: Set a time, such as three weeks, and do what you can within that time. Thus, you will not have time to put all the features on the product you want it to be, and a very simple product will emerge.
• Determine the Features: Unless you specify the features that will be in your product in writing at the beginning, you will have the opportunity to constantly change this 3-week product to a 3-month product; You can also convert a 3-month product into a 3-year product, and in this way, you will be out of the definition of MVP.
• Limit Features: The features you can give in a limited time are also limited. Limit features instead of constantly delaying time. Even waive some important features if necessary. When you introduce a product, the development process will continue with the momentum you gain. In order to capture exactly this momentum, put out the minimum suitable product as soon as possible.
• Don’t fall in love with your MVP: Never forget that it’s just a baby step.

Useful link; https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6f-how-to-plan-an-mvp

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Elon is the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors. Originally a cofounder of Paypal, Elon Musk founded SpaceX to enable the colonization of Mars. In this article we will delve into Elon’s view of the future and what he thinks people should work on. We hope young and ambitious entrepreneurs can benefit from his deep insight and prophetic predictions.

Elon thinks doing something that is useful to many people is important and future technologies do not have to change the whole world. That is to say, a small change that improves multitudes of lives is as important as groundbreaking innovations. In this regard, he thinks AI and genetics are very important fields that could transform the lives of humans for the better. He also realizes the risk associated with AI and genetics if they fail in the wrong hands and emphasizes the role of democratization of these technologies to prevent evil monopoly on them. He sees many benefits if we are able to attain an efficient way to create an interface between AI and the human brain and as such increasing the ability of our brains to tackle the challenges we face. He also accentuates the role of genetic engineering in solving genetic diseases such as alzheimer.

When asked how young people can be the next Elon, he explains his personal belief and aims to be useful to humanity. As such, if entrepreneurs come up with solutions to problems that humans face, they will get acceptance and succeed. Furthermore, he elaborates on the way we can figure out how to be most useful. We should ask ourselves whatever this thing is that we’re trying to create, what would be the utility Delta compared to the current state of the art times how many people it would affect. So that’s why he thinks having something that makes a big difference but affects a sort of small to moderate number of people is great as is something that makes even a small difference but affects a vast number of people.

Elon also emphasizes the importance of taking risks even if the probability of success is low. If not, he states, we will not make progress as a collective. That is why he kept on working on the SpaceX program even though the idea was crazy to many people’s understanding at the time. If we don’t take risk and make innovation, our technology will regress and is ultimately forgotten the same way that the Egyptians forgot how to build pyramids or Romans their impressive aqueducts. Saying this, he also recognizes the hard work we have to put in convincing investors the long term benefits of our undertaking. He suggests that we work on something we care about that we would be able to face people and challenges and persevere.

Elon actively works on mitigating the dangers of AI technology falling in the wrong hands. He dedicates his time to open AI initiatives that work on the democratization of AI technology so that it is not concentrated in the hands of few companies or individuals. By decentralizing AI and making it accessible to the masses, we can make sure there is a check and balance in using AI. Similarly, young and ambitious entrepreneurs need to find out the risks associated with their work and take the moral responsibility to mitigate those risks.

The dedication that Elon puts into his initiatives is remarkable and he spends most of his days working on SpaceX and Tesla, contrary to what twitter crowd thinks. This is a common trend amongst successful entrepreneurs and there is no short cut other than working hard. After all, most of his projects initially are dubbed as crazy, but with hard work, creativity, and the ability to communicate his idea effectively he has become a textbook definition of a successful entrepreneur.

Useful link  Elon Musk : How to Build the Future

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This article aims to collect the information in Y combinator for our entrepreneurs and give it as raw information. The second of these articles which we named as startup 101, is “how to talk to users “.

Let’s begin ?

The second lesson of the first week was on How to Talk to Users, given by Eric Migicovsky. For our initiative, it was a course where we were able to find answers to questions such as what we should talk to users about, what questions we should ask, what we should pay attention to in the answers, what kind of users we should meet at which stages.

The best entrepreneurs are those who communicate directly with their users at every stage of the enterprise and learn directly from them. Even if you are the CEO, your job description also includes talking to the user. Not only the CEO, but also managers and developers should know how to talk to the user. In order to establish a connection with the users, another position (Public Relations-Customer Representative) should be created and nobody should be allowed there, direct communication should be established.

Two things are at the core of Y Combinator tutorials: Coding (or product creation) and Talking to Users!

The tactics and strategies for user conversation that will be discussed in today’s lesson are derived from the book The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. Accordingly, there are three major mistakes made while talking to the user:

1. Talk about what they think, not your opinion!
2. Talk specifically about what they think, not about your hypotheses!
3. Just listen if necessary, don’t talk! (Entrepreneurs are in love with their idea and want to talk about it all the time)

Here are five key questions you can ask in every user interview:

1. What is the hardest part of your problem?

This is important to understand because they may be facing a different problem than the one you are considering and it may be better to focus on that. Ask them open-ended questions so you can get their point across directly. You also confirm that you are working on a problem that users are actively trying to solve in their lives.

2. When was the last time you encountered this problem? (In our previous article, the importance of the frequency of encountering problems was mentioned.)

So, you have examples of under what conditions this problem is encountered in real life and this information is very valuable to you because it may happen more or less often than you think. Tell me about last time? real life problems…

3. What was the hardest part of dealing with this problem?

Thanks to this question, you will get many different answers this is because each user is faced with different difficulties. Thus, you will not only solve the problem at hand, but also get the benefits of the product and the value it can provide to potential users. Remember that customers don’t buy your answer to the “what” question (phone), they buy it for your answer to the “why” question. (iphone- quality, premium, feeling superior, etc.)

4. What were the solutions you produced for this problem you experienced?

Our goal here is to find out what alternative paths they have found. In this way, you will be able to see if a new solution is really needed. In addition, the solutions they use your competitors. This is how you find features that will make you better.

5. What do you dislike about these solutions you use?

The answer to this question is important for you to offer a solution with better features. This way you can improve the parts you don’t like. However, for this question, “What would you like better in your product?” should not be approached. You may remember the quote attributed to (but not his) Henry Ford.

Talking to the users are important at every stage but catching the product-market fit is the crucial point of the event. If we consider the time so far as three critical stages, the points we need to pay attention to and the methods we need to apply will be different.

1. Stage where you got the idea

Find users who are having the problem, but you don’t have to go far for that, you can have friends, colleagues, etc. may be. Remember, “The best products are the solutions people create for themselves,” so you can start by asking yourself. It is important to follow an objective and detailed strategy. Also, do not have this conversation by texting or sending an e-mail most of them will not be interested, take care of yourself, go and talk face to face. You can go to places where the product will be used, industrial events, etc. and find people. It will be “Guerrilla style” but so you can get the job done at “0” cost and talking to people who have the problem will motivate you too, if you have the solution. It is also important to take good notes if necessary, you can ask the user to get a sound recording. There is no need to plan in detail, just relax. The time of the person participating in the interview should also be respected, 10-15 minutes is enough time.

1. Prototype Production Phase

At this stage, you can consider the users you will meet as your first customers. The important point is that you need to find the “best first customers”. It may not be a bright idea to try a technological application with your grandfather.

At this stage, ask your users about numerical things:

– How much have you spent so far to solve this problem? This is a necessary question for you to determine your pricing.

– How often do you encounter this problem? Those who deal with the problem a lot are best for you. In this way, the solutions you produce to their problems will appeal to both the really needed and a wide audience in the future as much as possible.

– What’s your budget? Maybe there are solutions to their problems right now, but they may not be able to solve the existing solutions because they are expensive.

The Venn diagram shows the Prototype phase. Level of Difficulty (Return on Investment), Frequency and Solving Ability (Budget, Resolution Authority). The ideal place in the middle is the best combination of features your prototype will contain.

1. Product Launch

After launching your product, you will need to constantly adapt it to the market. That’s why you need to constantly focus on feedback from users. When you provide product-market harmony, users will demand the product from you. It is recommended that you read Marc Andreesen’s blog post.

Superhuman company asks all customers this question: How upset would you be if it weren’t for us? I was very sad, they saw that the answer was above 40%. Such a ratio is great. They also call those who say they wouldn’t be upset, one by one, so they redesign their products and make them better. This is the correct approach.

Useful link ; https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6g-how-to-talk-to-users

The post How To Talk Users by Eric Migicovsky first appeared on Young Business Hub.

This article aims to collect the information in Y combinator for our entrepreneurs and give it as raw information. The first of these articles, which we named as startup 101, is “how to evaluate startups ideas”.

Let’s begin ?

How is an idea generated? Will the investor like my idea? Will I be able to grow when I can start this start-up? Are you focused on solving the problem? Let’s say you have a very large design space?

All material package and preparation are reserved in the description. According to Y Combinator, a business is a company that was established to grow very quickly (Start-up = Growth). The investor can increase your nurturing, increase your earning, and today it should be able to stay in the very dreamy, lucrative long-term continuously (growth in the longest run) and its users should be able to solve its problem immediately. If your startup does not promise rapid growth, it will remain an ordinary company. So how can we achieve this “very fast” growth?

We are an acceptable as an enterprise. This idea consists of 3 areas: Problem, Solution and Insight:

Problem

The problem, we can say, is the heart of a start-up, if it doesn’t work, you die. We can mention 6 characters to describe the problem, these are:

Popularity: Too many people having the same problem (Number of users)

Growth: The problem is that the market is growing, so we create a growing company even if we are on average. (Increasing the potential)

Urgency: It should be the problem that people want to solve immediately. (Immediate, Instant, Instant)

Pricing: Potentially high yield, much cheaper than competitors. (Competition)

Obligation: The solution of the problem is mandatory. (It works)

Frequency: Encountering the problem frequently (more than once)

The problem need not have all of these properties, but must be identifiable with at least one. The frequency clause is the most important of these.

The following equation has been put forward to guide the behavior of your customers to prefer you. We should give them a source of motivation (problem solving), achieve this effectively and remind them frequently (mail, message, notification).

Behavior = Motivation + Skill + Trigger

Solution

The basic definition of the solution is what experiments to do that will confirm the hypothesis and ensure rapid growth. It is the process that should not be started to come up with ideas. SISP = Solution In Search of a Problem. The approach where we can take a very good or new technology and use it in which problem is wrong. Instead of offering a solution out of the blue, it is desirable to produce a solution to an existing problem.

Insight

Insight is the explanation of how the proposed hypothesis will be successful with the method to be used. It needs to show what kind of superiority you will have over the opponents. This allows the investor to find you valuable. Insights are possible by recognizing your unfair advantages. To list these advantages:

Founder(s): Having founders who are super expert on something. Many people think that their position (product manager at google) will make an impact, but there are too many product managers at google. Instead, being an expert with a PhD in a subject and holding a patent provides a real advantage. (to be one of 10 people who can do the job)

Market: If the market you are in is growing by about 20%, you can automatically catch this growth. However, if you aim to grow in a shrinking market, it will be more difficult to convince the investor.

Product: Having a product that is 10x better  creates a real advantage. This could be 10 times faster or 10 times cheaper.

Acquisition: Having resources to earn without cost is a very good advantage. The best example of this is to be able to spread word of mouth (word of mouth) instead of advertising. It is necessary to think about the question of how I can grow without spending. (best goes to 0)

Monopoly: Having clear advantages that will enable you to stand up to your competitors. Being the owner of the market in the marketplace enterprise or strengthening and growing its place with the network effect are the advantages that can be examples. (1 or 0)

There are generally 2 beliefs about a company.

Threshold: The initiative must actually be able to do what it promises, if it can’t it means nothing.

Miracle: From an investor’s point of view, believing that your high-expectant idea can be realized even though you don’t have many indicators is equivalent to playing the lottery from an investor’s point of view.

In sum up, we can think of the venture idea as a hypothesis that explains why it must grow “too fast.” The next lesson will be about testing our hunch and talking to users about ways we can turn this hypothesis into evidence.

Useful link ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOtCl5PU8F0&t=1208s

The post How to Evaluate Start-Up Ideas by Kevin Hale first appeared on Young Business Hub.

“It’s time again for the 3rd Take Off International Startup Summit, organized in partnership with Turkish Technology Team (T3) Foundation, The Ministry of Industry and Technology, and the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey’s Investment Office on 20-22 September 2021 in Istanbul…”

More Information: Click here

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A landmark protocol was signed among ICYF, Investment Office of the Presidency of Turkey, and Bilişim Vadisi to establish an Innovative Entrepreneurship Center in Istanbul. Here are what this center is set to achieve and opportunities it will provide to the youth in OIC geography and beyond.

The OIC region has untapped potential in innovation and entrepreneurship if the young population is educated and equipped with creative skills. However, the region currently faces major global challenges that directly affect the youth. Today, for every 1 successful young individual two are left behind in need of work. 75% of youth owned businesses face hurdles and fail prematurely. This is mainly due to high costs of running the business at the initial stage, lack of support, and lack of exposure to the market. Furthermore, according to the World Bank, over 1 billion young people are set to enter the workforce in the next decade but only less than half will be employed in the formal sector. These problems will keep exacerbating since the world is younger than ever. ICYF is making remarkable strides to be part of the solution for these problems and the new innovation center is one of such efforts.

The innovative entrepreneurship center will have components such as Capacity Building and Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Seminars and Workshops, Networking Initiatives, and programs for Economic Empowerment. The center will provide free workspace for entrepreneurs to work in. It will also provide mentorship and training for youth entrepreneurs and give guidance in multiple levels of startup development. The center will organize funding opportunities and access to investors. It will also provide working capital and loans to young entrepreneurs to support their business ventures.

Inorder to provide such opportunities, the center will establish a hub for technological and scientific innovation in Istanbul that will form the nucleus of the OIC’s center for youth development radiating to innovation and technological progress to the rest of the region. By doing so, the center aims to eradicate economic inequality affecting the youth in the OIC region and reduce absolute poverty and unemployment by creating opportunities and platforms for the youth to exhibit their abilities. Through the promotion of science and technological innovation more jobs will be created for the youth which in return will fuel the economy of the OIC region and raise the standard of living. For this end, ICYF will support projects and initiatives led by the youth through funding and mentoral assistance to turn their ideas into successful ventures that contribute to community development. Partnerships and joint ventures will also be encouraged to help youth owned businesses gain exposure and enter new markets.This will create a productive ecosystem for startups and technology ventures.

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The International Entrepreneurship Center is coming to life in Istanbul under the auspices of the Investment Office of the Presidency of Turkey. A cooperation protocol was signed for the center to be established by the Islamic Cooperation Youth Forum (ICYF), which works for over 600 million youths in the OIC region, and the Bilişim Vadisi, Turkey’s largest thematic technopark.

The cooperation protocol was signed at the Investment Office of the Presidency of Turkey in Beşiktaş with the participation of Ahmet Burak Dağlıoğlu, President of the Investment Office of the Presidency of Turkey, Taha Ayhan, President of ICYF, and Ahmet Serdar Ibrahimcioğlu, General Manager of Bilişim Vadisi. The the center, which will open its doors to international young entrepreneurs living or studying in Turkey, aims to provide young people with the opportunities they need.

Entrepreneurship courses will be given within the framework, support will be offered in the commercialization process, consulting and mentoring will be carried the center will serve on its campus in Istanbul under the leadership of the Investment Office of the Turkish Presidency and the Bilişim Vadisi under the coordination of ICYF.

In the signing ceremony, Taha Ayhan, President of ICYF sayed “ We are here to spread the importance that Turkey attaches to entrepreneurship, youth entrepreneurship, and youth economic development to the world. I believe that the center we have established here will be very useful primarily in terms of Turkey and Istannbul being and Entrepreneurship Center for young people and spreading Turkey’s success in development over the past 20 years to other countries”

The president of the Investment Office of the presidency of Turkey, Ahmet Burak Dağlıoğlu, also stressed the importance of the opening of the center for Istanbul and Turkey as the hub of entrepreneurship. He said “ As you already know, for many international events Istanbul had become the gathering point, and during the pandemic we observed the interest of international students participating in online activities, especially in studies aimed at technological entrepreneurship, who came to Turkey and continued their work here. And the establishment of this center will make istanbul a global hub for startups and entrepreneurs.”

Ahmet Serdar Ibrahimcioğlu, General Manager of Bilişim Vadisi, further emphasized the importance of the opening of the center in forming a productive environment for entrepreneurs. He said “ Our country(Turkey) has brought together the truths needed for the formation of a productive ecosystem in the name of entrepreneurship, especially in recent years. We want to present the fertile ground for the benefit of international entrepreneurs in our country.”

To know more what this center is set to achieve and opportunities it provides to the youth please read this blog post: https://youngbusinesshub.org/entrepreneurship-center-blog/

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