How Turkish whizz-kids can scale-up fast

A young Turkish entrepreneur enters a hotel meeting room.  She comes face-to-face with some of Turkey’s top business gurus.

‘OK,’ says the chair, ‘you have five minutes to convince us.’

Five minutes later, after the young whizz-kid has set out her plans for growing her business by establishing a foothold in the UK, the assembled business experts burst into applause.

I’m at the Steigenberger Hotel in Maslak, judging applicants for our GREAT Scale-up competition.  A short-list of 14 innovative Turkish companies is making 5-minute presentations to our business guru jury (I won’t name names; but you know who you are and thanks again!).

The firms are awesome.  Their products range from an innovative manufacturer of aids for people with disabilities, through software integration platforms and products to reduce emission in car engines, to network security solutions and omni-channel marketing software platforms.

I like the quality of the presentations, too.  To assess the 14 shortlisted candidates takes us three hours.  At the end I feel optimistic about the quality of Turkish entrepreneurs and Turkey’s economic future.

The winners of the competition will be announced at a ceremony on 15 March.  The five prizes are a tailored business network and company establishment programme in London.  Good luck to all concerned!

PS: if, like me, you need help understanding what a scale-up is, check out Wikipedia.  The key point is that to go from a small start-up to a sustainable corporate model, a business has to “scale-up” and identify “a repeatable, scaleable business model” by drawing on the best business expertise available.  For ambitious Turkish firms who want to grow bigger fast, one of the best ways to do that is to have a base in the UK.

If you want to know more about how to set up in the UK, please contact Zeynep.Oztekbas@mobile.ukti.gov.uk

Follow Leigh Turner on Twitter @LeighTurnerFCO