Slush in three questions: Insights from Turkish startup ecosystem

Slush 2023 gathered numerous prominent figures from Turkey's entrepreneurship ecosystem. I had the opportunity to engage in idea exchange and conversations with Emir Barın, Gökçe Gülcüler, and Onur Eren during the panels. Here are their assessments of Slush in three questions:

Can you summarize Slush in three words?

• Onur (Impact Investor): Inspiring, intriguing, intimate
• Gökçe (Journalist): A labyrinth, mental satisfaction, and thermal underwear :)
• Emir (Entrepreneur): The meeting point of European startups

Which talk or panel left the strongest impression on you, and why?

• Onur: Scaling People, Claire Hughes Johnson (Stripe). This talk about how to grow alongside people in growing organizations was invaluable for all times and all businesses. In a place where sessions specialize in their respective fields, it is enjoyable to listen to a session that is interesting for everyone and focuses on the human aspect. By the way, I watched the Slush sessions on Youtube on the way back. There's not much time to watch sessions while there.
• Gökçe: The first thing that comes to mind is the Sex (Sounds) in the City (Helsinki) panel. While there were many cool technological startups and financial success stories on stage, Caroline Spiegel, the founder of the Quinn platform, stood out with both her topic and her easy attitude. Caroline, a Sextech entrepreneur who brings erotic audio content creators together on one platform, has taken a very bold step beyond traditional methods. In cultures like Finnish and Turkish societies, where discussing such topics is considered taboo, it was fascinating to gain insight into Sextech.
• Emir: Benedict Evans - AI and everything else.

Who was the person you were glad to meet at Slush and why?

• Onur: As an impact investor, I found immense pleasure in connecting with each and every entrepreneur I had the opportunity to meet through our scheduled meetings. They were all incredibly bright and proud of their work. These meetings align with the event's goal of providing a platform for successful entrepreneurs to present themselves and their ventures. Throughout the scheduled meetings, I had the chance to listen attentively, and I must say that the entrepreneurs I had the privilege to meet left me feeling inspired and optimistic.
  
• Gökçe: That's a tough question. Before singling out one person, I'd like to provide an overall perspective. The satisfaction came from the cumulative result of all the encounters. The platform and collective intelligence created by so many people to design the future and act together deeply impressed me. In my field of content creation, Dvir, with whom we discussed cyber risks in digitized cars, and Maria, who aims to prevent the cyber world from being used for election manipulation and protect children from cyberbullying, impressed me with their holistic approaches to these topics.
• Emir: I was very impressed by Ilena Mece, who manages an investment fund based in Germany, and her insights.

^{The finale of Slush 2023}

Closing notes

In this issue, I've tried to summarize the remnants of the action-packed Slush 2023 adventure. Spending three days around different startups, stories of success and failure, inspiring individuals, and themes while moving from one room of the conference to another was wonderful. The questions lingering in my mind after the conference were:

• How can we predict today what will be trending in five years?

• How can the process of creating a good product and problem mapping be simplified?
• What will replace generative AI when it becomes "boring"?
• How will the relationship between food technologies and the health lobby evolve?
• How will creative economic models in the media and traditional media be affected by artificial intelligence?