Sabancı University Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences 2010 graduate Emre Ertan designed and developed a mobile application called “Gözlük” (“The Lens”) with three of his friends. When launched, the application rose to number 3 in the news category in Turkey within five days.
We spoke to Emre on his successful enterprise in application development.
Gözlük is the easiest way to follow Turkish and foreign newspapers and writers. This is a single application designed to access all news sources and browse recent news in categories including economy, politics, sports, celebrity news, culture and arts, humor and technology. It has a streamlined appearance that makes the screen easy to read and provides a pleasant user experience. The artificial intelligence we have developed means regular users get to view the news they are most interested in as quickly as possible. In short, Gözlük is a personalized news platform.
Who are the creators and how did the idea come to life?
Together with our friends in America, we try to stay informed about the latest developments in Turkey. Users in America mostly read news on mobile devices. The applications they use harness technologies that provide each user with the news that they are actually interested in. We realized that there weren’t many applications in Turkey that use personalization technologies and provide a smooth user experience. We can say that we identified a gap in the market by focusing on our own needs. Three friends and I started to develop the application.
Alp Artar, Undergraduate: Bilkent University Electrical and Electronic Engineering; Doctorate: Boston University Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Emre Kazdağlı: Undergraduate: Bilkent University Electrical and Electronic Engineering; Graduate: Carnegie Mellon University Engineering and Innovation Management
Emrecan Doğan, Undergraduate: Boğaziçi University Industrial Engineering; Graduate: Stanford University, MBA
Emre Ertan, Undergraduate: Sabancı University Manufacturing Systems and Industrial Engineering; Graduate: Stanford University, MBA
How does the application work and how does it differ from similar applications?
Gözlük is very easy to use. When you first launch the app, you select the categories you are interested in, and the app feeds you the news in those categories straight away. The background algorithm fetches news from the best sources and presents them to the user. What makes us different is the technology we use. Our team members have spent a great deal of time on algorithms. We believe we offer the best technology among similar applications in the market. We keep working on user experience and design to ensure that reading news on your device is as smooth and pleasant an experience as possible.
How can we download the app? Do you have tablet and mobile versions?
Currently we only have an iPhone application, but soon we will have iPad and Android versions out. iPhone users may download the app for free on the Appstore.
As an entrepreneur, what are your advice for your fellow Sabancı University students about bringing their ideas to life?
There was a time when the brightest among us wanted more than anything to get a job in a good company and climb the career ladder. Now it is much easier to start a business. People with a business idea can find investment much more easily than in the past. Improved communication channels means setting up teams is simpler. Therefore I strongly recommend everyone with a business idea to act as soon as possible. If their startups succeed, they will have realized their dreams; if not, they will have gained valuable experience that they cannot find anywhere else. In both cases, they walk away with great learnings. The only thing they must do is to act now.