Akdeniz Press – Erdem Genç
One of 21st-Century Turkey's Most Successful Young Entrepreneurs: Erdem Genç
I first met him in March 2013, at a conference held during an entrepreneurship summit at Akdeniz University. Between 2011 and 2012, while I was serving as chairman of the board of Akdeniz University's International Politics and Diplomacy Society, I helped bring in everyone from European ambassadors to political consultants and academics for our club's events. Across my six years at university, in all the conferences I helped organize and all the ones I attended as a listener, I can honestly say I never saw another figure on stage as full of energy, as positive, and as inspiring to young people as he is.
In his first book, "Boss at 20", published roughly five years ago, he takes an autobiographical approach to his own achievements, drawing on his own successful life to guide young people approaching their twenties on how to become successful entrepreneurs and shape their futures. Beyond "Boss at 20", he also wrote "Debut", which brings together various stories into a single book. He has traveled to many countries around the world, and in "Cuban Rhythm" — a book he describes as part novel, part travelogue, written about Cuba — it becomes possible to get to know, experience, and learn about Cuba from every angle without ever setting foot there.
Alongside his traveler's spirit, he also has a commercial one. His business success can be traced back to his early youth — one example from his past is selling his mother's vase on a website from home.
They say an unemployed young person in Turkey can't find work without connections. He, on the other hand, turned his hobbies into money, founded his own company, created his own opportunities, and chose and built his own social circle to get where he is today. In a country with a large young population and high youth unemployment, his entrepreneurial spirit made him the boss of his own business at age 20. In addition to founding his own company, by age 27 he had become a partner in three companies, making remarkable strides at a young age.
A person's greatest achievement in life is being able to do the work they love. In Turkey, most young people are unemployed, unhappy, and never get to do the work they love. In today's global era, the neoliberal system has affected Turkish youth so much that, aside from unemployment, many young people in Turkey end up wasting their youth working in jobs that don't match their qualifications just to avoid being unemployed — leaving behind unhappiness, wasted years of youth, and lost potential energy. His actual profession is mechanical engineering, but in his twenties his entrepreneurial spirit led him to found his own company and become, in a word, his own boss. Even though his own father once said, "We sent him off to become an engineer and got a darbuka player instead," doing the work he loves today can be considered an achievement in its own right. Moreover, even after starting his own business as a university student, he never lost his drive to keep studying. At 29, having earned his fourth university degree, he won a scholarship for the entrepreneurship master's program at Özyeğin University — a program that is notoriously hard to get into in Turkey — and remaining a student to this day is another notable trait of his.
Beyond identities and skills such as writer, boss, traveler, and student, Erdem Genç also has various works and achievements in photography and music. With his multifaceted character and qualities, he can serve as a role model for the new generation, and in every post he shares he goes by the slogan "Dreams have no limits," summing up his formula for success simply as "sleep 8 hours, have fun 8 hours, work 8 hours."
In Turkey, young people are expected to finish their four-year degrees on time and maintain consistent academic success throughout university. But the greatest success in life is not finishing a four-year degree in four years — this successful person I'm describing took nine years to finish his. The greatest success in life is being socially successful and active; during his university years, he also ran the university's Rock club. A university student's real achievement lies not in academic success but in social success. Unfortunately, not many students are members of or active in student clubs — I've seen so many young friends at various universities who spend their time idly in cafés, never devoting any of it to art, science, or culture.
What sets Erdem Genç — chosen as Turkey's youngest successful entrepreneur — apart from others may well be that he does things differently. Today, Erdem Genç holds his own conferences at hundreds of universities across every corner of Turkey, guiding young people on how to succeed through talks given at entrepreneurship summits at universities from Anatolia to the Caucasus, as well as at some high schools and elementary schools. He has also received numerous awards from many leading universities and various institutions in Turkey; among the most notable is first place in entrepreneurship in a competition for Turkey's 10 most successful young people, held by a foundation university. Another notable award came when his company, MP3 Works, along with Erdem Genç himself, won Best Event Supplier at the World Tourism Forum Award Ceremony held at Çırağan Palace in recent months — among the many awards he holds across various fields.
Recently chosen as the most successful of Turkey's 10 most successful young people, Erdem Genç earns money both by having fun and by entertaining others — and through his entertainment company MP3Works, an event supplier, he also helps many corporate companies boost their employees' productivity, generating income for them as well. He is also a partner in an Istanbul-based book company and a partner in a commercial website company, and through his companies he has made a notable mark on numerous corporate social responsibility projects.
