An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Hire a coach acting as a marriage counselor between you and your cofounders.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing,” I had the pleasure of interviewing Kuzeyhan Ozdemir.

Kuzeyhan is passionate about enabling the innovators and the founders of the startups to safely navigate through their journey from the spark of their idea or invention to launching their products or services to impact people’s lives positively. He argues that the entrepreneurial mindset can be developed, and he explores how to shift from a technical mindset into an entrepreneurial one.

He is a business & innovation management consultant, coach and mentor supporting the startup founders, the innovators, and the stakeholders in the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. He also works with international organizations to explore the worldwide innovation ecosystem and the engagement of the innovative companies developing sustainable technologies to be active in developing countries.

He has more than 20 years of business, innovation, and technology management experience with an educational background in electrical engineering, computer science, and business administration. He also holds Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

First, I would like to thank you for having me as your guest.

I was born in Ankara, the capital of the Republic of Turkey. My Mom was an elementary school teacher, and my Dad was a middle school art teacher. My Dad also had a small printing shop where, at the time of no personal computers and printers, he was printing the books, some of them being his plays or poems for the children, and the company brochures along with the wedding and birthday invitation cards. He was also binding the books. I helped him in printing the invitation cards and binding the books when I was in middle school. In return, he gave me a weekly salary that I used to buy books. Buying a book with my own money and reading it was an excellent experience for me.

However, I only realized while taking classes for my MBA degree after years of engineering education that my Dad was also an entrepreneur with no business or entrepreneurship education. I now reflect on this and realize why I am so passionate about helping innovators to be entrepreneurs who transform their ideas into something useful and valuable for people. Making something from nothing and sharing it with the world fascinate me.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Yesterday, I was clever. So, I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise. So, I am changing myself.”

This quote from Rumi, poet, philosopher, Islamic scholar, and Sufi mystic, resonates with me. It reminds me how change is a constant for all of us. Changing ourselves by developing a growth mindset, including the transitioning among different perspectives, is crucial to adapt ourselves to the changes around us and impact the world.

I realized more what this quote meant for me when I, along with my wife and two kids, moved to Washington D.C. from Turkey five years ago due to my wife’s job in an international organization. I knew it would be a significant change for my family and me, which we needed to adapt; however, I was not much aware that I also needed to reconnect with my inner self and change my mindset.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

A couple of books shaped my thoughts, my way of living, my interaction with people, nature, and my connection with my inner self. Today, I want to share the one book’s impact, called “The Long Game” by Dorie Clark, on me.

As we all witnessed, millions of people lost their jobs after the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world at the beginning of 2020. People were puzzled and anxious with the uncertainties, lockdowns, and mask mandates and started to question the purpose and meaning of their jobs and their lives.

Even though I was among the lucky ones to have a job aligned with my purpose, I was also puzzled and anxious about the future. I also observed that the pandemic didn’t negatively affect some people’s jobs who started to invest in themselves and diversify their revenue streams years ago. They had already shifted their mindset from short-term thinking to long-term thinking. Dorie Clark was one of the best examples of long-term thinkers I started to follow in 2020. That is why the concrete action plans in her book about long-term thinking and acting resonated with me.

Being interviewed by you today, for which I am grateful, is the result of the inspiration I received from her.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

Let me start by sharing a real-life example I encountered a couple of years ago. We organized an event for startups to train them about the lean startup methodology developed and popularized by Steve Blank and Eric Ries. The business model canvas created by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur was also used in this methodology.

The instructor asked each startup founder when they launched their startups and how many customers they talked to so far. One of the founders said they had launched their startup two years ago, and they didn’t speak to any customers yet since they were trying to develop their product. They were sure that they could find many customers when they launched their product in the market. However, they didn’t know who their customers were and why they would care about their product. What value would they bring to which customer?

Therefore, if you have an idea that is novel and useful, you first need to ask yourselfto get out and talk to the customers to understand which customers you will serve, to which one of their problems or needs you have a solution and what value you would bring to them so that they would choose your solution to do their jobs. If no one or a few people find your idea valuable, unfortunately, your idea will stay as an idea.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

I specifically remind the first-time startup founders to conduct thorough research about similar ideas. I recommend them not only search keywords via Google but also check the data offered by web sites about startups like CrunchBase, Pitchbook, Owler, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and alike. I also tell them to check patent databases provided by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and Google Patents. It takes time, but it is incredibly valuable.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it?

The patent is a long process. Let me try to give you a brief answer.

FirstAs we discussed before, they first need to search whether similar ideas have been already created or not so that they can understand whether their concept is novel or not. Then they need to get out of their comfort zone and search for a business model by carrying out customer discovery and testing their hypotheses about customers and the other components of the business model.

This approach is based on the lean startup methodology that I mentioned before.

This is an experiential learning process that gives them the flexibility to test their hypotheses, change the components of their business model; hence they pivot and validate customers. They need build Minimum Viable Products and try to create customers during this process. This process reduces their initial spending and saves time.

When I reply to your question about patenting, I need to emphasize that not every idea is patentable, and patenting is just one of the Intellectual Property protections. There are also trademarks, service marks, and copyrights. They need to familiarize themselves with these kinds of protections and decide which one is much more appropriate for their cases. They can get information from the websites of the U.S. Patent OfficesOffice or the World Intellectual Property Organization. They can also work with a patent attorney. If they are employees or students in a university, Technology Transfer or Licensing Offices can give them more information and help them to file for patents.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

I am currently carrying out a study about Entrepreneurial Mindset and talking with startup founders. I asked a similar question to them. I found out the following five things.

1. Start to talk to customers even before developing your product.
2. Join an accelerator or an entrepreneurship program.
3. Focus on not only the growth of the company but also your growth and change your mindset.
4. Have an open communication channel with all your employees and show empathy.
5. Hire a coach acting as a marriage counselor between you and your cofounders.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

I recommend them to learn about lean startup methodology and go through the customer development process.

First, I recommend them to readReading some business books will also be helpful. like They can read “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries, “The Startup Owner’s Manual” by Steve Blank & Bob Dorf, “Business Model Generation” by Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur, and “The Mom Test” by Rob Fitzpatrick.

Then They can write your their guesses in the business model canvas, write down your their hypotheses about customers, go outside your their house or office, and talk to the customers to test your their assumptions.

They can also join an accelerator, boot camp, or an entrepreneurship program.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

First of all, this is their idea and their business. The personThey needs to search for a viable business model by themselves or with their cofounders. Getting support from an experienced consultant or mentor is also valuable.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

The decision depends on various conditions like; whether you have enough financial resources to run the company or not, whether you are comfortable sharing your company’s control. In any case, you will most likely start by bootstrapping. You may need a V.C.enture Capital when you don’t have enough financial resources to grow and scale your business. V.C.s can also bring you the market experience and a vast network. It may be a good idea to find an experienced and reputable V.C. in your market in such a case.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I am sharing my experience with startup founders who want to affect the lives of people in the world positively.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

My son is 15 years old and freshman at high school. He is very interested in being an entrepreneur. It will be good to have a network of experienced entrepreneurs mentoring teenagers like my son.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, V.C. funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the U.S., with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Can I choose two people? It would be great to have breakfast or lunch with Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil. Even if they don’t know yet, both have a special place and positive effect on my professional life.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Kuzeyhan Ozdemir On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.