Silicon Valley Exported: Lonca in Istanbul
A couple of months back, I wrote this piece on how to export Silicon Valley and its culture to other parts of the world. I was delighted when I had people from around the world reach out and discuss the topic further. Visiting Istanbul this summer, I have had the opportunity to test whether or not on-the-ground companies can replicate the magic of the valley. I have visited multiple corporate, startup, and venture capital offices and observed their working cultures. One startup stood out to me in particular: Lonca.
I know Lonca because its co-founder and CEO, Ahmet Kırıcı, and I were at Stanford at the same time when Ahmet was completing his MBA. When he first started the company, I remember the first landing page, the iteration of ideas, and the fact that the team was only a couple of people.
Fast forward to today, Lonca has around 30 employees and oversees thousands of transactions. There were three observations I had when visiting the office to tour it and talk to the team.
1. Being founder led: “n + 5”
When I visited the office Ahmet was in a meeting so I started talking to team members in the office who were happy to show me around and answer my questions. The first question I asked a software engineer on the product team was how much they work day to day. They explained that they work all day. When I asked if that was too much, they explained that whatever they do, the founders do more.
“If I do n, they do n + 5.”
This stuck with me. Silicon Valley’s biggest successes have big founders: Meta has Mark, OpenAI has Sam, and NVIDIA has Jensen. All of these founders are known for being obsessed with their companies, often losing sleep or shifting priorities to get things done. I see this similar obsession with Ahmet and his co-founders, and I believe Lonca’s employees do too.
2. Delegating Trust and Ownership to Elite Talent
Lonca has everyone in-person and the team was carefully selected for cultural fit. The youth and energy of the team was evident when I first walked in. I was greeted by a crowd of young developers, marketers, and operations people. Many of the team members are from top universities within Turkey like Bogazici University, Koç University, and Bilkent University. Talented people deserve to be trusted and given ownership, and I saw this at Lonca. One software engineer I talked to was previously on the data side at a much larger company, but when transitioning to Lonca, Ahmet trusted his drive to hire him on the full-stack side. This level of trust in the workplace is risky, however can be the best way to build and retain undervalued talent.
3. Culture
Last but not least, Lonca draws and keeps people in the office organically. Lonca is almost self-selecting for driven people as a product of the founders’ drive to scale the company. Outside of this, there are some events that appear to be thrown together which make Lonca feel friendlier than your average office. Lunch is brought in every day and people eat together, when the team works late they also watch the Turkish national team in the euros, and team members sometimes have their significant others visit/co-work out of the office.
Overall, I love the approach the founders of Lonca have taken in building a company culture that closely resembles the high-growth startups in the valley. I highly recommend applying to open positions at Lonca if you are a driven individual looking for a working environment which will push you toward your best self.
Thank you for reading this blog. If you are a company or founder who would like to be featured please email me at beradem@stanford.edu.