Why Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, why?

Being an entrepreneur is difficult. You don't have a steady income for a long time when you start up a company. Your opportunity cost is also very high if you quit your existing job to be an entrepreneur. You will have to work almost 24/7 to either establish a new market if your product is very innovative, or you spend the same amount of time and energy to get ahead of your competition. In the end, you give most of your company's income to your workers in form of salaries and to the government in form of taxes. And after long years of tears and sweat, you might be lucky enough to earn millions upon millions, thus paying even more taxes and salaries. 

That's why in developed countries and in countries that are trying to become developed, entrepreneurs are cherished. Everybody in the ecosystem knows how hard an entrepreneur's life is and they do whatever they can to help these individuals. 

However in Turkey, we do the opposite. Almost all institutions are trying to harm entrepreneurs, or they are trying to make entrepreneurs' lives as difficult as possible. 

Banks would not give out loans if these individuals do not show their houses or cars as pledges. The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) and other institutions are also inclined to make contributions to big companies, while they should actually be giving support to ones in need the most. 

Lastly in Turkey, the state-run organizations, municipalities, big banks and the biggest holdings like to compete with start-ups to kill them before they can even take off. 

I have heard so many stories from so many different entrepreneurs about how they pitched their fintech ideas to big banks and get rejected only to see that their very own idea is marketed...

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