Burak Buyukdemir
Entrepreneur, VC, and storyteller. I invest in early-stage startups worldwide, share candid lessons from 20+ years in tech, and spotlight founders shaping the future. Join 100,000+ readers each week.
The Next Unicorn
Every founder thinks they're building the next unicorn. Zero revenue today, but somehow worth billions tomorrow. Their pitch decks show hockey stick projections based on nothing but hope. This delusion is contagious. The culture glamorizes overnight billionaires. VCs ask for massive outcomes. Founders respond with fantasy. They craft absurd narratives, use AI to "beef up generic bullet points," and present fiction as fact. The dangerous part? They start believing their own lies. What begins...
The Startup Lie Everyone Believes
Day 0: Brutal TruthMost founders fail not because their ideas are bad, but because they waste months pretending. Pitch decks. Market size slides. Fancy logos.All noise. The only thing that matters: 👉 Will someone pay you? That’s why I built 10 Brutal Days. Every day for 10 days, you’ll get one sharp, simple task.Not theory. Not motivation. Just brutal actions that move you closer to a paying customer—or prove your idea isn’t worth chasing. ⚠️ Warning: most people quit by Day 3.That’s the...
Funding is just fuel, not the finish line
Raised investment? Congrats, You Bought Gas. Now Where Are You Driving? Raising money isn't success. It's just the beginning. Yet founders treat funding rounds like finish lines. They think a check from a prominent VC validates their idea. They're wrong. I have been talking with many founders for the last 20 years, and I see this pattern most often in early-stage startups. The first milestone they obsess over is the check—not the customer. Money without a plan often makes companies sloppy....
Is Your Product a Vitamin or a Painkiller?
The fastest way to fail is to build something nobody really needs. A painkiller product solves a burning problem: customers say “I need this now”, pull out their credit card, and ask “How soon can we start?” Decisions happen fast. Teams align quickly. Value is obvious. A vitamin product sounds interesting but isn’t urgent. Customers say “maybe later”, ask for more meetings, or need convincing. They already have a way to get by. You end up explaining why they need it—because the pain isn’t...
10 Clear Signs You’ve Finally Reached Product-Market Fit
I’ve looked at thousands of startup decks. The fastest way to kill a company is to chase growth before finding product–market fit. PMF means your product solves a real pain for a clear customer segment and delivers obvious value. You don’t need consultants to tell you—you’ll feel it. Customers pull the product from you, not the other way around. But PMF isn’t binary—it’s a spectrum. It shifts with your product, market, and customers. That’s why founders are always searching for it, and why...
The complete pitch deck checklist VCs actually use
I confess—we ran pitch competitions for more than 10 years. Rooms were packed, trophies given, winners celebrated. But they were theater, not business. Winning means nothing if customers aren’t paying. Last Friday, I judged Pitch Challenge Istanbul. 59 founders pitched. By number 25, I had to leave—not because I didn’t care, but because the same mistakes kept repeating: jargon-stuffed slides, features over problems, and “change the world” visions with no traction. Here’s the reality: 3...
The Echo Chamber
When founders need feedback, they ask friends and family first. Terrible mistake. Your mom thinks everything you do is brilliant. Your best friend won't hurt your feelings. This inner circle kills more startups than competition ever will. I watch this pattern constantly when my close circle asks me about their startup ideas. They think that I work with startups so I should know whether their idea will work or not. They want to validate their startup idea with me first. But they also know I'm...
The IKEA Effect
The "IKEA effect," described by Dan Ariely, shows how people overvalue things they've built themselves. That bookshelf you assembled? Worth gold to you, junk to others. For founders, this bias is everywhere. A feature isn't just code—it's late nights, lost weekends, and ego. In my experience with founders, I see this very often. They over-invest emotionally in their companies, treating them as extensions of themselves. This makes it hard to pivot, update, or even keep up with competition....
How to hack your investor
Most founders become employees the moment they take money. They start asking permission instead of giving direction. This is backwards. Change your mindset. You didn't get investment—you hired team members. You picked them based on skills, gave them equity for contribution, expect them to add value. That's hiring. Yet founders flip the script when money arrives. They treat investors like bosses instead of team members they just hired. Brilliant founders shrink when mentioning their lead...
The less you say, the more you build
The less you say, the more you build. Research by Peter Gollwitzer shows that people who announce their goals work 50% less toward achieving them. Your brain treats social validation as partial achievement. When friends get excited about your app idea, your reward system thinks you've already made progress. This is called "symbolic self-completion theory." Neuroscience research reveals that discussing goals triggers the same reward circuits as completing them. Your brain releases dopamine...
Entrepreneur, VC, and storyteller. I invest in early-stage startups worldwide, share candid lessons from 20+ years in tech, and spotlight founders shaping the future. Join 100,000+ readers each week.