Exporting the Istanbul’s Gaming Magic with Görkem Türk

hey and welcome to the deconstructor of fun podcast I'm your host Michi katkov and in this episode I'm joined by Gerkin Turk the founding partner of Laton Ventures a new Venture Capital out of Istanbul Turkey together with gerim we're talking about investment strategies culture and startups future Trends in gaming Market Outlook and platform growth especially the importance of platform growth on investments um we recorded this episode doing GDC live uh from my hotel room and if you would like us to do more of these recorded video episodes and if you like what we're about uh mean we uh the instructor of fun give us a thumbs up and a follow on YouTube uh it helps with the algorithms and encourages us to do more on-site content which uh frankly I really enjoy meeting people and talking onsite rather than on Zoom calls anyways I know you'll enjoy this episode geram is a great dude and his fun is really

interesting so very excited to see what Laton Venture does enjoy the podcast ladies and gentlemen gkim Turk geram Turk yes founding partner of Laton Ventures correct a new Venture Capital fund out of The Marvelous city of Istanbul welcome to the podcast thank you thank you for inviting it was a so so some of the past work podcasts we've done out of like literally like trap houses now we are in a hotel room cuz we couldn't find another room but it is good but let's let's not talk about this hotel room or the bed that is right behind us yeah let's talk about the recent success of of Laton Ventures and overall Laton Ventures because you've established this fund quite recently less than a year ago probably half a year right yeah yeah yeah you've gotten 35 million now in Investments asess that you will be investing into the ecosystem

especially probably with a big focus on the Turkish ecosystem yes so talk a little bit about like the recent successes of starting this up leaving Google starting up your own Venture fund making it really nice really like sizable as the first fund and uh and the First Investments that you've done yeah thank you thank you for that so you know let me just start with a quick background so before this um I used to work for Google turkey I was gaming and startups industry manager so managing the uh Partnerships and growth Consulting with almost all of the gaming Founders and uh let's say uh Executives in the Turkish gaming companies so like the story or the opportunity for me uh that I have seen to start Laton was two things the first one is that you know Turkish gaming ecosystem is booming and there was a true need for a bridge like who just connects these two worlds the Turkish gaming ecosystem and international gaming ecosystem in two ways like you know this Turkish investors can invest in the companies outside of turkey and we can just you know know uh bring the knowhow of the

Turkish gaming ecosystem to the non-turkish uh gaming startups as well and wi overs so obviously like that you know International investors we just want to co-invest with them together uh in the Turkish gaming ecosystem be like a true local partner helping them like fostering the collaboration and so on so this was the number one opportunity area for me to let's say uh truly trigger the things to start Lon and the second one is that you know um I'm an operator so like I'm coming from like in Google do my daily job was about UA most of the time I was talking about Studios about you know UA and also strategies around that and I truly think that you know like being an investor who doubl doubles down on operationally supporting the portfolio companies helping them in the true challenges like you know around user acquisition around game design around monetization and so on I thought that you know uh there might be a room uh for a fund playing on a global level doubling down on truly helping Studios

on a daily level being like you know daily Ally so like simply this was the second opportunity area uh which you know triggered me to start Laton so as you said like uh we were quite lucky that you know uh it has materialized to a$ 35 uh million uh size of a fund by today uh like a secured commitment so and the story is that you know like uh more than 20 uh success ful gaming Founders and Executives have invested in Laton some of these people are not only let's say positioned as sole LPS but they also give time as advisers to our portfolio companies so like the thing that I have just you know told you a few minutes ago I will be not alone in there or lto venters team will be not alone in there but imagine that you are the like receiving a true support daily support from successful you know uh track record Founders and Executives of successful cing companies as well but some of them

only let's say positions as LPS so a few names maybe to mention in here like who backs Laton in the story among these two 20 people of course just to just a few like their Stellar names all around so like uh CT of peak games Sardar shahin uh co-founder of uh gr games exit to Zinga mmit uh founder of loop games you know exed games to Mur and also let's say uh founder of Ruby games EX roio uh munum and so on like we have uh 20 people on board backing us like that awesome so so you've had of course LP limited partner meaning LP is the uh either the entity or the person that invests money into a venture capital managed by gam called Lon and that capital is being invested into different companies so that when those companies eventually exit that pays back to the investor so they're just just for people for like the basics of the of the Venture cap and the deal yeah and it's

all about the type of a deal that you get into because these are not public companies these are privates high risk High return company correct and pretty early stage and so in in your the way you would position your uh Venture fund what makes leaton unique is you're based out of turkey but that's not the only Turkish fund there there are many others uh your fund is predominantly funded by limited partners who are former game Founders correct and through that you have a very strong network of of of very accomplished individuals who can be helping the companies both inside the turkey as well as outside turkey and also what makes you uh Stand Out is you want to both support the local ecosystem yes but you also want to take the expertise of the local ecosystem and Infuse that into the companies that you might be investing like if the compan is let's say based out of Stockholm uh but may or may not have invested and and um and you are um investing that company

you're also bringing your LP so if they want to discuss with let's say somebody from Peak or Graham how they were able to go through through certain challenges that they had or evolve their company they get access to that very unique Network that no other fund has exactly awesome so truly an early stage meaning this is the first check or the second check that you are getting from a venture capital so preed and seed is is the focus you can lead you can follow yeah uh and how many deals have you done to date we have completed five deals to date so actually majority of them three of them were uh outside of turkey so two of them were uh like Turkish companies we have completed five deals four of them were at preed stage which means as you say like the no money taken yet and the one of them was uh seed round nice very nice all right let's talk about what makes a Turkish company like why why is Turkey such a booming ecosystem

for games yeah like thank you for that question I think let me start first with the ecosystem and then I will just uh shape you a typical Turkish gaming startup I think like for turkey the main let's say two reasons for that is that you we have all and successful companies who truly let's say uh set tone in some of the very big genres uh of the market like you know Peak games and then g games and these you know Studios were like schools so they didn't only uh develop let's say individuals with gaming knowhow but they truly let's say uh shape leaders as well so we really thank all of them uh for just you know uh creating this Market also turkey has a very successful Studio you know uh called tail worlds in the PC gaming as well which also let's say uh pumped through knowhow uh in the PC site uh to the ecosystem so that was the one thing one let's say reason just you know first furnish the ecosystem the second one is

that I think the quality of talent who chooses to work in the gaming industry is so high in Turkey you know if you're a fresh graduate out of the school and if you got graduated from the best universities of uh turkey one of the coolest thing that you can do uh is just to go to a gaming company you know like if you're a top talent you just simply go to one of the gaming companies most of the time so these Bri is Talent they just choose the gaming industry and imagine that when just that coupled with this knowhow coming from these Studios of 10 years past past decade and on the third just let's say uh add that a Fearless ruthless you know uh like commitment to work hunger for Success truly enjoying what you do and then it just you know BS the success for the ecosystem I belief hard work leads to success oh wow those are some Revelation you're dropping

no no it's a okay so previous success that's very important in anything because when you see people uh who you can uh relate to yeah in this case other Turks yes and you see them having success you're looking at them I can have success yes like look at that person instead of like looking somebody who's on the other side of a continent and and imagining their life and so forth level of talent so turkeyy is about 90 million people correct um relatively High educated if I understand correctly and and not too many opportunities the way like if I understand correctly it's not like um Western Country where there's ton of like these gigantic corporations like the Googles and the the sales forces and those where which just take thousands of of new graduates in but you have maybe less or smaller companies so so is that correct well you you still do have offices for most of the multinationals very good multinationals that you can work at but I think like I think the

gaming industry gives you that dream that we know one day that you can truly build your globally scaled company best so there's no okay so maybe I put it wrong way it's like there are subsidiaries of these companies but they're not the hqs and it's a little bit of a different type of a grind if you come through a subsidiary of any Proctor and Gamble or uni lever or or Google or so forth than if you're going to their HQ whether that is in Paris or whether that is in Silicon Valley or so forth yeah yeah yeah and and with with gaming you're you're at the HQ you're right away you're truly at the you're truly leading everything all the strategy and so forth um and then yeah and then hard work I I would say you know I wrote on LinkedIn this this this thing that where where I was just trying to think about like what makes Turkish companies so unique and I tried to more focus on the founders that I've been interacting with from turkey and and this sort of like a humble hungry and smart seems to be in my eyes the type of of a um combination that I see the

humility is very interesting part because even though the companies from Turkey are very successful even though it is the hot bed the ecosystem going on I still get that humility of the founders of like what do I not know yeah what like not being like I know everything which is happening in many Western ecosystems is like we know it I come from rockstar I come from Activision I know everything I don't need to hear anything uh but you guys are incredibly humble and kind of constantly asking like what do I don't not know definitely the the hungry part is is clear there's reasons why people are so hungry for success and so forth I don't think the uh the life is as automated as in many Western countries where you go to this school then you go to that place then you go to McKenzie and then after McKenzie you go to the local industry and then you do this and you get that and then you're in retirement and then your life is over but it's more like you have to craft your life hle a hustle exactly and in this type of a setting the success that the game companies have been having is

so Monumental yeah where where people can see like if I put in insane amount of work I can actually change everybody's life around me yes yeah I think that was a good way to put that and then and then the the last part is like what I what I think really makes turkey unique is how smart people are and I don't mean in the sense like the universities they go through or or you know maths or science but I mean more from the the perspective of if you look at the genres and the type of games the turkey is making it makes sense yeah like like they are good in terms of a genre where you can have enough success it's good in terms of the games are not too difficult to make like you're playing against your talent all the time against the funds you have against all these elements rather than like hey we are going to make the next AAA MOA or like whatever we love to play Because when we make this cool game everybody

will play it cuz we're so creative and we just want to bring something amazing to the market I constantly feel that the Turks are more like we're going to make something successful in the market as a business rather than like starting from like creation first it's business first yes that's that's very good point actually like I think the bar for bar for commercial mindset is really hard in Turkey really really high in Turkey but I think what makes it special is that in the successful companies that usually couples with also creative mindset as well so they were really intentional in harmonizing that commercial mindset to scale huge businesses that's first but also just they don't forget at all what at the core of this industry that's creativity just you know crafting joy and they try to intentionally let's say harmonize that in a pot and also one let's say word that I personally like to use for Turkish Talent especially in the digital Industries like gaming Etc is Street Smart so Street Smart like hustle

and Street Smart I like it like finding like what I mean is that finding truly practical ways to let's say hack the system in a scalable way yes I and I and that makes in my like as an you know when investing or when talking like it makes conversation so much easier because we're both thinking about the business I know that you know I talk to a lot of Western Founders many successful one and and I be asking like so so what's your growth strategy for this one like how are you expecting like listen ultimately I'm making a game that I want to play I'm like okay it's like and it's not that it might be phenomenal but it is really tied to that creativity of the founder of everything and you're essentially putting a whole bet on I will build it and they will come yes which is really scary and that's why I like with the with the Turkish mindset it's like like how can we not only make this game incredibly engaging uh well crafted in the right place investments

in the right place but also commercially successful because that that in the end that is important yeah because that will keep the uh the companies alive that that will that will make sure that we have employees that will make sure that everybody has a nice exit and VCS includeed so that's really good for VCS when when your companies have a commercial mindset you speak the same language rather rather than pretending that that the money also is interested in creativity you're interested in creativity that leads to money let's be honest not to just to be you know just to it's it's raw rough way to say but ultimately just just to make point it's not that we don't care about creativity when you manage other people's money yeah they expect you to return more than they gave you so you're responsible to think about the uh the financial outcome so in this conversation when we talk about financial outcome it is goram's job to give back more money than he was given to he can't be saying like hey we want many prizes yeah but you lost all

your money yeah no no so and having that creativity that the core is part of returning that money the essence exactly evaluating it yeah so so a little bit cold way to think about it but uh you have to you know you have to be Innovative you have to have games that stand out but you have to also have commercially successful you can't separate those two for for sure yeah all right let's talk about so Turkish companies work hard talented hungry humble previous success is showing the way what are the sort of a exciting trends that you see as a VC now that you started up your own fund you probably had an idea of what type of Investments you would do and how they'd be successful but what what are the other trends that you're seeing now because I feel like things are changing quite quickly yeah yeah yeah yeah like very good question I think you know like we are trying to just evaluate it in a global scale what's happening in the market where we should invest Etc which genres which products which platforms which we should invest independent of the borders let's say so I think like

one area that really excites us the most is the social first experiences let's say social uh social element integrated games in the mobile platform maybe like one step back like first of all like as Lon uh obviously with all these you know background and knowhow coming from mobile let's say first companies like we are a bit at the uh optimistic part of the spectrum uh about mobile uh versus the rest of the industry we still think that you know there are opportunities to create scalable businesses in Mobile but if we just want to you know dive into uh which parts of the mobile platforms like that we want to invest I think like having social elements in the games that will truly let's say set apart the products from the rest of the crowd for instance again that you know this company we have invested in Germany it was a social first game let's say social integration trigger and driving game and these guys have just you know reached out to uh six

figure Revenue per month really fast quite fast that we are not used to in the you know typical mobile scene that's one thing they have but like besides we still think that the bar to uh let's say create good games like good quality games executing games there is still room for execution in many more let's say genres in the mobile uh that's one part we truly acknowledge the wave especially in Turkey in the PC platform as well I truly want to see that you know Lon will be investing in PC platform as well you know we have a true success story battle bit uh coming out of turkey battle bit was out of turkey yes that's a Turkish Studio really so this is this is what I mean by smart yeah like this is exactly what I mean it's it's a there is a commercial success there is that area and then you use your strength you're not like how can we make better 3D assets than Call of Duty yeah no we go to all the way to the opposite direction and capture the market that they left behind yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah like I think that non IP games popping up at that scale P

worlds and so on Battle bit that really excites me and also in Turkey we are seeing more and more quality teams around PC but with that said still our expertise is mobile probably we will take our time to craft our strategy in the PC site but we will be definitely backing teams from all over the world not only in Turkey around that I've seen some Turkish companies uh I forgot the name but they were releasing um a simulation game on PC yeah that was successful as well yeah yeah you've heard of heroic Labs by now and we keep talking about them because in today's mature Market you need every Edge to be successful rather than spending those precious company dollars on building game Tech focus on building your game and shipping it getting to your players hands faster and grow your community heroic Labs is Battle tested partner and friend of the podcast their Tech enables you to be flexible creative and scale for Success heroic Labs has your Tech stack covered whether you're you're looking for a worldclass backend

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business now back to the episode so turkeyy is like you know lowkey going into like being successful on PC as well right now yeah with that smart strategy of of taking over not changing what how they work for PC but yeah but like the same approach of let's not overinvestment to Res summarize you know where we see opportunities and where we invest first uh social integrated Games Social first let's say apps social feature backed apps uh that kind of stuff so the areas uh where we think that the potential uh can be tapped with a higher execution bar I don't know being it in puzzle being it in RPG like I'm talking still about mobile first we will definitely be backing teams who we think that you know that can truly create a massive uh product with a

stellar execution quality and the third one is innovative projects and themes around PC platform got it makes sense so social elements and PC and you also mentioned apps so will you be doing app Investments well yeah that will not be the focus obviously but if we see areas which we think the synergies are so high with the gaming that we bring this you know laton's unique uh help model uh work in that areas I don't know maybe uh consumer apps social consumer apps maybe non-gaming utility apps you might be investing in there so it will not be the again it will not be the focus but if you think that we can synergize with our knoow in gaming we will be investing in that categories as well to gamification yeah that's yeah makes sense okay so pretty Bor but and usually when it comes to this like an early stage fund like yours does a broad very broad portfolio because the check size are a little bit smaller and because you're investing pre-product yeah and that means that

your investment criteria yes it's to some extent it is about areas of Investments like social elements PC apps but in reality when you're evaluating companies you're evaluating the team yeah yeah yeah yeah how do you how do you evaluate the team yeah let's let's put that first that as you say probably 70% or 75% of the criteria will be around Founders and team although in the former question we have you know discussed the excitement areas still independent of area we will first look at the team we will never cancel out a good team or a stellar team just because of the genre that they are trying to tackle because they go super Indy it depends you know that's the answer you giv questions like it dep Circ back yeah yeah yeah you never say no like Circle back cuz you never know truly like you see you truly see the deal by deal but they will keep you in the loop let's not go in there so the criteria about the team that we you know check while evaluating the team first the vision you know like can they truly

create a big company as we have discussed with you before the like the commercial Vision the creative magic I think that's an intangible thing that gut to create experiences that people can enjoy which is very hard to assess at the very let's say early stage that's why that you like people coming out of companies truly in the decision- making you know uh positions did that before cuz that signals you that that guy has that gut you know people sometimes you know ask what why always ask this team got this investment XXX because you're investing in pre-product you kind of have some sort of signal that the risk uh this criteria of magic and gut so yeah that's the second criteria the third criteria again is the level of execution can these guys truly execute the genre that they intend to let's say tap into and the fourth one is always commitment you know never give up never give up never give up which we quite you know feel lucky about the Turkish again but also like in the Turkish non-

Turkish companies that will be something we will be looking at got it so so combination of magic and gut let's say commercial Vision oh commercial and Magic gut gut magic gut oh Magic gut that's that's a good one cre okay magic and Commercial let's put it this way okay got it ability to execute against the uh the type of a genre or type of the game they're doing um having the commitment and grit yes no give up to run a startup yeah for years this is the toughest one the commitment I I talked to too many startups you know having few Investments it's know it's the it's the long stare after five years it's like how are we still here help us to sell this I'm exhausted yeah yeah 100% makes sense um I'm going to ask you some more questions so when when you go through and and you think about like the X this and X that a lot of the time the the most successful startups are actually not X something correct but they are just people who have jelled together really well they're

not dream teams yes the actually I'm going to S kind of go a little bit around this because uh we were at the a16z speedrun event yeah and I was kind of like seeing this American I was there as super American so American it was a culture shock uh coming in as we're we're European in yeah yeah with all the jokes that go into it I'm not saying better or worse but I admir to present are very different and one thing that I've noticed in this American Investment scene is the allstar teams and they put in like this person has worked in companies X Y and Z this person is come is from that and this person it's like everybody as an individual is amazing but I'm always like but they haven't worked together and now you put them all together and you present me an All-Star team but that's not how things work like it's much more important that that

they've known each other for a long time to me at least because I know that they through that they I know they know what each of them can execute against but most importantly they have that alignment yeah and they will stay committed and they will grit it out because they've been together for such a long time but if you're only getting together to get the loot to get the bag and then when the hard time hits why are you all working together well I thought this is going to be just a you know push to the top but it's never linear yeah yeah so so what's your perspective on on like the Dream Team approach I think you really made a good point like if you're a fund you only invest solidly just looking at you know these are XXXX you will have a hard time uh probably to have a hit ratio of a high so I think it's at the end finding something that can the risk uh that ambiguity and vagueness at the pre-product stage you need to hold on a branch let's say that the risks or let's say that makes a

principle based decision making uh for your process at the pre-product stage beat X dream like I'm not talking about dream like a like a dream team uh X XY Z so if these guys have worked together before as you have you know uh correctly mentioned I think that's one of the pro best scenarios right you know these guys have done something before together and you can truly see what they have built and now if they say something that can just you know transfer will know how that they will build then that risks your decision- making process as a fund but it doesn't mean that again like if these guys are just coming from separate companies all good names but a these guys were not in decision- making processes uh in those companies B they don't know each other as you say they just met two weeks ago that doesn't risk my let's say person that this m decision- making process with that said I think backing teams as you let's say

uh correctly mentioned again is that backing teams without any background uh one of the biggest success stories uh in the gaming industry has came from that teams right for instance as far as I know founders of Riot founders of quite a few successful you know gaming companies biggest gam companies in the world Founders are not coming from gaming theme but still as an early stage fund who have liability against their limited partners against their investors who have to explain their decision- making processes to their uh let's say investors in some sense um they have to have that branch that Branch you know maybe they are not coming from Stellar companies but they have worked together before they have built some product before something that you need to see to there isk your uh ambiguity and wagness at that level yeah I understand 100% why investors put in these big checks at XY at X blizzard because it is even though it we can see by based on

traction that is not the right way to go yeah but it is safe it's like nobody will fault you and say hey how why did you invest in this team from Riot like they will say that if a team sucks and you they don't have any background yeah and the company goes bankrupt they will you know come after you but if it's an Riot team then you know still like to reiterate I don't think it's a good investment strategy to Solly just check the background xyx Z and you invest I think it's just as you say it's so safe that you are not likely to create a huge amount of return which is expected in the VC you have to believe in your gut in some way to back teams without that background but still I think it's a portfolio of diversification like you shouldn't be in my at least personal opinion you shouldn't be solidly backing teams without any background full risk but you shouldn't also Sol be backing teams just XY Z it should be a Harmony of both it also depends right what you see like what you access to like but I

think you have to trust in your gut as an investor and to just let's say go for it yeah especially in the early on that's that's 100% sure yeah the the gut feeling is surprisingly big of a of a of a thing when you're trusting teams like there's a lot of diligence that goes with with everything but but but yeah the god feeling is is big I was um a certain Turkish founder that I've invested in his company and I seen him before but he saw yesterday who was kind of like asking this and that and then he said to me like you know what I can see that you're still hungry I you I can see that you're hungry 100 meters away I like okay thank you yeah yeah yeah I see that as well it's like you're not done yet yeah that was funny but but I guess those are the type of the gut feelings that that you get because that's another thing that that you have to keep in mind when you're bringing very very successful people uh and funding their new companies it's like how hungry they are yeah if you exited youran You' made

10 million or so you made such a gigantic game where you don't even have to prove yourself anymore like you made X you know you named the game correct correct then why are you still doing this what are the likelihood are you going to make a bigger game yeah yeah and what the big question is like why what is what is driving you anymore I hate this Simon Sy Nick why it's more like but you have to understand like you don't need to go through the most difficult thing that a Founder can do actually just now that I remember I was there's so many dinners and whatnot I was sitting next to a a Legendary game maker we're talking about like 30 years making the the games we've all played yeah and he was talking about his latest company he was just like how incredibly difficult it has been going like pulling teeth and you're like yeah that's startup it doesn't matter who you are yeah what type of games you've made him before it is always incredibly difficult it and if if you just if you go into to a point where you don't per se need it

you can just say middle like you know what all of you I don't need this you understand what I've done before I don't I need none of this and I'm done it's so easy to quit when you're in a good place definitely definitely you know like in my job at coule Mish and I have worked with more than 50 Founders for let's say almost five years so I have truly let's say witnessed their uh psychological Journeys as well you know UPS Downs success stories fail stories you were also founder by yourself as well you know better than me but like it is one of the hardest job it doesn't mean that success for everybody means being a Founder it's really a unique way of lifestyle and choice yeah it drives people crazy yeah I can say that like there's nobody who's who who has met Founders be like oh that guy is or was like totally up and up like no it's a it's a emotional roller coaster also very satisfying very very satisfy

could could be uh let's just put it this way it is character building yes all the good and bad sense definitely do not recommend it to anybody uh but uh but yes uh going forward from there so we talked about evaluation and something that I'm I'm very curious and something that we've kind of touched upon maybe we can we can discuss it a little bit further yeah is like what are the elements that make a successful gaming company I think we've we've danced around it but what do you think yeah I think being lean and efficient in all your processes are super important yet still you know efficiency does not come with a sacrifice of creating a decent company uh log of knowhow you know you need to stack experiences on top of each other going forward in your journey still now sacrificing being lean and efficient I think that's not only financially important in terms of you know Opex Etc blah blah but also it strategies it's stretch people to their fullest potential to think street smart enough

like when you you know have to be lean and efficient I think it's especially in curent Market it's super important the second one which we don't know how is again this creative magic creative gut you know I think it's Unique with every company every company has its own magic in some persons or individuals sitting in that company I'm talking about game design when we say creative magic obviously that experience core experience I think that's the uh second one and the third one it's a bit cliche about obvious the culture like the greatest companies I have seen uh personally was also the ones who have greatest most of the time greatest cultures in some way like having a great culture does not have the same meaning or a single meaning in my opinion you know company a with culture a company B with culture B like they are totally different can be each other but like still it's somehow nurtures the way of working or way of success in that

company I don't know if Founders are intentional in most of the times in this creating culture most of the times they are uh but sometimes it just happened by itself maybe but that would be the third element I would say for a successful gaming company yeah okay so lean and efficient effective and profitability focused probably or getting to the green stretching yourself to make whatever you make in the most efficient way cuz as a startup you have to make choices you can be that everything is possible which happens at a corporation and you have to think what is important and do only those things yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay uh creativity creativity is vital like you cannot succeed without being Innovative whether it's on marketing front or distribution front whether it's on the product front or both uh or any other front where you can get an A Edge it requires creativity hey game devs are you tired of dealing with complicated payment processes all over the world well exol's got your back with exola

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Nordman up down up book it's a very interesting topic because pretty much every successful company has a great culture yeah and I'm like that's not true that's not true because if I look at the top most valuable companies in the world Microsoft not known for the the culture it's not it's not like oh my God Microsoft like like let me give me a book about Microsoft's culture I need to learn that nobody's like hey it's a corporation gigantic Corporation Apple not known for a great culture even like you read their old school management books you're were like oh like Steve Jobs days and even like since like it is not you know it's a brutal culture in many sense it's a winning culture 100% but it's not what we perceive as you know oh my God I wish Steve Jobs was my boss I wish can say hi to him today this is an example and doing that the company

was doing the best that it has ever done um we can go for we can talk about McKenzies of the world and they might have a culture that is ruthless it is a culture that allows them to do what they need to do yeah but it's not necessarily what we would characterize as a good culture yeah I think it's a scale problem it's it's totally you know up to scale it's it really differs uh between scale as well you know like when we talk about you know from Zero to Hero let's say from taking a startup to a really valuable company I think in that first journey like at least for the companies I have seen uh the culture was really important but I'm also an exg googler when you come to that scale that's really something else you know like uh I think the importance of the culture in the plate it's a s deeper conversation I think for that kind of a scale of company it is we we entered the phase of the discussion that I need to you know

speak carefully well it is a corporation and I I'll give an ex like I work with with Google naturally uh no no secret and I work with different Google countries yeah and different people and and so forth so was it different it's very very different working with Google turkey is very different than working with Google Mountain View but Google turkey was the best right uh yes hello Google turkey hello matter what uh yeah and then the same thing like working with Google Mina same thing like again like you but I always try to get to know the people and then I work with the people not with the corporation I don't want to like work with totally right by the way and sometimes there's difficulties with the way the corporation operates but never the difficulties with the people in that Corporation and you have great relationship but but I mean the culture like I never work particularly on a culture topic I'm not the type of a person you should be asking about that I'm more saying to them like you need to build a team around you how you want

this to run yeah because we've invested into you and don't change that do what you need to do if you need to be produ product focused and if you need to drive that product forward and if you start hiring people who say no no no like don't you know don't come to the product it's going to be you know randomizing us the wrong people because if product is your main expertise then I need you to use that main expertise on that on that front don't listen to the sort of a contemporary books of leadership how it needs to happen they might work for you or they might be counterproductive yeah but most importantly like like in an early phase of a startup the company has to be built around that founder definitely I think cultur is set of behaviors exactly of the leaders of that company who are founders for that 20 people group right that culture is not a very deep top when we say culture for a it's just set of behaviors of Founders it's and and I

have like when when I'm going through pitches with certain companies and they they are very much into the Contemporary let me talk about the culture because Kim wrote about a book about culture he says culture is the most important thing so my deck is going to be all about culture and I was like listen I don't care because unless you reach profitability this doesn't matter before you reach profitability your way like you might even pivot the whole company of what you're doing so the values that you set the ways of working that you set agree they need to be tied to the product that you believe is going to succeed in the market and you need to get there the most efficient way I don't care how you write about this because chances are that halfway through you'll hit a wall and you might be doing something else what are you going to do with these values that are designed for this product so so for me it's always like been like you see the goal build the cult like the ways of working need to be so they fit how you want to work so that you can reach that spot and then when you reach that spot where you're

generating you have a product Market fit let's put it that way then you can start thinking about the culture okay we found what we're we actually doing definely now let's build the ways of working that supports what our company is doing because you don't know that before you are actually there yeah like exactly you know when you say culture you need to materialize it you need to be concrete it should not be fluff uh like start with a w change the world it's like I don't care you need to get profitable or you die you know when I when I say definitely when I say culture I just mean you know how you approach daily tasks how fast you are how friendly you are you know how you let's say teach something to each other as a theme and how resilient you are when s lunch fails simply I think that's the culture not like why establish that's very important by the way what you are doing what but when you scale exactly and and that's that's so not diminishing any of these aspects but

sometimes people just read books like that that are written by people who have re you know in many ways reached the uh the Pinnacle and they talk about the journeys and the and the and the the impact of the culture and how it was set very important but in my opinion it's just something that you start focusing on only after you reach product Market fit if you do that too early you spend valuable time on something that is away from product Market fit and you will die if you don't have that yeah yeah yeah okay all right uh well that was easy to agree on anyways uh so let's talk about genres and niches so uh I think I think we kind of talked about it pc pc that let's talk about then the future this is the most interesting part so there's a lot of stuff on AI I mean we adjust at the speedrun every second every second Pitch was about AI uh I feel like now if you come in with an AI pitch investors are going to not even have it

yeah I feel like I feel like you come in you're like Hey we're doing 3D AI it's like okay next uh it's like it's a little bit too late yeah but what what are you seeing on the market like what is the future of gaming the the like what are you what are you looking at here yeah well like first of all I feel like you know I have established L ventures in a time which is super exiting yet super terrifying you know I I constantly I constantly feel like you know we are at the edge of a paradigm shift uh for this staff but I think in my opinion uh still uh people are a bit let's say shooting too far away before just you know hanging the uh before just uh collecting low hanging fruits so in my opinion AI obviously is very important but now but now it's like a buzz word you know like I don't like it like none of by the way investor fellows like also fellow investors that I talk to like we they don't also like it when you just put that AI in an unnatural way

to that pitch te but still we truly acknowledge that you know it will change things it will change things in a huge way I personally believe or let's say we personally believe at Lon the first area that AI will tackle is the efficiency around game production and the processes you know like for instance uh like art asset production that sort of stuff we have invested in QA that kind of so yeah QA that kind of all the processes that you have localization localization whatever it is but like the core design we have talked a lot today about that create a magic that got designing the game optimizing it I think it will stay with active human touch for a very long time that we that we have you know like by when I say very long time I'm not talking about a decade of course but like I think it will not be the part that will change first it's an hypothesis at the end of the day and it doesn't mean that we will not be backing or we will not be investing the teams tackling the core game design with the AI as well but I personally think that

it will come late on the let's say flow before it will be processes still again I truly optimistic about this social part I think the socialization is underserved in the gaming ecosystem in general we will be seeing more and more games and apps around let's say trying to fulfill the need to socialize giving that experience in a much more social way no matter what you play or do I think that's one on Trend uh that will definitely cool and we are at the edge of M I'm really excited you know like Gamers number of players is as at the record all time high 3.5 billion or something projected yeah like 2025 like people are always playing the doom and goom but like doang LOM but like you know the Venture Capital money is at its Heights in the gaming industry the raised capital I think the future optimistic like there are so many potential and I'm quite optimistic about backing and supporting Innovative team who just sets the execution bar to a

very high level to reiterate that I think when we say the industry is tougher I think the bar for founding team quality and the execution quality is way higher versus four or five years ago you know you can't get away two to three years ago versus even two to three years ago as you say like you can't get away with marketing efficiencies anymore you have to have a stellar product but if you can find that te who can create that Stellar product above that new bar which is very high I think the opportunities are tremendous in the gaming industry for the future got it so if some so somebody comes to you and says hey I have an interesting social AI That's like you're like that's your up your alley so pitch Goram on on AI plus social no no no I will uh to L's say re-clarify I I truly need to see something which is tangible and exciting enough of course but social things I am exiting and and so and so basically

you're seeing this as a we we're having a market turn that is cyclical as in any industry yeah most Industries go through Cycles we haven't seen a cycle in a very very long time yeah and this is the downturn we're not out of the woods yeah but the number of I think they call it secular Tailwinds is I think that's that's what him said in in the Goldman Zach a golden Goldman Zach term secular Tailwind meaning so secular Tailwinds what it means is the fundamentals of the industry are so strong yes that if you zoom out this is just a down there's no certain type of a change fundamental change that will make gaming obsolete yeah or that will make gaming to turn down as you said the number of players is constantly increasing uh the number of invested capital is is increasing yes there is a current downturn which is due to many reasons whether it's the Privacy whether it's the inflation rates whether it is the changes of user Behavior Uh going from lockdowns back to activities

whether it's geopolitical issues that are directly or indirectly causing these things all these elements are affecting and causing a downturn yes but once the downturn ends the economy picks up again which it always will yeah then we're going to see unprecedented growth yeah I think it's a very good time very opportunistic time to start our back businesses and also the level of collective knoow and experience of the gaming industry at 2024 it's at the height you know like versus a decade ago like very smart individuals got super experiences in great companies and they are trying to tackle and innovate in an industry which just you know uh reached out to billions of people I think the opportunities are tremendous and we will be supporting them the the most important thing for our industry is platforms like which platform will grow or become big because mobile allowed the most of the growth now we kind of don't

like now it seems mobile growth days are behind us for good forever yeah I mean it's it will be growing it is still gigantic industry it's still much more profitable than most of the entertainment or even all of the entertainment but it's just not going to grow like 10% a year anymore and there will be something else but that doesn't mean that there won't be companies that won't get that same type of a success so you're still operating in a very very big industry yeah yeah yeah and still you can have truly Innovative products which can truly make their space go yeah Royal match I love Royal match example and you know I truly of course you do of course yeah but I like I love the team as well like hello to everyone from but the thing is that you know people are not aware of that Royal match reached out this scale without let's say significantly cannibalizing the main Rivals Candy Crash is also let's say record ey all the match trees are most of the match trees have you know grown so on so and Monopoly go as

you say they come you know and they didn't steal probably share rather than they created their share in the industry so that's why that I think as a platform mobile can still grow with the good companies as well exciting times yes exciting times with turkey yeah exciting times with leton Ventures yeah growing signing companies yeah I'm super happy for you geram I think it's we can't say that you are already a great investor but I think you will make a great investor hopefully hopefully I will try my best I will try my best you will don't be humble actually you're Turkish you have to be humble so um thank you for for doing this podcast truly a pleasure and for everybody Laton Ventures l a t o n VC Laton Ventures yeah Laton Ventures just Google that yeah and um if you're looking for investment and you want to tap into the Turkish know how this is the fund yes than for that on that note thank you gam

thank you Mishka thank you everybody for listening thank you for everyone bye-bye bye [Music]