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About ozgurzan

Professional: 1999- Co-founder and Managing Director of Done Information & Comm. Systems http://www.donetr.com http://www.donelabs.com Academic: 2008 Ph.D. Organization and Management - Yeditepe University 2002 MBA - Yeditepe University 1994 Computer Engineering - Bogazici University

Have You Met With My Advisory Board ?

On the eve of critical business decisions or during tough times, I try to imagine what would these great people would mentor me with their valuable suggestions if they were alive and exists in my advisory board. I have read … Continue reading

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Leadership, Management, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A’s hire A’s, B’s hire C’s

One of the Donald Rumsfeld‘s (13th and 21st US Secretary of Defense) rules is: “A’s hire A’s, B’s hire C’s“ which reminds the recruiter to hire the best people, who may even be smarter and more talented than than the recruiter. The … Continue reading

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How to create engagement in mobile apps?

Axiom 1: User engagement is an important factor for monetizing mobile apps. More engagement means greater impressions and great impressions attract revenue in every kind of the business model (e.g. Advertisement, InApp, Subscriptions, App sales or Sponsorships). What are the … Continue reading

Posted in Game Mechanics, Mobile, User Experience | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Common Mistakes in New Product Development

Product development is a multidisciplinary endeavour. Design, engineering and marketing perspectives must be incorporated into the process neatly. Since these perspectives have tradeofs, they frequently contradict. That is why, a balance must be met between these contradicting views. And that is generally … Continue reading

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Power of innovation based on R&D

Google has released its earnings statements and set a revenue record at $9.03 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2011. In the “Costs and Expenses” page of the following presentation, it is seen that Research and Development costs are 20% … Continue reading

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Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s 3 arguments for favoring partnership

In my previous post with the title: “Solo Entrepreneurship vs Partnership“, I favored having a partner as opposed to solo entrepreneurship, (i.e. solopreneurs). A few minutes ago, I have seen a tweet from Rosabeth Moss Kanter who is an influential … Continue reading

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Power and Authority

Power means “the ability to influence people“. For example, if you have the ability to persuade your friends to move in the same direction as you do, then you have the power. Authority is the “official power“. For example if you are … Continue reading

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Seven sins that “engineer entrepreneurs” should unlearn?

I am an engineer entrepreneur. I am proud to be an engineer and I use most of the excellent principles of engineering. But there are some habits of engineering that I needed to unlearn to be a better entrepreneur: Seven Habits(**) … Continue reading

Posted in Engineer, Entrepreneurship, Management | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Simple Strategy: Do it FIRST (and/or) Do it BEST !

First advice: Do it FIRST, do it BEST. Second advice: If you can not do both, then choose either one of them.  If you can not still manage to be first or to be best, then try to be unique … Continue reading

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Is luck a coincidence?

In one of my previous posts, I have talked about the role of luck in Entrepreneurship. This is one of questions that I ask to entrepreneurs. Zeki Çalışır, is a successful and experienced businessman whose ideas I respect. When I asked … Continue reading

Posted in Management | 4 Comments