Dream, dream and dream more without giving up to make your dream come true.
Muhittin Isler is Founder of GBP TV known as The World’s First TV Channel Dedicated to Entrepreneurs. Mr. Isler holds a bachelor’s in Business Administration from Ozyegin University in Turkey. Although he is 25 years old, he has very important 4,5 years of business experience. He created a business platform for young people in 2009, he developed a project to solve Young Unemployment in Turkey that he had a chance to present it to former Prime Minister of Republic of Turkey. He also served at various associations. He is interested in finance, economics, private equity, and media. Since 2012, he is busy with GBP TV. As of June, he decided to leave GBP TV to have a new journey into different adventurous. He still holds his Founder position without having influence on the board & management of GBP TV.
Where did the idea for GBP TV come from?
Nowadays, we all hear “entrepreneurship” at different places from universities to media. However, there is no dedicated media institution for entrepreneurs, at least there was not before us, so, GBP TV is founded with the unique title The World’s First TV Channel Dedicated to Entrepreneurs. Its aim is to help/support entrepreneurs with information/finance/promotion.
What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?
My typical day is waking up at 06:00 am, checking e-mails and follow my daily plan. To make it more productive, I prefer to wake up earlier and make my mind ready to work more.
How do you bring ideas to life?
First thing is dreaming. I dream, then, I create a plan to make it come true. When that plan is ready, I try to catch opportunities to increase the velocity of making it real. Let me give you a recent example. Having MBA at Harvard Business School is one of my dreams. To make it come true, I did make an application for the class of 2018. Although my GBP TV is on the media list of Harvard Business Review, I am rejected. Now, to make my application more attractive, I thought to go further, so, I am doing my best to receive a letter from President Obama to present it to HBS. I already took the initiative and I heard that my HBS application file as well as my CV was presented to President Obama. I am very determined so I hope I am going to receive that letter soon.
What’s one trend that really excites you?
I can say “Entrepreneurship”. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, there are many ideas that you could be successful with. You only need to take the first step.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
I never give up and try to visualize my dream in my mind. This motivates me so much. As of that time, my productivity starts to increase as well.
What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?
I was an unpaid intern as assistant of director for a TV production company. It was the worst job I’ve ever had. I learned how to communicate at different levels.
If you were to start again, what would you do differently?
This question is not best fit for me, because, my endeavor is highly capital intensive, so, it takes too much time to reach the expected level. Within this reason, I cannot decrease the time needed so I would not do anything differently. Unless I was born a billionaire : )
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
Dream, dream and dream more without giving up to make your dream come true.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business? Please explain how.
We did our best within our works and thanks to our unique title, we are contacted by companies. Now, we are even receiving many proposals from well-known companies in the world.
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
My failure I had was working with wrong person. It was very difficult to work with him. It took too much time of mine. As well as, decreased our speed to grow. However, I came up with a solution. When I ask him something, I breathe down his neck. In this way, we are still able to work together.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Do you have a Paypal account? Then, why not start to have an e-commerce site to sell something. Do not worry, you will learn everything when you start to work on it. Just try.
What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?
My latest $1oo spent was on learning language. If you need to understand people, meaning not only their language, their culture & behavioral features and so on, you have to know that language. Recently, I made an investment in the amount of $100 to learn Dutch because of that.
What software and web services do you use? What do you love about them?
Nowadays, I use MS Outlook and Skype. All of them allow me to communicate with many people in a short time, as time is money, this is what I love about them.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
I would recommend “Lean Startup”. Startups are based on people, so when they people leave; you can expect nothing from that startup. Here “personal branding” comes.
What people have influenced your thinking and might be of interest to others?
There are many people I am influenced by, so, if I start to write them it would take pages. However, I will try to write some of them.
First of all, my two mentors; Nihal Muradoglu and Özgür Burak Akkol from Koç Holding.
In addition to them, I am also influenced by Vehbi Koç to make his dream come true by creating Koç Holding, Michael R. Bloomberg to transform his financial career into media career by creating Bloomberg L.P and George Soros to write many letters to senior people to get his first job in finance in London without giving up.
Connect:
GBP TV:
Muhittin Isler on Twitter: @mislerr
Muhittin Isler on Facebook:
Muhittin Isler on Linkedin:
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.