EnglishTürkçe

How We Measure

Barış Gürbüzler and Berkay Demirbaş on what building Hardal has taught them. Measurement, sales, funding, team, and the occasional argument about hats.

Mostly recorded in Turkish, with selected interviews in English. Transcripts are available where published.

Hardal is the company they are building. It moves first-party data server side.

Where to listen

Episodes

33 to 01
  1. 3324:55

    Carmelo Squillaci on finding the customers worth winning

    Carmelo Squillaci: Why Your Best Leads Might Not Be Your Best Customers

    Carmelo Squillaci breaks down the product marketing work that happens before a lead becomes a customer worth keeping.

    Carmelo SquillaciB2B SaaS salesDigital marketing

  2. 3223:40

    Suzy Everist on marketing to AI agents

    Suzy Everist: Are We Marketing to AI Agents Now?

    Suzy Everist talks about the change from marketing only to people to marketing in a world where AI agents also read, compare and recommend products.

    Suzy EveristArtificial intelligenceDigital marketing

  3. 3132:06

    Getting Real, staying lean and learning to say no

    Getting Real, Lean Kalmak ve “Hayır” Diyebilmek | Part 2

    The founders return to Getting Real and test its ideas against the way Hardal works.

    Culture and teamOpen startup

  4. 3028:40

    Getting Real, small teams and technical debt

    Getting Real, Küçük Ekipler ve Yapay Zekâ

    Getting Real gets read chapter by chapter and held against how Hardal actually works.

    Culture and teamOpen startup

  5. 2933:08

    Stock options, benefits, and why perks do not travel

    Stock Option, Şirket Yan Hakları ve Ramazan Kolisi

    Hardal wrote its stock option plan and published it in the handbook. The episode starts by simplifying the concept: this is not giving away shares, it is granting the right to buy them later.

    Culture and teamOpen startup

  6. 2850:47

    Ali Karabey on burn, hype and what actually motivates founders

    Ali Karabey: Yapay Zeka Hype’ı, Yatırım ve Gerçek Başarı

    Ali Karabey of 212 opens with a fast answer: he has no chance of being in a bad mood, because someone reading eighty to a hundred applications a week is constantly meeting energetic people.

    Ali KarabeyFunding and VCBuilding from Turkey

  7. 2719:14

    Running a startup like a game of Age of Empires

    Age of Empires ve Start Up Yönetimi

    Short and pleasantly scattered.

    Building from TurkeyFunding and VC

  8. 2639:53

    A hat is the backbone of a startup

    Şapka Bir Startup’ın Bel Kemiğidir

    The title is a joke and the episode is not.

    Culture and teamBuilding from Turkey

  9. 2540:03

    Ayşegül Göktaş Eroğlu on AI inside a large company

    Ayşegül Göktaş Eroğlu: Yapay Zeka, Dijital Pazarlama ve Geleceğin İş Gücü

    Ayşegül Göktaş Eroğlu has been at Arçelik for nine years and explains how change actually gets through a large organisation: not with announcements, but by running small trials and showing the result.

    Ayşegül Göktaş EroğluArtificial intelligenceDigital marketing

  10. 2454:38

    Rıza Doruk Ercan on 15,000 martech tools and agentic commerce

    Rıza Doruk Ercan: Martech, Performans Pazarlama ve Agentic AI

    Rıza Doruk Ercan came into martech from performance marketing, and opens by pointing out there are around fifteen thousand tools in the market: you cannot be an expert in any meaningful fraction of…

    Rıza Doruk ErcanDigital marketingArtificial intelligence

  11. 2339:11

    Günce Önür on how a VC fund actually works

    Günce Önür: Venture Capital, Girişimcilik ve Start-up Ekosistemi

    Günce Önür runs a fund that invests in early-stage startups, and explains that the job has two sides: finding the company, and convincing the person who provides the money.

    Günce ÖnürFunding and VCBuilding from Turkey

  12. 2259:13

    Özgür Mert Sarıgül and Fatma Yalçın on going into business with a friend

    Özgür Mert Sarıgül & Fatma Yalçın: Ajans Dünyası, Ortaklık Dinamikleri ve Yapay Zeka

    The first episode with two guests.

    Özgür Mert Sarıgül, Fatma YalçınAgencies and partnershipsDigital marketing

  13. 2153:35

    Ozan Uysal on AI decisions made out of FOMO

    Ozan Uysal: Yapay Zeka, FOMO ve Girişimcilikte Yeni Dönem

    The episode opens on Netflix redesigning its shows around shorter attention spans, and connects that to the same fragmentation at work.

    Ozan UysalArtificial intelligenceBuilding from Turkey

  14. 2031:07

    Ertuğrul Yıldız on running three brands at once

    Ertuğrul Yıldız: Dijital Pazarlamanın Bugünü ve Geleceği

    Ertuğrul Yıldız introduces himself as a father of a daughter first and a digital marketer second, and the episode opens there.

    Ertuğrul YıldızDigital marketingArtificial intelligence

  15. 1933:20

    Does a hobby have to be good for anything?

    Hobiler, Ego ve Özgürlük: Boş Zaman Her Zaman Üretken Olmalı mı?

    Recorded ten minutes after the previous episode and entirely about not working. The question underneath is whether a hobby has to give you something.

    Ways of workingCulture and team

  16. 1841:01

    Everything we got wrong in 2025

    2025’e Bakış: Öğrenimler, Ekipler ve Sürdürülebilir Büyüme

    The last episode of the year, and a list of mistakes.

    Culture and teamBuilding from Turkey

  17. 1737:36

    It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy at Work, applied to Hardal

    It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy at Work: Sakin İş Kültürüne Dair İlhamlar

    The book gets reread and held up against the company.

    Culture and teamWays of working

  18. 1638:50

    Emre Ertaş on CRO, and being multidisciplinary by necessity

    Emre Ertaş: Veri Odaklı Düşünme, Dijital Dönüşüm ve Tüketici Davranışlarının Geleceği

    Emre Ertaş opens by describing CRO as an odd discipline that holds front end, UX and analytics together, and explains that he became full stack because nobody was managing the gaps between them.

    Emre ErtaşData and measurementE-commerce

  19. 151:05:19

    Samet Yıldız on order before tools, and learning how to learn

    Samet Yıldız: Veri Odaklı Düşünme, Yapay Zeka ve Dijital Dönemde Adaptasyon

    Samet Yıldız brought twenty years of software behind him into measurement, and one idea sits at the centre of this episode: build the order before you learn the tool.

    Samet YıldızData and measurementArtificial intelligence

  20. 141:04:06

    Şefik Özcan on the AI bubble, regtech and what gets cheapened

    Şefik Özcan: Yapay Zeka, Tüketim Kültürü ve Dijital Dönüşüm

    An hour-long conversation that starts on firm ground and ends somewhere else entirely. Şefik Özcan opens with a prediction: work will split into jobs in front of AI and jobs behind it.

    Şefik ÖzcanArtificial intelligenceData and measurement

  21. 1332:36

    Gözde Elönü on trends, Labubu and who furnishes a home now

    Gözde Elönü: Trendler, Tüketici Davranışları ve Sosyal Medyanın Gücü

    Gözde Elönü works in marketing at English Home, and this episode is about where trends come from and how far ahead the retail calendar has moved.

    Gözde ElönüE-commerceDigital marketing

  22. 1242:32

    Selim Tekay on planning a year ahead for Black Friday

    Selim Tekay: E-Ticaretin Geleceği ve Pazarlama Stratejileri

    Selim Tekay has worked on the ad network, agency and brand sides of e-commerce.

    Selim TekayE-commerceDigital marketing

  23. 1128:53

    Fırat Berber on discovery, rejection and telling people not to buy

    Fırat Berber: Türkiye’de SaaS Satış ve Büyüme Süreçleri

    Fırat Berber started in sales by being let go and told he might be better suited to something else.

    Fırat BerberB2B SaaS salesBuilding from Turkey

  24. 101:05:51

    Cemil Toksöz on retail media and the AI overpromise

    Cemil Toksöz: Yapay Zeka Dijital Pazarlamayı Köreltiyor Mu?

    Cemil Toksöz has spent fifteen years on the agency, brand and now technology side of digital marketing.

    Cemil ToksözDigital marketingArtificial intelligence

  25. 0929:27

    Remote or office, argued by a team with no office

    Uzaktan Mı, Ofisten Mi

    Hardal has no office. The team is spread across Ankara, Istanbul and Spain. This episode is the two founders arguing about whether they want one anyway.

    Ways of workingCulture and team

  26. 0822:10

    Who we take our cues from

    Kimlerden İlham Alıyoruz

    Almost nobody on the list works in Hardal’s industry.

    Culture and teamWays of working

  27. 0726:43

    Why we wrote a handbook

    Neden Handbook Yazdık

    Hardal’s handbook was written by two people over a public holiday week and published for anyone to read.

    Open startupCulture and team

  28. 0615:44

    Walking from San Francisco to Palo Alto

    San Francisco, Palo Alto Günlükleri, VC’ler, Startuplar

    The only episode recorded on foot. Barış and Berkay are in California with Türk Telekom’s PİLOT programme, walking towards Palo Alto with a microphone.

    Funding and VCBuilding from Turkey

  29. 0528:05

    What finally pushed us to incorporate abroad

    Neden Amerika’da Şirket Kurduk

    Why Hardal’s Turkish company ended up being acquired by one incorporated in the United States.

    Building from TurkeyFunding and VC

  30. 0432:26

    Bootstrapping, and raising without wanting to be a unicorn

    Türkiye’de Bootstrap ve Girişim Ekosisteminin Zorlukları

    Hardal’s funding story.

    Funding and VCBuilding from Turkey

  31. 0324:08

    Agencies, partnerships and the affiliate scheme that failed

    Marketing Ajansları, Partnerlik Sistemimiz ve İş Birlikleri

    After finding product market fit Hardal put its effort into partnerships rather than direct sales.

    Agencies and partnershipsB2B SaaS sales

  32. 0220:53

    How we sell to enterprise

    Kurumsal Şirketlere Nasıl Yaklaşıyoruz

    What Hardal learned selling into large companies. The team started by showing prospects the technical errors their product would fix, and put every one of them on the defensive.

    B2B SaaS sales

  33. 0124:05

    Why we run Hardal as an open startup

    Neden Open Startup Modeline Geçtik

    The first episode. Barış Gürbüzler and Berkay Demirbaş explain why Hardal publishes its financials, targets and strategy where anyone can read them.

    Open startupCulture and team

Who has been on

17 so far

What it keeps coming back to

11 subjects

New episodes land on Spotify, Apple and YouTube.

The archive stays here, transcripts and all. Follow the show wherever you already listen.