| Headline: Babur Ozden: facing up to the Darwinian test Source: Euromoney Date: February 2001 Author: Metin Munir Babur Ozden is probably the best-known name in the Turkish internet sector. In the past six years the 40-year-old University of Texas graduate has created two of the country’s top three internet service providers (ISPs), which together account for nearly half of total subscriptions. Between 1994 and 1999, Ozden was chief executive officer of Superonline – owned by a clutch of companies in the Karamehmet family – which he created from scratch to become the market leader. In September last year, he went over to the Dogus group with Superonline’s management team to establish Ixir, which is now in third place after Superonline and e-kolay. Ozden is proud of Ixir’s success, which owes a lot to an amusing, unusual and costly advertising campaign that featured two street vendors, one selling chestnuts and the other kokorec (intestines roasted on a skewer and sold in slices), who get hooked on the internet. “In five months, from nowhere, we launched a major ISP,” says Ozden. “In the second five months we became number two. [IBS research places Ixir in third place]. |