Atlet.IA & TÜBİTAK: First contact with technology
It started with a close friend from the sports scene and his Atlet.IA idea; I contributed my sales, marketing, and sports-industry experience. We entered the TÜBİTAK 1512 (BiGG) process together. My first serious encounter with software and startup culture, even though I hold an electronics degree.
The idea: Atlet.IA
Atlet.IA was a mobile-app idea connecting athletes, boutique gyms, and personal trainers on a map. Users could see nearby gyms' equipment, services, prices, and trainers; trainers could showcase themselves and take bookings. In short, it aimed to be a 'Yemek Sepeti for finding gyms' for users and a 'LinkedIn for trainers' for coaches.
Real field research
We didn't leave it on paper: we picked Karşıyaka (83+ gyms) as a pilot area and surveyed 156 gym members. The results made the gap clear: 53% found Google Maps' location info, 88% the equipment visuals, and 85% the user reviews inadequate for choosing a gym. Atlet.IA was designed to fill exactly that gap.
My role
I'm not entirely removed from the technical side: I'm a graduate of Dokuz Eylül's Electronic Communication Technologies (associate) program, so I have a two-year electronics and technical grounding. But the electronics field wasn't for me; I'd chosen the sports sector. And since I had no software developers or computer engineers around me, honestly I was a stranger to project-development and startup culture. I simply didn't know it. A close friend from the gym came to me with the Atlet.IA idea and we started working together. On the team I didn't do the software/technical work; my contribution was sales, marketing, and hands-on sports-industry experience: building relationships with gyms and trainers, running the survey and pilot. It was the first time I sat at the same table with an engineering team and saw how a software project is put together from the inside.
What I learned
Honestly, we went through the final round more for the experience and the fun of it than to win; and when the investment didn't come, we left the project unfinished. Even so, this period left a spark: I saw that building with technology and turning an idea into a real product was possible. When it ended I started charting my own path, and a few months later moved into e-commerce. The seed of building with automation and software today was planted here.