About Me

I was born in Amasra on 20 July 1986. Because I came into the world beside the sea, my family gave me the name Deniz—meaning ‘sea’. Throughout my life, perhaps in keeping with that name, I have loved movement, change, looking toward distant horizons and discovering new shores.

My family is originally from Safranbolu. For me, Safranbolu is not merely a place written in a civil registry; it is an elegant bridge between the past and the present, and one of the places where I feel I belong. If you asked me about my favourite places in Türkiye, I would place Bodrum, Cappadocia and Bozcaada beside Safranbolu. In one I find my roots, in another freedom, in another imagination, and in the last, serenity.

I am a Cancer. I value memory, belonging, family and stories. I support Fenerbahçe, so I learned at an early age how to hope, how to be patient and how to believe again regardless of the circumstances.

I am the father of one child. My son’s name is Cedkan. His influence is present at the heart of many of the dreams I have built, the decisions I have made and the most important venture I have started.

Because of my father’s profession, I lived in 21 homes across six cities during my childhood and youth. Moving that often teaches you two things: never to remain completely foreign to any place, and never to become blindly attached to one. In every new city I observed people, streets, habits and the different faces of life. Perhaps my interest in telling, listening to and understanding human stories began there.

My university life did not follow a straight line either. I studied Tourism and Hotel Management at Muğla University. Later, I began studying Hittitology at the Faculty of Letters at Istanbul University but left before completing the programme. Tourism taught me about people, Hittitology taught me about the past, and life taught me the parts of both that cannot be found in books.

My professional journey began behind a microphone. I am a genuine microphone enthusiast. For some people the greatest invention may be television, the telephone or the computer, but for me the most remarkable invention of all time is still the microphone.

I worked as a newsreader at Istanbul Police Radio’s Çamlıca studios. I served as a programme host, newsreader and reporter at stations including Radyo Gözlem, FM32 and BRT FM. I later presented the main evening news on BLT TÜRK TV.

Reading the news is not simply about pronouncing words correctly. At times you carry a nation’s joy, a person’s pain or the record of history on that particular day through your voice. The microphone taught me that a voice is not used only to be heard; it can also be used to inspire trust.

In 2008, I founded By Mikrofon Agency. I prepared and presented daily news programmes for 35 local radio stations across different cities in Türkiye. Through this network I became known among local broadcasters throughout Anatolia. In a sense, my voice reached cities I had never visited before I did.

In 2010, I founded Firmistanbul, a digital business directory. The brand quickly began serving 105 companies. Over time, however, the direction of the digital world changed, traditional business directories lost their relevance and Firmistanbul’s story came to an end.

Yet sometimes the final day of one venture is the first day of another.

As we were preparing to part ways with the camera operators and reporters at Firmistanbul, I asked them to create a surprise video for Burcu, whom I would later marry. I asked my friends to go out into the streets and invite shopkeepers, students, civil servants, drivers—whoever they met—to say one sentence:

“Burcu, Deniz loves you very much.”

When the video arrived two days later, I remember not only being moved. I also found myself asking: ‘Could this idea touch other people’s emotions as well?’

I turned the video into a digital gift and posted an advertisement on sahibinden.com under the title ‘A Gift Video Guaranteed to Make You Cry’. What followed truly unfolded like a film.

To date, we have produced personalised gift videos for more than 60,000 people. We have filmed in dozens of cities across nine countries, featuring people from every walk of life, including many well-known names. From birthdays and marriage proposals to reconciliation messages and unforgettable surprises, we have touched thousands of people’s most meaningful moments. Hediye Video continues to serve customers today.

In 2017, when my son Cedkan was only two and a half, we moved to Isparta in search of a calmer, more liveable life. During our first year there, while walking through a shopping centre with his mother, her suggestion sparked the idea of opening a children’s activity area inside the mall.

The place I imagined, however, would not be a conventional play area. That night I bought a large sketchbook from a stationery shop and spent hours drawing what a new-generation children’s space should look like.

I envisioned a colourful yet safe, compact yet technological, entertaining yet educational environment: one where parents could watch their children live from a distance, where favourite licensed toys were available and where hygiene procedures were applied at entry and exit.

The project I drew that night became Cedgo. Its name came from my son: ‘Ced’ from Cedkan and ‘Go’ from movement and the journey ahead.

When the shopping centre’s manager at the time, Mr Celalettin Çalış, believed in our idea, we opened our first branch in a space of just 28 square metres. We sold our car to provide a significant part of the capital. We did not have a large budget, but we had enormous conviction.

Starting from that tiny space, Cedgo grew to 82 branches despite the pandemic. It has welcomed millions of children and developed into a major ecosystem with 3.5 million child visits, data from more than one million parents, over 350,000 mobile app users and hundreds of thousands of digital-wallet customers. In 2019, it was named Europe’s Best Children’s Workshop.

Today, we are at the beginning of a new journey for Cedgo. We are no longer designing it solely as a brand of physical spaces where children have fun, but as the world’s first family SuperApp—bringing the everyday needs of parents and children together within a single digital ecosystem.

For us, this transformation is more than a technological renewal. It is the design of a new future that makes family life easier, strengthens trust and brings fragmented parenting needs together on one platform. You can learn more about the Cedgo SuperApp journey at cedgosuper.app.

Alongside entrepreneurship, I create content on technology, history, science, politics and art for my YouTube channel. I try to interpret these subjects not only through information and current affairs, but also through common sense, human psychology and the emotional world. What interests me most is not merely what people think, but why they feel the way they do.

Perhaps this is the common thread connecting everything I do: touching people’s emotions through voice in a radio programme, through story in a gift video, through trust in a children’s space and through technology in a digital application.

I suppose I enjoy playing with people’s emotions… 🙂 In the sense of designing experiences, of course. 🙂

My fundamental belief about life is this: the value of an idea is not revealed by how large it appears, but by how genuinely it matters in people’s lives.

In the future, I want to build not only growing companies, but organisations that understand people, add value to society and leave a meaningful mark behind. My dream is to demonstrate that ideas born in Türkiye can resonate around the world. I will continue creating for a future in which children are safer, parents are stronger and technology is more humane.

Because, to me, success is not simply reaching a destination. Success is leaving a beautiful sentence, a powerful emotion or a lasting impression in people’s lives at the end of the journey.

My story is not over yet. In fact, the most interesting part has probably only just begun.