Turkish New Zealander Ezel Kokcu dropped out of college after one semester at the age of 18 with a passion for entrepreneurship. By 25, the serial entrepreneur had sold three successful tech companies.
Today, Kokcu is a vocal advocate of women in STEM. She also inspires young entrepreneurs with stories to tell. “I never looked at myself as an 18 year old, inexperienced female,” says Kokcu, remembering her early days. She does recall, though, many people not even looking her in the eye—‘here’s this girl, she doesn’t know anything, she’s so young, she doesn’t have any experience.’ “They didn’t understand how passionate I was about this.”
Ezel Kokcu dropped out of college to build major career success
Kokcu’s journey in entrepreneurship started when she was involved in a start-up in digital marketing. At this time, she was studying Computer Science at Victoria University. However, this initial interest in starting a business grew frustrating. She struggled with the informative content provided at some museums, and so the idea of her first start-up emerged. Soon, she founded STQRY, an exploration and story-telling app for museums and major attractions.
Using QR codes, STQRY provides a discovery and information platform in museums and landmarks. In this way, it enhances the cultural experience of visitors. After moving to Seattle and working on STQRY with her co-founder for four years, Kokcu had built up a base of customers including Te Papa, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and the Smithsonian Museum in D.C., and raised $5.5 million out of the United States.
“I then decided to leave and pursue my second startup Non-Stop Tix, a ticketing platform built for small venues and artists that didn’t charge huge booking fees,” says Kokcu. “I sold that pretty quickly to a local promoter.” Next came Passphere, a ticketing and analytics product for much larger venues, festivals, concerts, and expos. In her third business, Kokcu prioritized “a very organic process to growth” and developing the product to full performance.
Ezel Kokcu’s parents instilled a strong work ethic in her “from day one”
Kokcu was able to rapidly transform herself into a successful young serial-entrepreneur despite not having clear plans her future initially. “It’s really hard to figure out what to do after school,” Kokcu acknowledges. “I just couldn’t justify the time element spent on going to uni[versity].” After all, Kokcu saw how the good finance degrees her parents had did not quickly get them the jobs they wanted when they immigrated to New Zealand from Turkey in 1997.
“We barely had any money for several years,” growing up in Nelson. “I remember a time when my siblings and I would care for ourselves because our parents were working so hard.” No matter how hard Kokcu’s parents, Uğur and Hanife, worked, or how busy Kokcu herself is, though, they continue the family tradition of having Turkish breakfast together on Sundays.
“During the week I live off four to five hours of sleep a night,” states Kokcu. “So on a perfect Sunday, I’ll get a sleep in… Later in the morning I’ll have a big Turkish breakfast with my parents…a full spread of shakshouka, fries, homemade jams, feta cheese, olives, tomatoes, cucumber and Turkish tea.”
Ezel Kokcu extends her experience in cultural events with work in RFID enabled services
When not too busy inspiring other young entrepreneurs with her story and reflections on her experiences, Kokcu performs General Manager duties at Wayver. Building on her experiences in the cultural market and the field of events, Kokcu helps Wayver offer RFID enabled solutions and services for the optimization and operation of large events.
She is also keen on making Passsphere a global name, creating “really good software that ultimately serves its purpose,” getting into ecotech, and working on changing government technology infrastructure in New Zealand to benefit its citizens.
