Angel Vision
By: Onur Kaplan
Tags: Vision, Marketing, Metaverse, Mission, Edimly

(Makalenin Türkçe versiyonu)

I have been in the start-up sector for a long time with my Edimly start-up. I haven’t realized until today that we had provided no information about the vision and mission of our company on our website which I make all the marketing-related decisions on my own. Here, I will try to share my views about it.

The secret in us

Today, most of our actions are willingly or unwillingly recorded thanks to numerous devices around us. For example, a wearable technology product transfers how much we ran on the beach in the early hours of the morning and our heart rate to a digital world. But no one knows about the beautiful girl you saw when you ran on the beach and that tingly feeling that the morning sun created on that girl’s face. And think about listening to “Angel of The Morning” by Juice Newton from a streaming service like Spotify which turned all people into their target audience. Spotify probably noticed that you turned down the volume when you passed that girl but there is no such device to perceive our mood and transfer it to Spotify. It is a fact that all of these services which we register and send important or trivial information without noticing often use this data to show us ads. All they do is to show us what we have listened to the most at the end of the year and give us stupid pleasure. But at least they won’t know the pleasure we have, right? They might try to guess what we feel at that moment from our gestures but they will never know what is happening inside us ☺️

From Hello World to Big Data

I might have associated the company that address as “them” and the service the company provides. The vision is the targeted position of the company in the future while the mission is the steps taken to make that vision come true. Based on this definition, I don’t think it is wrong to say that “the mission of a company is the services it offers”. Then, we cannot deny the fact that these companies are willing to collect all the necessary and unnecessary data despite all the costs because of their vision to exploit us. In recent years, I frequently encounter people saying, “They are listening to us!” If only they knew that these companies are following us in various ways from the first days of the internet, they would understand that they do not see Cyprus ads because they are talking about Cyprus. It is not that hard to blend existing data with psychology and use artificial intelligence to make such recommendations. Although it is not commonly mentioned in recent years, Data Mining which is one of my main reasons to admire Google since I was a young boy is an extremely important branch. As someone who is curious about experiencing everything, I was able to do some interesting analysis as a kid by using the big data stolen from huge platforms (of course public data).

Hello New World?

I am unable to be included in the Metaverse trend which can be seen in the news of partisan media as someone who is curious about experiencing everything. But I have used both VR and AR glasses for a long time. If this hardware will enable us to access the Metaverse universe, it is not possible to predict that Metaverse will be a hit. When we all asked “is it sensible to pay 1 billion dollars” when Facebook acquired Instagram, we all witnessed that this platform worked out well years later. If an old man in Gönen can sell cheese today through a platform established only for sharing artistic pictures, that platform be a hit, man. But it is important to remember that the environment was suitable for Instagram to reach this power. When we look at the current conditions, Metaverse is weak in various terms and I don’t think it will be a hit unless it finds something innovative.

We are ruling this planet as humanity for a long time and there are even undiscovered places on the planet. For me, the only reason to create a new virtual environment despite such a large planet is commercial. This is nothing different than those who sold lands from other planets. Anyway… We still have a planet waiting to be discovered and a digital model designed with every detail. What bothers me is that for some reason, we use this map only to get directions to a location and to find out the location of our relatives.

Loneliness on the Map

On contrary to the Metaverse trend, I believe that we don’t need to create a new world yet. Instead of creating a new world, I would like to add color (🧡) to the existing world. I will try to explain how I will do that with an example. Let’s go back to our guy running on the beach as I have mentioned in the beginning. But this time, let’s assume he installs Edimly before starting the run. He opens Edimly and sees that the girl he encounters every day but is unable to speak is marked as “running”. He sends a request “shall we do it together” and they start walking together when the girl accepts. As you can see, we helped the love life of this young man. So, can we say that Edimly is a need? If we consider what Steve Jobs and similar entrepreneurs did until today, ABSOLUTELY! Edimly’s structure is suitable for everything. I don’t know if it will work if you want to sell refrigerators to the Eskimos. But I realize this one thing. When I open Google Maps and see myself alone, I feel like something is missing. I want to fill the maps with living beings breathing like us and acting like us instead of immovable assets like spaces. How clear can I be about Edimly’s vision and mission?