Zeynep Osmanli
Hello, I am Zeynep Osmanli, Founder & CEO of Zeos Store.
I was born in Izmir, Turkey in 1986. My area of expertise is e-commerce and public relations. In 2005, I continued my licensing at the Izmir University of Economics, Fashion Department. I am married with two children.
I started my career journey at the bill payment center I opened with my husband. In a short period of two years, we turned our bill payment center into Taft Inc., which is a head office of 410 dealerships. I worked in different positions for 10 years in our company. I am currently continuing my Zeos Store e-commerce work, which is the project I started and founded in July 2019.
I love to listen to music, change furniture at home, and spend time with Oliver, our cat who lives with us. Another hobby of mine is cycling. In fact, the house I live in is 4 km outside of the city center but I always prefer cycling, rather than driving.
Company Name: Zeos Store
Location: İzmir, Turkey
Founded in: 2019
Websites: zeosstore.com and en.zeosstore.com
Instagram: @zeosstore
Facebook: www.facebook.com/zeosstore
Tell us all about your company. What services do you offer?
Zeos, which I designed as a social responsibility project in a way, allows anyone who produces and wants to sell handmade products the opportunity to open their own shop on our e-commerce website for free. As long as there is manual labor in our product range, we have no limits. With a very low commission per product sold, we are happy to bring our producers and customers together in an environment that provides quality service. In addition, we give a vision to our producers who have the opportunity to sell only in the market or in kermesses, about selling through e-commerce.
How did you get the idea or concept for your company? What was your mission at the outset? Was there anything in particular that inspired you to start at the time you did?
I laid the foundations of this business in July 2019. While I was brainstorming about business ideas with my family, my mother explained how my grandmother got herself and her siblings educated by doing handicrafts at home and earned a living for the house in this way. When I heard this, I thought that thousands of housewives needed additional income, their hand-made skills and they could support the family economy. Assuming that a virtual market that can realize this can reach handicraft workers in every corner of our country, I bought my domain address that night and laid the foundations of my work that I love very much.
What's your definition of success? Do you consider yourself a success?
I think I have been successful because now I have had the opportunity to work with 1500 designers and I have achieved this in a short period of 1 and a half years. But my real success will be when I see these beautiful handcrafted products also in the foreign market.
What advice would you give to a woman starting out in your industry or starting her own company/organization?
Being an entrepreneurial woman is a very enjoyable and challenging job. First of all, I recommend that they consider the real needs while designing the project they will start. Realizing dreams are of course very nice, but how well are these dreams in line with the existing conditions? I think this is an issue that should not be ignored. Another suggestion is that they should believe in their own abilities, should not interfere with their creative thoughts, and never stop looking for opportunities to bring these thoughts to life. Finally, I would like to remind all women entrepreneurs that they may experience discouraging events from time to time. Even in their closest circles, there may be people who will disrupt their initiatives by underestimating the project they want to realize. Whatever happens, no matter what those people say, they shouldn't stop believing in their projects and skills.
Describe yourself in ONE word. Reliable