An Entrepreneur
Haydar Çolakoğlu is the founder and CEO of YOLO, a mobility-as-a-service network whose aim is to transform journeys through urban landscapes into “YOURneys”. In YOLO, he has created a system for providing VIP transportation services in cities by giving passengers and drivers access to one another.
Haydar Çolakoğlu is a member of Endeavor Association, the Turkish office of Endeavor, a global community of, by, and for high-impact entrepreneurs that was founded in 1997. In that capacity, he serves as a mentor in an international network consisting of entrepreneurs and businesspeople hailing from different cultures and backgrounds and also continues to support innovative ideas.
YOLO: Haydar Çolakoğlu’s newest venture
A member of the boards of directors of TEB Holding and the Çolakoğlu Group, YOLO CEO talked about the founding and objectives of a company whose slogan is “That’s the best way to travel”. The YOLO app is available on the iOS and Android platforms and the company is currently focusing on growth in İstanbul
Noting that VIP transportation in urban settings used to be a service that only wealthy individuals could afford, Haydar Çolakoğlu says that YOLO makes such mobility accessible to everyone. Çolakoğlu added that the potential or even actual dimensions of an in-city VIP mobility industry are unknown and that the biggest reason for this is that the practice of issuing taxable invoices is not very widespread.
Foreseeing the creation of a gigantic national platform capable of encompassing everyone, Haydar Çolakoğlu said that Turkey’s local mobility service providers are just as strong as the ones in China who joined forces and created Didi, which then bought out Uber.
In YOLO says Haydar Çolakoğlu, the owner of a vehicle is also its driver and he emphasizes that when the driver and owner of a car are not the same, both diligence and attention suffer. Emphasizing that the situation with YOLO is exactly the opposite, Haydar Çolakoğlu continued saying “With us, a vehicle’s owner is also its driver. We create opportunities for drivers to buy cars of their own. Let’s say a car costs TL 100,000. Another TL 10,000 is spent to fix up and deck out the interior and now you’ve got a fully renovated car for TL 110,000. You put up TL 20-25 thousand of that yourself and take out a loan for the rest. The loan’s paid off in two years and for four years the car’s working for the owner. During the two years after the loan’s been paid off, the driver is working for himself and earning TL 2,500 a month and if he can get someone to take over and work the vehicle when he’s not driving it himself, that’s another TL 2,500. I mean that’s TL 5,000 a month in earnings. In the course of six years, that’s serious money coming in because during the fourth, fifth, and sixth years, that car’s working only for the owner.”
