It’s 2015. I’m a first-year university student, 19 years old. I’ve found the love of my life and I want to get married. But my family isn’t rich and I have no profession. My wife is in the same situation. We’re both studying sociology.
\nMy wife made jewellery as a hobby. On paper the cost was low and the margin looked good. We each put in 100 lira. Back then 200 lira was 100 dollars. We sold to people around us and set up a stall at the Pendik Saturday market a couple of times. The brand became Rengalux: Rengarenk (colourful) and Lux.
\nI said, “Let’s build an e-commerce site.” A ready-made site cost 4-5 thousand dollars. Our total capital was 200 lira. For 3 months I worked day and night figuring out how to build it myself. No AI, no Turkish resources, I learned everything by trying.
\nThe site went live on April 22, 2016. Necklaces were 20 lira, cash on delivery.
\nA week after launch, Onedio published a list called “alien jewellery.” Half the comments asked “where can I buy these.” My wife replied under every single comment. We sold everything we had. We set a wedding date for September.
\nThen from June to September sales dropped to zero. We were new, so we didn’t know about the summer slump. My wife started working at a café. I thought, “I built my own site, I can build one for someone else,” and built a site on Bionluk for 150 lira. I had no idea how to do it. That was the first money I made selling a service.
\nWe got married on September 24, 2016. On October 8 we ran an Instagram ad: a full moon necklace, 22 lira. 77 thousand likes, the comments full of “how much is it.” That ad made us money for 3 years, until Rengalux closed in 2019.
\nIn 2016 my wife wrote this on the site’s About page: “We actually founded this brand because we wanted to get married. That’s how we were able to get married on September 24, 2016.”
\nWe were 19 and 21. Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe we were too young to think about the risks before we dove in. From that day on, the story continued as entrepreneurship for me.
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