On November 19, 2017, our Managing Partner Erdem Mümtaz Hacıpaşaoğlu delivered a startup law training session at the Koç University Discover Series — Koç’s student-led entrepreneurship program designed to expose undergraduates to the working layers of the technology economy beyond academic coursework.
The central thesis of the training was clear: Koç sits at one of the highest-density intersections of future founders, investors and operators in Turkey — and the legal vocabulary the students leave with shapes what they will demand from their counsel, their boards and themselves once they are operating in market.
What the session covered
The Discover Series session walked through the legal scaffolding of a startup: founder agreements, IP assignment, share structure, vesting, the mechanics of fundraising instruments, the legal-operational rhythm of a fast-moving company, and the early decision of whether to flip to a U.S. parent or stay Turkey-domiciled. The material was kept practical — built around the working questions a Koç student is most likely to face inside their first venture.
Why this audience matters
Closing the training, Mümtaz emphasized the long-arc point: the cohorts that pass through Koç entrepreneurship programs in the late 2010s would be running ventures, sitting on boards and writing checks by the mid-2020s — and the cheapest possible time to give them a working legal vocabulary is in their student years, before they have to make decisions under real commercial pressure.
