English: Yazıyor... Talks!: Mehmet Dursun The Board Director of ARMINE | The Silk Road

This week Yazıyor... Talks!'s guest is Mehmet Dursun, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ARMINE!

I am excited because in addition to conducting the first face-to-face interview with Mr Mehmet, we are also putting our first branded content in Yazıyor... .

Let's witness together how a brand rises from zero to the top on the silk road and let's learn the birth story of one of Turkey's most important brands from the first person.

Mr Mehmet, first of all, welcome to Yazıyor...! Let's get started without wasting any time :)

As a business person known for your achievements in the business world, our readers would like to get to know you a little better.

Yes, in fact, not me but our brand is more recognised, I am not a president who appears in the media a lot. When it came to being featured on your blog, I couldn't be offended at all and I accepted this offer, frankly. First of all, greetings to all readers.

Thank you very much Mr Mehmet, your kindness.

Who is Mehmet Dursun?

I was born in 1971 in Üsküdar. I am the 2nd child of a family with 4 siblings. I am married and father of 4 children. 3 of my children are daughters! I wanted to mention this, fathers of daughters understand me because I think being a father of a daughter is a very important thing.

I can say that I have a second job as a father of daughters. Some of my children are currently studying. I am the grandfather of 2 grandchildren. I can say that my life is mostly between my work and spending time with my extended family.

Peki ARMINE'yi kurmaya nasıl karar verdiniz, nereden başladınız? Yola çıktığınız ilk anlarda neler hissettiniz ve bu kararı alırken sizi motive eden unsurlar nelerdi?

If you had asked this question years ago, there would have been a different answer. But when I look from where I stand now, I have a clearer and completely different portrait in front of my eyes.

I would actually like to say that I started by "leaving my comfort zone" by applying one of the popular mottoes of today. But I can say that I never had a comfort zone.

We migrated from the Black Sea to Istanbul with my family and started a life here. We were in the middle of an effort to hold on to life in a 50 square metre house for 6 people with our parents who had very limited means. At that time, I was a boarding student at a secondary school in Sarıyer.

The allowance given by my father ran out on Wednesday and I was trying to spend the remaining 2 days with very little. What we ate was nothing but bagels and soda pop.

However, my main motivation was that we did not have the means... If we had the means and I was comfortable, I would be a different person and I would prefer to stay in comfort.

What did you do, what was your first step?

I started selling cabbage. My mother used to grow cabbage in the garden of our house and put it in crates. Then she would take me to the market and I would sell those cabbages and pay for the food for the house.

Because of my character, I was the more active one among my siblings. I loved to work and I had to work anyway.

The most influential role in the end of this period started when I saw the drawings of our university friends we met at boarding school. I wanted to give it a try and I was really not bad. I was making drawings for them.

Then I started working for an architect gentleman.

After seeing his drawings and design samples closely, I stepped into my next job; I started working for a family friend of ours who was in the scarf business in Osmanbey.

He was the one who made the best silk scarves of that time. Now he has settled in America, hello to him...

Actually, scarf making was not a field I was keen on. I was one of the founding partners of Global Investment at that time and I enjoyed this field more. I was 17-18 years old and Osmanbey prevailed. 😌

I would like to say here that in life, channelling your concentration on a single task always pays off. Too much distraction is not good.

For this reason, I stayed only in the scarf business.

I had progressed so much in the scarf business that I was telling the gentleman I worked for, whom I called "uncle", "this place is too much for both of us, either you go or I go".

It was 1888, and my uncle's business was already failing at that time. After working with him for 1 more year, I left and founded ARMINE in 1989.

Where does the name ARMINE come from, is there a story?

This is one of the most common questions I receive. We can take it to other meanings and be mistaken for a foreign brand. We are not. I would like to underline it carefully.

Let me put it this way:

When I was working on the company I founded, I always planned for it to have a name and culture that could easily play a role in the global arena. This habit came to me from Global Investment, which I co-founded. I always foresaw that it would open up to the world. I wanted it to be a global brand.

At that time, brands from the Islamic community preferred names that would evoke the place where they stood rather than using global names. Since my goal was different, I could not find a name immediately.

For 6 months I thought of a brand name that would be spiritual and sound both global and pleasant, and during this time I sold products without a brand name. We were selling under the name of İpek Eşarp. I used my friend's office for the first 6 months-1 year without a name. Let me show you my first business card at that time:

My criteria for finding a name were that the word should be beautiful, start with the letter A and be memorable. My mind was constantly busy with this. Even the name had to be formed according to the professional logic of business life. It was going to go the way I started it...

One night while I was sleeping, ARMINE came to my mind and I immediately got up and wrote it on a piece of paper so that I wouldn't forget it in the morning.

That's how it is, this is exactly our real birth story!

Logoyu nasıl tasarlattınız?

I chose one of the few suggestions he worked with me and that is the alternative you see everywhere today.

What is ARMINE's full field of activity at the moment?

ARMINE is a family-owned company that operates only in scarves and women's wear. We appeal to Turkish women. Although our face looks conservative, 40% of our secular women also prefer ARMINE.

Mr. Mehmet, sometimes I can see your facial expressions change rapidly while you are telling. Can you share the saddest and happiest moment you have experienced during this journey in the business world?

I can say that my saddest moment was when I saw my first business card again after many years, even now when I show it to you, my eyes teared up.

My happiest moment is not far away.

It was the time when I got out of the corona nightmare and put the company back on track. I pray for this salvation every night because we had a very difficult process and it was very challenging to manage.

What are your most important learning experiences in the process of ARMINE scarves becoming a successful business?

Life is not only about work. Life and you are a whole.

When I look at the people I look up to, I see that the biggest success is to remain human. I have always accepted this as the primary rule. I have always tried to achieve this.

Knowing that the gains in life are temporary, knowing that one day they will be gone keeps people alive. I can say that this is the biggest lesson I learnt.

As you achieve success, what impact do you think your work has on others?

I would like to give an example; the edges of our scarves are sewn by hand. Although there is a machine for this process in Europe, we have not automated this process.

In the years we started, I used to distribute the scarves to housewives in Balat and then I would go and collect them myself.

Because this culture reminds me of the cabbage crates I sold in the market, which I mentioned at the beginning of the interview.

Today, our women who want to support the home economy still sew scarf hems at home. In addition to the opportunities that our 10,000 employees have, touching the lives of our third party, housewives, is a tradition that I cherish. Our ladies used to sew the edges of 20 scarves a day in order to earn money for the bazaar and this is still going on.

We want to touch the lives of hundreds of families because this is our allowance, the margin of which we want to increase as much as we can.

This feeling is really the best feeling my job brings.

Maybe because of what it reminds me, this is something very valuable for me.

As a business person who has achieved great success starting from scratch, what are the important advice you can give to young entrepreneurs?

Now our young people are already quite conscious, but I would like to make such suggestions as a brother who has established a business and brought it somewhere:

1. First of all, it is absolutely necessary to be honest and hardworking. Unfortunately, there is nothing in life for those who do not work.

2. Secondly, heads need to be very clear. It is necessary to determine the route well and not to be indecisive. Whatever you choose, it is necessary to proceed only by making your decision from the very beginning, because zigzags consume energy in vain and take people backwards.

3. The third is to do your job very well without being generic and without fooling yourself. If you do not do your job well, they will not choose you in this competitive network. It is important to be above the averages. It is necessary to know how to stand out and continue on the road by constantly improving ourselves.

4. Finally, it is necessary to know that the measure of success is not the amount of money earned. The whole picture must be good. "If I lost everything today, what would I have left in my pocket?" you need to ask yourself along the way. Those who can do this are winners in my eyes.

Based on my experience in the business world, I can easily say that it is necessary not to lose the ethical and conscientious aspect.

Mr Mehmet, your information is really valuable, thank you very much for your time!

I also thank you very much, but before I end my words, I would like to thank all my colleagues who walked this path with me. Each of them has a great labour on ARMINE. If we have come this far, we have come as a product of this togetherness.

For 25 years, I have been working together with our friends and I appreciate the efforts of each of them, whether they are our friends who have joined us or our new friends. I embrace all ARMINE employees with love and thank each of them from the deepes side of my heart.

Regards,

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Yes, dear readers, we understand from this interview, in which we discuss a success story from A to Z, that the iron that works shines.

See you in the bright and beautiful days ahead full of surprises!