Brainwaves by Burak Büyükdemir
Field notes from 26 years of investing in early-stage startups.
February 25, 2026
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The Advice Trap
Last month, a founder showed me her notebook. Fourteen pages of advice from twelve different people. Mentors, investors, friends, her former boss, a guy she met at a conference.
She hadn't shipped a single feature in six weeks.
She wasn't building. She was collecting opinions.
I've seen this pattern repeat across 400+ startups we've backed through Etohum and Startup Istanbul since 2008. Founders who confuse gathering input with making progress. Every coffee meeting feels productive. Every advisor call feels like a step forward. But nothing ships. Nothing changes.
Here's the thing nobody tells you: most advice is autobiography disguised as guidance.
When your investor says "focus on enterprise," they're telling you about their portfolio thesis — not your customers. When your mentor says "hire a VP of Sales," they're remembering what worked at their company in 2019. When your friend says "you should pivot to AI," they're reading the same headlines you are.
I wrote about this years ago in my book Why the Eagle in the Hen House Can't Fly. The central parable: an eagle raised among chickens believes it can't fly — not because it can't, but because everyone around it says so. The most dangerous critics aren't strangers. They're the people closest to you.
I watched it happen with the Yemeksepeti founders. When Nevzat left his US graduate program, Melih quit Citibank, and Cem joined them to build a food delivery platform in Turkey — in 2001 — everyone said they were crazy. Turkey wasn't ready. The infrastructure didn't exist. "Focus on something realistic."
They ignored every single one of those people. Yemeksepeti became one of Turkey's largest tech exits.
The best founders I've backed share one pattern: they listen to everyone and follow almost no one.
They use advice as data, not direction. They ask "does this match what my users are telling me?" not "does this person sound smart?"
If you wouldn't trade places with the person giving you advice, stop treating their opinion as a roadmap.
Your users are the only advisors who can't be wrong about their own problems.
Close the notebook. Open your analytics. Ship something.
The best advice is the one you validate with data. Everything else is noise.
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Until next time,
Burak
Founder & Solo GP, Startupist Ventures Fund
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Burak Büyükdemir
Founder & Solo GP, Startupist Ventures Fund · Startup Istanbul
I share ideas on fundraising frameworks, founder psychology, and growth playbooks from 20+ years of investing in early-stage startups.
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