Dakick

What did it do?

Dakick was an event recommendation service that launched in April 2011 under the slogan "Social Time Guide". It offered personalised recommendations across cinema, TV, concerts, trade fairs, exhibitions, sport, performing arts and conferences, based on the actors, singers, teams or venues a user followed. Its content came from partners such as Mybilet and Broadage, from editors and from software that crawled the web; in 2012 it added an API, widgets and a mobile app.

Why did it shut down?

According to Webrazzi, Turkcell, Turkey's largest mobile operator, bought Dakick with the aim of using it for ticketing and integrating it into its own services. After the acquisition the service was offered for a while as a Turkcell product, but updates became infrequent. Founder Serkan Ünsal ran the project inside Turkcell for a time, then left to found Startups.watch. In November 2015 it was noticed that the site was no longer working and the iOS app had disappeared from the App Store; there was no official closure announcement. Webrazzi suggested that the plans made at the time of the acquisition may not have matched the company's later strategy.

The story

After studying electrical and electronic engineering at Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ), Serkan Ünsal worked as a product manager at Ericsson's incubator and at Turkcell. According to an interview he gave to KodEdu, a concert he missed in 2009 made him question how people keep track of the events they love. That question became Dakick, brought to life together with Sodamedya and Alper Akcan. The service opened to users in April 2011 and received investment from Aksoy Internet Ventures, the investment firm of the founders of Sahibinden.com, Turkey's leading classifieds site.

Dakick's idea was simple: a user followed a singer, actor, team or venue, and the system reminded them of the concert, TV programme, match or exhibition connected with that name. Content across eight categories, from cinema to conferences, came from partners such as Mybilet and Broadage, from editors and from software that crawled the web. In 2012 an API and widgets were offered to developers and a mobile app was launched.

In March 2014 Webrazzi reported that Turkcell had bought Dakick. According to sources the site trusted, the price was around 1 million TL. Turkcell's aim was to use the service for ticketing and integrate it into its own offerings. In March 2015 CHIP Online was presenting Dakick as a Turkcell service.

The integration story did not last long. Ünsal ran the project inside Turkcell for a while, then left to found Startups.watch. In November 2015 Webrazzi noticed that dakick.com was no longer working and that the iOS app had disappeared from the App Store. The last snapshot in the Internet Archive dated from early September. There was no farewell announcement; the service had simply faded away as updates dried up.

Dakick's story shows how a product built by a small team can end up orphaned inside a large company. The acquisition was an exit for the founders and the investor. But the product's survival depended on the person running it staying with the company and on the parent company's shifting priorities. As Webrazzi pointed out, plans made at the moment of acquisition can fall out of step with a company's new strategy within a few months.

Lessons for founders

• When selling your company, be clear about who on the buyer's side will be responsible for keeping the product alive.
• When the founding team leaves, the product roadmap may leave with them; plan the handover accordingly.
• Content-heavy services such as event recommendations need continuous investment in fresh, clean data.

Sources

1. Dakick.com, acquired by Turkcell in 2014, has closed (Webrazzi, 2015-11-06)
2. Turkcell is acquiring Dakick.com! [Rumour] (Webrazzi, 2014-03-06)
3. Interview with Dakick.com (KodEdu, 2012-07-03)
4. iPhone app of the day: dakick (CHIP Online, 2015-03-11)

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