Uğur Çakir is an e-Resident from Turkey who established an Estonian limited company SendGB OÜ using 1Office’s
assistance and who is kind enough to share his story with us.
Uğur has diverse work experience. He has worked for many years in the banking sector, where Internet banking and ATM-s became his speciality. He also has worked in the IT industry and has set up an online newspaper in Turkey in 1998. Other than that, he has experimented in the e-commerce business but in 2015, Uğur and his business partner Okan started the SendGB: a file transfer service where the goal is to add a different dimension to the field.
Please describe what kind of business your company does and where?
“I am one of the co-founders of the file transfer service SendGB. We launched SendGB in 2015, but until 2019 we studied the file transfer business. Although SendGB’s software was developed in Turkey, the company incorporation took place in Estonia at the end of 2019.
SendGB provides easy sharing of files up to 5GB in 13 languages. We have users from many countries in the world. With different file transfer features, we offer speed and convenience to our users — this is always our aim. SendGB stores its data in one of Europe’s largest data centres in France. With a feature called SendGB Extend, our users can extend the storage duration of their files that they share up to 1 year without being a member.
Our main goal is to turn SendGB to the most preferred file transfer service in Europe.”
What made you start SendGB and how did you come up with the idea?
“The file transfer is a service that people need in every industry. Almost everyone needs to share files somehow. However, the file sizes are growing, so larger files need to be transferred. There are many restrictions on existing file transfer services. We felt the need for a fast and easy file sharing service with fewer restrictions.
We came up with the idea because from time to time, we also needed to use file-sharing services. We thought we could provide this and decided to open a file-sharing business. Although we thought it would be easy at first, we soon saw that it was actually a hard job.”
Why did you decide to choose an Estonian company for your business?
”Estonia is a country that invests in IT and digital sector and this attracted our attention. We have been following the e-Residency program from the beginning. It is an advantage for us to establish a company in Europe without changing our current location and also because our users are in Europe. Estonia embraced us while doing a digital business and it has become our second home. Estonia’s easy tax system was also convincing for us.”
Why did you decide to choose 1Office?
“We needed assistance with company establishment in Estonia. We wanted to get quick and reliable answers to our questions on every issue that matters to us. We looked for different service providers to support us and talked to many of them. Many of them are successful providers, but 1Office was the biggest one among them. Trust is very important. 1Office has many partners. We thought this might be an opportunity for us too. 1Office has always been honest with us and has given us confidence. So we decided to continue with 1Office.”
How has the process been? Please describe how you felt, what was surprising and what have been the challenges.
“With 1Office, the process was not difficult. The steps were simple and clear. We were informed at every step and the company establishment process was fast. This shows how bureaucracy is minimum and supports starting a business in Estonia.”
Have you already created an account in my1Office platform and how has it changed the administrative services of your company?
I created my account immediately after my1Office was launched. I log in from time to time.
I find the my1Office portal very useful for company management. Because the services I can get are online and all in one place. The page I check frequently in my1Office application is “my posts”. A useful feature to quickly check what comes to my address.
What are the challenges in your work and how do you conquer them?
“In fact, in the beginning, when starting SendGB, we were not very aware of the difficulties, but we encounter those every day. Although the file transfer itself seems simple, it is a difficult job to make everything run smoothly in the background. You need to offer users a satisfactory speed. You need to detect and make adjustments to user-induced errors. There are different types of users and you must satisfy them all. The file transfer service is an ungrateful business: if you cannot provide a good service, the user may leave you immediately. Reliable storage and speed are two important factors to consider.”
What are the plans for SendGB?
“We want to be one of the top three services that come to mind when thinking about file transfer. Our goal is to keep convenience and speed in focus. But first of all, our goal is to be one of the top three file transfer services in Europe and then expand to all over the world.”
What would be your recommendations to other e-Residents? And for Turkish e-Residents?
“I recommend 1Office those who are e-Residents and who want to get a reliable service. Establishing a company is an easy but serious process. Throughout this, you need to have a trustworthy partner beside you.
I would like to say to those who want to be e-Residents that Estonia is a digital country and offers opportunities, especially for digital businesses. We learned a lot about Estonia through the e-Residency program. We could not visit Estonia due to Covid-19, however, we look forward to visiting Estonia and meeting our friends there as soon as possible. It will be very nice to visit Estonia, try their food and meet our business partners there.”
1Office wishes smooth business journey and is eager to support the success of SendGB in becoming the largest file-sharing platform in Europe.
Learn more about SendGB here.
If you are interested in opening a business in Estonia, then check out our company formation package or contact us for more information.
