I had the opportunity to meet Sina Afra while I was in Turkey. Afra is the Co-founder and CEO of Markafoni a flash sales commerce business that was acquired by Naspers in July 2011. Markafoni is after Ventee-Privee the number 2 flash sales business in Europe.

Sina Afra, is one of the few CEOs of a big commerce business that writes a blog that has become something akin to a must read for me. His annual state of Turkish commerce posts have always been a favorite of mine as it is in-depth and contains a lot of really good insight. I see Afra in the same light as some of the big ecommerce founders – visionary, thought leader and most of all a key part of his country’s ecommerce ecosystem.

A few things were highlighted for me in our conversation:

1. Sina is fiercely loyal to the Turkish ecommerce industry. He made no attempt to hide that which was great to see. In general most commerce executives I meet are in general stuck at watching the big players (Alibaba, Amazon and eBay) but forget about their local ecosystem. He made the point that in his mind Turkey is in the top 5 of the most important developing markets.
2. He was absolutely inspirational in describing his business to me. The mere fact that he could recite key metrics made me realize just how in tune he is with his business. I am going to be trying to be more like him here as that ability to be fully aware of the business was beyond impressive.
3. He made a great point of being able to look at the founders of commerce businesses in more detail regarding their education, background etc. I have heard this thinking once before (Jack Ma of Alibaba in one of this many videos) and after thinking about it in some detail I realized that this is something I have not thought about in more detail. This becomes very important when a new competitor enters your market as then you are able to understand their thinking and strategies.
4. He also made a very clear case that the flash sales vertical is alive and well. Markafoni, Gilt and others are still making sales and delighting customers. I found this to be quite refreshing as I thought that the flash sales industry is under pressure.
5. He made a very important point regarding emerging markets and that is that the ecosystem is very dependent on investors, angels and VC’s. We tend to forget about this factor when looking at a specific market. A great point to be aware of and also to keep in mind.

I can honestly say – that the time I spent with Sina Afra was inspirational and highly educational. Turkey is very lucky to have him in their ecosystem as he has experience that not many commerce CEO’s have.