Umut Güden

I wrote my first line of code at ten, during the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020. That same year I started building under a name, HMD Developments, and everything I have shipped since has gone out under it. The standard I set then has not changed: build software properly, charge fairly, and never cut corners.

I taught myself by building things people actually used. People wrote to me whenever something broke, and most of what I know came from those conversations and the fixes after them.

My first platform sold to consumers. It grew through forum posts and a referral loop that ran without me, and then I moved it to supplying the businesses that served those consumers, because a few business customers could reach more people than I could alone. I ran it for two years and then sold it.

I build and run B2B SaaS products end to end, and founding is the part I care about most: finding a problem someone will pay to have solved, and staying with it through the long stretch where the first version is not good enough. Before I build anything now, I go to the people who would have to pay for it and ask them for a real price.

Through HMD Developments I design, build and manage products people use every day, and alongside them act as the technical partner for other startups and build software for companies that need it. For work outside my own expertise I bring in people I have been building things with for years, because they are better at it than I am, and pretending otherwise would only produce worse software.

Outside the work I spend as much time as I can outdoors: hiking, running, sailing, swimming, cycling and padel. I am persistent and patient by nature, and that shows up as much in those as it does in the work.

I have acted in theatre, and I write poems and stories. I also read a good deal, mostly Turkish and translated literature, and write essays about it here: etymology, attention, and what we hand over for convenience without noticing.

I am seventeen and I work from Istanbul. I am applying to read computer science with a focus on machine learning for 2027 entry, and I intend to keep building companies through it.