---
title: "About Mert Erbil"
url: "https://merterbil.com/about/"
---

# About Mert Erbil

Hey, I'm Mert. I'm a weekday product person and consultant, a weekend startup advisor and, every now and then, a speaker and mentor. I'm Turkish, I live in the Netherlands, and I've been writing about media, tech and the business behind them since 2017, when I started a Turkish newsletter called [hypeoldu](/projects/hypeoldu/).

These days I mostly think out loud on [merbil.fm](https://www.youtube.com/@merbilfm), my YouTube channel of Turkish monologues about tech, modern life and the burdens of adulthood. So this site is where the English [written versions](/posts/) live, along with the [talks and workshops](/talks/), [side projects](/projects/) and [startup work](/startups/) I do when I'm not at my day job.

## Background

I've spent about 15 years building digital products across banking, sports betting, TV and sports streaming, e-commerce and digital consultancy. Along the way I worked on things like the country's first online commercial installment loan channel, the first large-scale live betting experience, and multi-factor authentication for more than a million users. I trained as an industrial engineer, later studied marketing communications and advertising, and I'm a certified Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO II).

## Education

- **Ph.D. studies, Advertising & Public Relations**, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul (2017–2020). Focused on communication theory. Wrote several papers, didn’t pursue the thesis.
- **M.A., Marketing Communications**, Istanbul Bilgi University (2014–2017)
- **MBA, Erasmus exchange**, Universidade Europeia, Lisbon (2015)
- **B.Sc., Industrial Engineering**, Istanbul Technical University (2008–2012)

Papers and theses: https://merterbil.com/papers/

## Short bio

Mert Erbil is a Turkish digital product person and consultant in the Netherlands with 15 years in banking, betting, streaming and e-commerce. He advises the startup After5, gives talks and workshops on product management and AI-driven discovery, and makes merbil.fm, a YouTube channel of monologues on tech and modern life.

## Elsewhere

- youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@merbilfm
- linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merterbil
- google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lbu6iu0AAAAJ
- researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mert-Erbil
- github: https://github.com/merbil
- unsplash: https://unsplash.com/@merbil
- email: hi@merterbil.com