In the midst of our professional lives, understanding the need for a moment of self-reflection and reevaluation can help set us on the right road. Melis Abacıoğlu embodies the importance of this self-awareness, having found her true calling by breaking from her initial career path and in doing so, demonstrating the rewarding nature of working for your passions and the resulting potential for success. Actifit, a corporate wellness business initiative, represents the first of many pursuits that Melis would find on this journey. Following in the same vein, she has gone on to open doors to the community at large with her founding of Kızlar Sahada, inviting thousands of women from all ages and backgrounds to the pitch to experience the joys of playing football. Continuing this emphasis on healthy and active lifestyles, her latest venture in co-founding SWEATers App has unlocked a network of over 50,000 individuals taking part and connecting through the active community platform. Balancing these pursuits with raising her own family is just a start, with plans of fostering and complimenting these undertakings in new, fascinating directions.
We took some time to speak with Melis about maintaining her multiple initiatives, the importance of well-being and embracing good habits, the various communities thriving through her projects, and what’s in store for the future.
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I graduated from a German high school before moving to New York, where I studied at Columbia University. My focus was math and art history – a double major. After that, I got a job at a consulting company that worked with private equity companies. I had a visa for the States which was really difficult to get at the time. What I did next was crazy, as I was sitting here in Turkey with my mom. We have a family business here, a hospital, and I wanted to be an entrepreneur, so basically I burned all the bridges in New York overnight and decided to not go back. I worked with my mother for two and a half years. It was the best ‘school’ ever, as I got to learn about finance, management, and how to deal with different situations. Then at the end of those two and a half years, a hospital chain approached me and offered me a chance to gain experience and learn more about the business side by working with a hospital being built in Frankfurt.
When I was there, I found myself in a deep depression even though everything was going well. I had a great boyfriend who I later married. I had a great job, great title, and money, but I just wasn’t very happy. I realized there must be something wrong either with me or something I’m doing in my life, so I started soul searching. I realized I wasn’t doing what I wanted in my life, so I started my own business, Actifit, providing corporate wellness in different forms. A few months after that, the second business, Kızlar Sahada, came along. Kızlar Sahada is a social business. In Turkey, and in the world, women are told they can’t do certain things. Through soccer, we show women and girls that they actually can.
Four years later, with my partner, we founded SWEATers App. It’s a mobile app and now a community and platform. It brings people who do sports together. Basically you type in the sports you play, your level, and it gives you the best sporting events and partners that you can meet up with.
I also have a baby who is two years old now. She is actually the center of my life.
Actifit seems like a pretty big transition from your previous work. Could you tell us a bit more about the business side?
The idea is to create good habits for people who spend their lives, sometimes 10-12 hours a day, at a desk, or commuting to one. We are all about starting new habits. What we have been doing for the past six years is creating programs catered within companies. Basically, we offer a digital platform where employees can get daily wellness information either in written form or through video. We provide live video with wellness professionals. Every week there’s a live chat with a dietitian, a live chat with a pedagogue, etc. In addition to that we have a phone number so they can call a dietitian, sports trainer, or a psychologist any time of day 24/7. That’s just some of what we do. We also do other things as well. So for example, we work with Pfizer, and with them, we have seminars on different subjects that relate to health. It really differs a lot.
What was the inspiration that prompted the shift to starting work on projects like Actifit, Kızlar Sahada, and SWEATers App?
During my period of soul searching, I realized that despite being generation Y, I am not profit driven, even though maybe I should be. I am driven by a world consisting of people who are powerful – powerful enough to sustain themselves, make themselves happy, and care for those around them. I really believe in that picture. It gets me out of bed in the morning, and gives me something to work for that can keep me going every day, despite there being so much work to do. I realized for a world that consists of all these people, you need a tool. So what will your tool be? For some people it’s reading, for others it is listening to music. For me, it has always been well-being, like sports.
I find it very interesting. Back in the 1970s they did some very thorough research with the homeless in London. They divided them into three groups. One was a control group, the second was provided with professional training for the workforce, and the third group was helped to go running. Funnily enough, those who started running, 90% of them wound up with a roof over their heads. By the end of the first year, 80% of those who started running had a job. It’s so interesting. We have so many different habits throughout the day, like waking up and immediately checking your phone, constantly looking at Instagram, and always checking e-mail. These are all habits and it’s questionable whether they are good or not.
Exercise is what we call a key habit, as it transforms everything in your life. What do you need to do in order to run? You need to wake up early, get some sneakers, you need to get money for that, you need to be organized, you have to have good food in your system, etc. It triggers so many other systems and habits in your life. I find it so exciting.
Could you share with us a bit about the origins of Kızlar Sahada, as well as how Hareket Candır! came about?
So actually, it wasn’t just soul searching that led me here. Looking back it’s so easy to tell the story. When you’re in it, it’s so messy and complicated, so many emotions are involved. Basically, what I did was just start moving. I left Frankfurt and decided to do other things in this area and see if they’re interesting to me. Basically, overnight, my now-husband started a Facebook group Hareket Candır! (Movement is Life!) and in only two months we had all these people joining the group and attending runs we organized – which were all free. They would join marathons and it all grew so fast. It reached around 7,000 members and I knew this was what I want to do with my life. It triggered change that helped people find meaning in their lives. Hareket Candır! is actually the cradle of everything good in my life.
With Kızlar Sahada, the story goes like this. When I started Actifit, i thought there was going to be a long line in front of my office door, but it didn’t happen back then. It was too early in the market, so I was going crazy and thinking about how to get work. Meanwhile, a friend of mine, Sarah, and I started talking on Facebook. She talked about how our boyfriends were playing soccer and that we should play too. The guys dismissed the idea, but Sarah said we should just go ahead and book a field. So we booked a field for a night and 18 of us ended up attending.
I think my life changed so drastically that night. I was on the field for the first time. I’ve always been a huge Galatasaray fan, I even went to Copenhagen for their final in 2000, but I had never played before. Despite being my first time, I was out there getting into it, pulling hair, and just doing everything to win. I wondered why I was behaving like such a bitch. Looking back now, I realized I just let myself be ambitious. I had never allowed myself to be ambitious. In Turkey, it’s “boss vs bossy” as Sheryl Sandberg says. If a little boy does a behavior like being too loud, people say he is behaving like a “boss”. If a little girl does it, they say she is being really “bossy”. I grew up with that. So that night on the field, for the very first time, I allowed myself to be both the boss and bossy. I didn’t want to win for myself. I wanted to win for the team. I allowed my barriers to come down because it was for the team. This created a huge paradigm shift for myself, and I wanted this shift to be multiplied for everyone around the world. So that’s how the idea for Kızlar Sahada started.
How big is the community now?
6,000 women have been on the field through our tournaments, leagues, and so forth. About 450 girls from social and economically disadvantaged backgrounds have received some sort of training or camp participation from us. We’ve had over 60 companies participate in one of our tournaments. We have had more than 50 schools participate in one of our programs. We’ve had more than 14,000 people attend our events, where we charge at the entrance and donate the proceeds to NGO work. So far we’ve contributed over 40,000 Lira to NGOs in Turkey.
So you’ve co-founded SWEATers App which is very much in the same theme of your sport-focused work. Could you shed some light on the story there?
The story of SWEATers App starts with my partner, the biggest stakeholder in the company. It’s basically her story, Elif Boyner. She had a boyfriend eight years ago who was a tri-athlete. In his free time he did triathlons – biking, running, and swimming. In the beginning she wondered why he did that to himself, but she wanted to spend more time with him and started training with him. In the end, she even signed up for a triathlon. At the end of the three and a half months, having experienced that true runner’s high, she wanted to introduce what he did for her to other people. She wanted to share that experience. We ended up meeting through friends and have been working for two years now. Both financially and in terms of impact, this is the biggest influence I’ve had in all of my businesses so far. We’ve had 50,000 people download the app and over 12,000 participate in one of our events.
With so many various projects in the works, what is your day to day like in keeping up with all these initiatives?
So I wish I woke up every day at 7:00, but often it’s around 8:00. I wake up every morning with my daughter Mila and we have breakfast and then play until 9:00 or 9:30. Then I leave for work. 60% of my time right now is spent with team members. I’ve realized the importance of having a good team. If you work closely with them, everything gets done, so that’s what I concentrate on. 20% is spent on new business, which is crucial and you have to do it. The other 20% is working with current clients. So that’s pretty much all of my time. Around 4 or 5 PM, I go home. I put my phone away and spend three or fours with Mila. After which, either I need to work and it’s bye-bye husband [laughter] or we get to spend some time together.
How does ATÖLYE fit in?
So the story actually goes like this. Kızlar Sahada had applied to a program through imece, the social innovation platform based here, and we were one of the ten teams selected from 88 applicants. We then made the top seven, and now we’re in the top three. Part of that includes free membership to ATÖLYE.
I’m seriously so in love with this place. imece has been the thing after university for me. I learned so much at college and then again here. I think here in Turkey we can make fun of when people want to learn, explore, etc. I went to schools that are amazing, even in Turkey, but when I went to Columbia, I was really surprised. It felt like how it should be. Everyone wanted to learn. It was so cool to learn. Everyone was just hungry for it. I got so much inspiration from that and realized it was OK to learn and be curious. After college, imece has been the one thing that has pushed me to my limits. It’s all about how much you push yourself. Ever since I’ve been accepted to the program, I feel like I owe so much to them. The amount of information here, like in design thinking, has changed the way I look at life. They taught me to look at how I think things should be, to test it with people, see if it’s really like that, and put it to use. If you fail, do it again. Fail, do it again. It has taken a big place in my mind. These communities are really important and we need to hang on to them.
You recently led a class for the community here entitled “Tiny Habits 101”. Could you share a bit about your focus on habits?
Well, you know I’m crazy about habits, and I’ve been reading about them for the past six years now. I think they’re how you create change in the world. BJ Fogg has been around at Stanford University for 30 years, where he created a lab called Persuasive Technology. Now, he’s the main adviser to Facebook, which is obviously a huge habit. One of his students, when he was teaching a summer course, went on to create Instagram. So for the past 30 or 40 years he has been working on habits. Tiny Habits is his creation and I tend to share the information I get from him with every human possible.
What’s next on the horizon for you?
I’ve learned so much in the past six years. It has been an amazing journey. I think I’m currently at 60%. I want to get these projects to fruition in the next three years. I’d like to graduate some of these projects. Sell them or exit. At least two of them are getting to that level of maturity. So that’s the first thing, as I’ve worked so hard against so many odds. It’s not easy to be an entrepreneur. Even if you have no money in your bank account you still have to go to those meetings, because there’s no other way of living. This is exactly how I want to live my life and I need to make it work. It creates a sense of urgency. But now, I’m getting the urge to graduate these projects and shift to public speaking and writing. I want to reach out to more people. Those are my dreams for the future.
Any final words of advice for those of us who have moved to Istanbul and find it difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle in the city?
Well, first if you’re a woman then come play with Kızlar Sahada. You don’t need to be able to play soccer. 90% of our participants have never played soccer before. Definitely join one of our tournaments or come volunteer with us. Men can also volunteer or come attend a match and their entry fee will go on to support NGOs. These are very strong communities. Once they get involved, they’ll have a team or volunteers around them. They’re creating a lot of belonging.
Also, of course download SWEATers App or follow us on social media. We have amazing events and around 10% of the attendance is from expats and tourists. Some of our trainers are English speaking. They can join the community and experience that sense of belonging.
If they’re a company, they could also contact me and get in our Actifit packages.
Finally, get some Turkish friends. It’s really so important. You’re living in Istanbul, you may as well get to meet some new people and learn their amazing stories.
To keep up with Melis and her work, be sure to visit the official pages for Actifit (FB, Twitter, Instagram), Kızlar Sahada (FB, Twitter, Instagram), and SWEATers App (FB, Instagram).
ATÖLYE Spotlight is our series on the inspiring community members of Istanbul’s most creative space.
All images courtesy of the interviewee.
