Mevlana M. Gürbulak
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Istanbul, Turkey
Toptal member since December 16, 2021
Mevlana is a passionate product manager with a strong UX and analytical background. He has been working with the market leaders in Turkey, including the leading eCommerce company Hepsiburada, media company TRT, a micro-mobility company, Turkish Airlines, and Turk Telekom. Mevlana has led product teams in Turkey and in remote locations to deliver websites, mobile applications, and OTT applications used by more than 20 million people.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Backlog Management
- Mobile Applications
- Product Management
- Product Owner
- Product Roadmaps
- Scrum
- Sprint Planning
- eCommerce
Work Experience
Business Analyst
The Weather Channel
- Worked as the product owner for The Weather Channel and Local Now products on a freelance contract.
- Collaborated with six different scrum teams as a product owner. Made sure The Weather Channel and Local Now apps on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android, IOS, Apple TV, Samsung Tizen, Vizio, and Comcast are updated with new features and enhancements.
- Translated new features and improvements into Jira stories and prioritized the backlog based on the product roadmap, user needs, and value-added. Worked with the development team to run sprints.
Head of Product
EasyCep
- Set up the product team and made the transition to Agile methodologies. Working with the team, I translated new features and improvements into Jira stories and prioritized the backlog based on the product roadmap, user needs, and value-added.
- Launched the mobile application of the eCommerce website from scratch, which now brings more than 50% of the orders.
- Improved operational efficiency, thanks to improved back-office products, reduced the shipping operation per order from five minutes to under one minute.
Product Lead
Martı
- Worked with the VP of products and other stakeholders to create the product roadmap.
- Led the product team to create a backlog and user stories for mobile apps used by more than five million registered users.
- Developed mobile apps in collaboration with the development teams.
- Collected user feedback from multiple channels, including store reviews, call center logs, social media, and email, and created an action plan.
- Led UX research and design steps for new feature releases.
Senior Product Manager
Huawei Technologies Co.
- Helped the development team increase exposure rates of the food and drink category with better query targeting and understanding.
- Worked with the ecosystem team to increase coverage rate for retail chains and the food and drink category across seven countries.
- Contributed to the team by giving training on UX design for product managers.
Product Manager
TRT
- Launched TRT İzle, the VOD and live stream platform for the whole TRT network, used by five million users per month. TRT İzle is available on iOS, Android, web, and OTT platforms such as Apple TV, Android TV, and HTML5.
- Launched EBA TV within the TRT İzle platform. EBA TV provides the official online educational content for millions of Turkish students affected by the COVID-19 breakout. EBA TV is available on the web, iOS, Android, Apple TV, Android TV, and HTML5.
- Launched a custom CMS built in-house that enables TRT to manage all its digital platforms from one dashboard, including a video streaming platform, multiple news websites, an audio streaming platform, and several channel landing pages.
- Launched TRT World, the English news portal of TRT, on multiple platforms, including web, Android, iOS, and OTTs.
- Created roadmaps for the products and led the research, design, and development phases.
- Understood user needs with qualitative and quantitative research and aligned them with business requirements.
- Kept track of user feedback from multiple sources using feedback tools like Hotjar, app reviews, social media, and user comments and translated them into prioritized backlog items.
- Ran A/B tests to provide an optimized product performance.
- Managed the go-live process in cooperation with top management, product teams, marketing team, PR team, and advertising.
- Led the team to adopt Scrum methodologies as the product and development team grew.
Mobile Product Owner
Hepsiburada
- Redesigned and launched the number one eCommerce app in Turkey, collaborating with the scrum team.
- Increased the mobile conversion rate by redirecting the mobile traffic to mobile apps using deep linking.
- Conducted qualitative and quantitative research to understand user needs and designed the product based on the findings and aligned with business requirements.
- Helped designers translate the results of the research into design assets ready for development.
- Created the roadmap and product vision of mobile applications at Hepsiburada, considering current user experience, market dynamics, and company strategy.
- Made and prioritized the backlog considering added value and development cost.
- Collaborated with multiple teams such as digital marketing, CRM, SEO, and advertising to reach new download, traffic, and active user targets.
- Enabled communication among the development team, marketing teams, top management, and other stakeholders.
Senior User Experience Designer
Hepsiburada
- Redesigned the Hepsiburada experience from scratch. Changes included adding marketplace functionality, switching from a single-seller platform to a single product multi-vendor marketplace.
- Arranged user interviews and moderated user testing sessions with marketplace sellers and end users.
- Conducted qualitative and quantitative research to understand the experience of Hepsiburada customers.
- Led the user research effort to optimize the information architecture of the Hepsiburada platform and worked with the development team to apply the updates.
- Created wireframes and prototypes based on user research.
- Collaborated with a scrum team to ensure that designs were implemented as intended.
- Launched A/B tests and moderated user testing sessions to validate the design decisions and optimize the product.
Product Designer
Türk Telekom
- Launched a social commerce website with a scrum team. It lists all eCommerce products sold on different online platforms and enables users to see all reviews in one place, compare prices, create lists, and make purchasing decisions.
- Provided structured rich data to popular queries as part of the search engine team, making content partnerships with various content providers or crawling open resources.
- Researched user needs using query analysis and competitive benchmarking.
- Designed interfaces that fulfill user needs and aligned them with business needs.
Business Development Manager
Erlab Software
- Analyzed client needs and converted those needs into leads.
- Managed the delivery of the biggest video streaming projects in Turkey, including the first online VOD and SVOD streaming product, Tivibu.
- Enabled communication between the client and the software team during the development process.
- Finalized the sales and followed up after-sales activities.
Corporate Communications Specialist
Turkish Airlines
- Helped a digital agency launch a new intranet site for 15,000 employees of Turkish Airlines that utilize social features like messaging, profiles, and following along with corporate communication tools. The portal was built with SharePoint.
- Collaborated with a content agency to maintain the broadcast of AirTV, an IPTV solution that serves as a communications tool within Turkish Airlines offices in more than 150 countries.
- Coordinated the content of newsletters that Turkish Airlines circulates for communication purposes within the company as well as for communicating with stakeholders.
Project History
TRT İzle | VOD Product on Web, Mobile, and OTT Platforms
https://www.trtizle.com/Led the design and development of TRT İzle, a VOD product available on mobile, web, and OTT platforms and used by more than five million users.
TRT İzle enables more than five million users to stream TRT dramas, including the famous Dirilis Ertugrul and all 14 TRT live TV channel streams.
TRT İzle also provides remote education content to millions of Turkish students both in VOD and live stream format, working with the Ministry of Education.
Multiplatform CMS for TRT, Turkish Public Broadcaster
Led the design and development of an in-house content management system (CMS) that allows TRT to manage all of its digital platforms from one dashboard.
TRT CMS enables users to create video or audio content, articles, TV shows, live stream channels, video ads, push notifications, and social posts.
Then editors can create lists and components using the content created on the CMS and use these lists and components to build and manage web pages and APIs.
TRT World | News Channel in English
https://www.trtworld.com/Led the design and development of TRT World website, Android app, and iOS app.
TRT World also serves as an English news website and is available on the web, Android, and iOS. It reaches readers from all over the world and is mainly popular in Asia, the Middle East, and some parts of Europe.
Hepsiburada | eCommerce Marketplace
Led the redesign process for Hepsiburada website, which serves more than 15 million customers, and became the product owner of mobile applications (Android and IOS).
Martı Micromobility App
https://www.marti.tech/Led the design and product teams to manage the biggest micromobility app in Turkey. The number of users increased by 80% in less than a year. I integrated new payment systems into the app, including Martı Wallet and Masterpass.
Martı TAG
https://www.marti.tech/Led the product and design teams to launch the car-sharing app Martı TAG, available in Turkey. Started from scratch and managed the development process until the initial launch and the expansion period.
EasyCep Website and Mobile App
https://easycep.com/Led the product and design teams to develop the website and mobile applications of the leading refurbished eCommerce company, EasyCep.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration
Bogazici University - Istanbul, Turkey
Certifications
Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT
Vanderbilt University | via Coursera
Skills
Tools
Jira, Google Analytics, Figma
Paradigms
Scrum, Agile, Agile Product Management, Agile Project Management, B2C, User Testing, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Quantitative Research, Marketplace Platforms, Requirements Analysis
Platforms
Firebase, Android TV, Apple TV
Other
UX Research, Release Management, Sprint Planning, Product Roadmaps, Feature Prioritization, Backlog Grooming, Backlog Management, Stakeholder Management, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Web UI, User Research, User Flows, Estimation & Planning, User Experience (UX), Wireframing, Mobile Applications, Feature Roadmaps, Information Architecture (IA), Product Owner, Product Management, Startups, Product Strategy, Quantitative User Research, User Requirements, Content Management Systems (CMS), User Stories, Mobile Apps, User Experience Design, Mobile Analytics, iOS, Android, Web Video, Video Players, Video Streaming, Website CMS, Analytics, eCommerce, Conversion Rate, Qualitative Research, A/B Testing, Mobile UX, Google SEO, Mockups, Business to Consumer (B2C), Online Payments, Business Analysis, Business Requirements, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Two-sided Marketplaces, eCommerce UX, Technical Product Management, Payment Gateways, Push Notifications, Over-the-top Content (OTT), Digital Rights Management (DRM), Video Analytics, Catch-Up TV, Query Analysis, Search Engines, Video Livestreaming, User Feedback, Content Management, User Retention, Intranets, UX Design, Web Design, Web Portals, Audio Streaming, Digital Asset Management, User Interface (UI), Data Analytics, Technical Business Analysis, Media, Retail & Wholesale, Prompt Engineering, SQL
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