In conversation with Monq co-founders Yasin Bostanci & Duygu Gozeler Porchet

Outward recently led Monq’s $3m funding round – you can read about our investment thesis here.

We sat down with co-founders Yasin and Duygu to talk about the experiences that shaped them, how they landed on procurement as a problem, and what’s next for Monq.

Yasin

I come from what I’d call an aggressively competitive family – not in attitude, but in sheer opportunity. My parents had the means to support me, yet their philosophy was razor-sharp: “We’re here if you really need us, but carving your own path? That’s all you.” By my teenage years, I’d internalised a mentality that felt almost primal: I could survive anywhere, on my own terms.

Through school and work, I kept pulling up stakes and replanting myself in new countries – each time building a life from absolute zero. Living in that beautiful, chaotic ambiguity didn’t just give me confidence; it weaponised my curiosity and exploded my expectations for what life could be. It made me more courageous than most people I knew, and that fire followed me everywhere – from Huawei to Amazon to Revolut, and now to Monq.

Duygu

My personal story is rooted in my identity as a Turkish woman. 

Growing up, I was fortunate to have a family that encouraged me to pursue my dreams and forge my own path. From a young age, my mother instilled in me the importance of education and financial independence. My parents’ guidance resonated with me deeply, and pursuing those goals has been a driving force behind my academic and professional accomplishments.

At my core, I am driven by a desire to help shape a better future for women. As a mother of two young daughters, I am deeply invested in the world they will inherit and the opportunities they will have. Recently, while completing my Executive MBA at the University of Oxford, I had the privilege of delivering a speech about the challenges of being a businesswoman, and the vision we must work towards for future female leaders. 

My decision to transition from banking to entrepreneurship was fueled by a determination to create my own path and build a company that embodies my values. I am committed to fostering a culture that champions equality, gender rights, and a more just society. 

Yasin

Monq was born from frustration – specifically, throughout my career watching procurement grind people down. Over nearly ten years, I wore every hat imaginable: customer support, CEO’s office, you name it. And every single time, I slammed into the same wall. Dealing with anything that involves procurement was a nightmare. Review meetings that went nowhere. Stakeholders moving at glacial speed. Endless back-and-forth that drained souls. Everything felt like it was designed to torture people.

Then it hit me: if fast-moving, cutting-edge companies were drowning in this mess, what were legacy enterprises dealing with? Probably something apocalyptic.

So I started hunting. I talked to procurement team after procurement team. When Duygu came on board, we went all-in together. The pattern was undeniable – almost every enterprise we spoke to said the same thing: “We’re desperate. Nothing works as we wanted.” That made our decision inevitable.

The name Monq? That was Duygu’s genius. Procurement is chaos and stress incarnate. We wanted to build the antidote – something that transforms a traditionally soul-crushing, time-devouring process into something almost… zen.

Duygu

We imagine Monq as an AI colleague that brings a bit of Zen into enterprise procurement. The name is a playful nod to the idea of a “monk” – someone who embodies tranquility, focus, and wisdom. We believe those qualities are essential for navigating the complex world of procurement negotiations.

Yasin

For me, it started as raw survival.

When you’re constantly uprooting yourself and building a life from nothing in new corners of the world, you either forge discipline into your bones or you collapse. For a long time, “success” wasn’t some lofty goal – it was just stability. Keeping the lights on. But after fifteen years grinding across cultures – China, the US, the UK, the UAE, Turkey and everywhere in between, that survival instinct didn’t just stick around. It mutated into something hungrier: ambition.

Eventually, I had this clarifying moment: I didn’t want to execute someone else’s vision anymore. I wanted to create it. People sometimes ask if entrepreneurship requires some special talent, some X-factor. Honestly? I think that’s overthinking it. The truth is brutally simple: I decided I don’t quit. That’s the entire formula.

Duygu

Mine is similar in spirit. I’ve lived and worked across Turkey, North America, the Middle East and Brazil. My career was in large institutions, but my roles were always entrepreneurial. At HSBC, I was tasked with building out the LatAm business. I didn’t speak Portuguese, and hadn’t lived in Brazil, but I was excited to figure it out and seek business opportunities in the region.

I have always been drawn to the excitement of entrepreneurship – the curiosity, the push to think outside the box. Even in big corporates, I would constantly ask, “what can we do differently?”. That probably comes from my background in mathematics, where I’ve always been obsessed with identifying problems and solving them.

Duygu on Yasin

Yasin’s biggest strength is his speed and quality of execution, a rare combination. I’ve seen him take complex problems, break them down, and deliver solutions in record time without compromising on quality. His operational capability, combined with his analytical mind, allows him to make data-driven decisions quickly, which is crucial in the fast-paced startup world. Moreover, his resilience and positive attitude in the face of setbacks keep our team motivated and pushing forward.

I feel lucky to have found a partner like him!

Yasin on Duygu

Duygu has a supernatural social battery. She builds relationships with an ease that’s almost unfair — it’s a skill I simply don’t possess. I’m the classic engineer: give me a laptop and I’ll disappear into code for twelve hours straight, shipping whatever needs to exist. But here’s the reality: a business like ours doesn’t win on code alone. You need someone who can walk into rooms full of enterprise executives, read the room instantly, and make them believers. Someone who can navigate stakeholder politics like it’s second nature.

That’s Duygu.

Without her, Monq wouldn’t have made it off the ground. And without her? We won’t make it to the finish line either. She’s not just important to this company – she’s essential to its survival.

Yasin

Almost every enterprise we spoke to was chanting the same mantra: “AI transformation” for procurement. Standard stuff. But then one customer said something that detonated our entire approach: they were exhausted from buying a different tool for every microscopic part of the process.

That hit me like a freight train: maybe they don’t need another tool cluttering their tech stack. Maybe what they’re screaming for is an AI colleague that just does the damn work.

That single insight torched our entire engineering philosophy. We stopped building a workflow tool immediately and pivoted to something radically different: a high-performing AI agent that doesn’t sit on the sidelines – it joins your company as actual workforce. We weren’t building a “tool” anymore. We were building a teammate.

That’s not an incremental change. That’s a foundational, philosophical earthquake.

Yasin

We want to become the operating system for procurement negotiations.

In a few years, this is the reality: almost every major company will have an invisible engine humming beneath their procurement processes. Those soul-crushing repetitive approvals? Gone. Monq handles them while humans sleep. Those massive, labyrinthine negotiations that historically devoured armies of people, mountains of cash, and months of time? Monq runs them – and does it better than humans in most cases, while keeping humans in the loop as ultimate decision makers. As mentioned elsewhere, we believe humans should own the financial decisions.

Here’s what’s radical about our vision: Monq won’t be flashy software screaming for attention. It’ll be the quiet intelligence in the background, the invisible nervous system making your company sharper, faster, and smarter every single day.

You won’t see it. But you’ll feel it everywhere.

Duygu 

In the future, we’ll look back and wonder why strategic negotiations were so time-consuming and suboptimal before Monq. Enterprises will reminisce, “Once upon a time, we used to handle all these negotiations manually, without the power of AI. How did we ever manage?”

Yasin

We’re still crystallising our values, but they orbit three non-negotiables: high standards, zero ego, and full ownership.

Clarity demolishes hierarchy here. Impact trumps comfort every single time. And if you hit your first roadblock and fold? This place will eat you alive. We don’t quit, we solve.

We’re not building a company for people who want safety. We’re building it for people who want to leave a dent in the universe.

Duygu

I’d add that inclusivity is a core value for us. 

We strongly believe in the power of diversity – not just in terms of gender and race but also in thought and perspective. As founders, Yasin and I bring different strengths and weaknesses to the table, and we actively seek out new hires who can contribute their unique skills and viewpoints. We recognise that surrounding ourselves with people who look and think just like us limits our potential for growth and innovation.

At Monq, we strive to create a culture that embraces diverse needs of our team members. Whether you are a parent who needs to step away at 4pm to pick up your child from the nursery or someone who works best in the early morning hours, we trust that you’ll deliver great results on your own terms. Our goal is to attract and retain responsible, talented individuals who thrive in a flexible and supportive environment.

Patrick Collison from Stripe. No question.

Not just because he built one of the most consequential companies of our generation – that’s table stakes. What electrifies me is what he’s doing beyond Stripe: pouring resources into the Arc Institute, accelerating breakthroughs in science and healthcare that could reshape civilisation.

For me, building a massive business isn’t the endgame; it’s the vehicle. I want to help the world move faster on things that actually matter: scientific discovery, healthcare innovation, expanding humanity’s knowledge frontier. That’s the kind of legacy that echoes for generations. A successful company is impressive. A successful company that catalyses human progress? That’s immortal.

Duygu

I’d choose Reshma Sauhani, the founder of Girls Who Code. Her authentic leadership and ambition to drive change at scale are inspiring. I’d love to talk to her about influencing decision-makers to advance my own mission as an entrepreneur.

Yasin

I play piano – badly sometimes, even after twenty-five years – which keeps me humble about everything else.

Duygu 

I’m an advanced scuba diver; I fearlessly navigated through shipwrecks and embarked on night dives in South East Asia.