“Success isn’t just about the results—it’s also about the relationships you build along the way.”
As a multi-partner investment company and angel investment network, we fund our investments from two sources: The first, unlike other angel investor networks, is our company consisting of TRAngels partners. The second is the individual investments of TRAngels Investor Group members. Today, we are sharing with you an interview with the founder of &New Me, Ahmet Faruk Fırat, where he talks about his entrepreneurial journey, how his business idea was born, and his experiences with investors and mentoring after meeting TRAngels.
At TRAngels, one of our most important values is to embrace projects as if they were our own and work together with entrepreneurs to further develop their ideas. Ahmet Faruk Fırat also explained the unique difference of how our beloved member Refika Özcan, whom we sadly lost too soon, contributed to &New Me not only as an investor but also as a mentor. We would like to take this opportunity to remember dear Refika Özcan once again.
Could you please tell us about &New Me?
&New Me is digitalizing Turkey’s $5 billion annual health tourism market and offering an end-to-end marketplace model. In today’s fragmented and innovation-limited market, we help patients to meet trustworthy institutions in a transparent way.
Patients can, just like in other online marketplaces, make choices based on reviews, receive offers from suitable healthcare providers, facilitate their payments, and access all additional services they need (accommodation, flights, tours, digital services, etc.) from a single platform.
As a result, for the first time in health tourism, we are making an end-to-end experience possible on one single platform.
What are you doing now, and what are your near-term goals?
Now, our strategy is focused on a few high-demand treatment areas (gastric sleeve, facelift, dental). To give an analogy, it’s like Amazon starting with books before dominating all of e-commerce: first, we establish the model, then we expand into other treatment areas.
At the same time, b like an agency operating under our brand, we identify the weaknesses of the marketplace and prepare for scaling.
Our most critical differentiator is our AI agent, called Neome. Neome responds to all incoming inquiries, answers questions, provides offers, and classifies requests. All that remains for us is to close the sale. In this way, we are creating the first fully automated, end-to-end health tourism sales model.
In addition, we offer patients additional services (flights, hotels, tours, digital services, extra products). This enables us to improve revenue per patient while also transitioning to a full end-to-end fintech solution for health tourism.
On the customer acquisition side, we transformed former patients and agencies into sales channels through referral models. This allowed us to shift from advertising to referrals, cutting our customer acquisition costs by half.
Our near-term goals:
- Complete our “Wallet” model,
- Expand Neome’s capacity to offer patients a full “AI tour assistant”,
- Broaden treatment options,
- Launch in a second health tourism country within one year.
Could you tell us about your own entrepreneurial journey?
Since I was a child, I have always behaved like an entrepreneur, identifying gaps and turning them into opportunities. I’ve had many small ventures ranging from selling personalized music cassettes in middle school to running a bag business in the U.S.
About seven years ago, while searching for a hair transplant, I realized how difficult it was to find a trustworthy clinic in a strong healthcare country like Turkey. You could not find unbiased information or reviews — a “Booking.com” for healthcare was missing. To solve this problem, we founded Yeniben.com.
Due to legislation and the patient profile in Turkey, we modified our concept two years ago to focus on global health tourism and founded &New Me, a technology-driven healthcare marketplace concentrating in the aesthetics sector.
For me, entrepreneurship isn’t just about making money; it’s about creating innovation and changing the game. &New Me was founded with exactly this vision: to become one of the first players redefining health tourism worldwide.
How did your paths cross with TRAngels?
Our paths crossed with TRAngels during our pre-seed funding round, right when we pivoted to &New Me. I was very impressed by the smart questions they asked during the first presentation.
Soon after, TRAngels angel investors, the late Refika Özcan and Özlem Petek Hün, showed strong belief in our venture. Not only did they invest themselves, but after a few meetings, they also convinced other investors in the network, becoming the largest investor group in that round.
This approach brought us not only financial support but also vision and confidence.
How did your mentorship process with your angel investor(s) begin? What did you learn as a team during this period, and what did they contribute to you?
At first, I thought it would be enough to simply keep our investors updated. But over time, I realized that they couldn’t perceive all the dynamics of our business from the outside. As an entrepreneur, I understood the importance of receiving mentorship from people I trusted.
At that point, Refika Özcan and Özlem Petek Hün, the investors I had the most active communication with, stepped in. Especially Refika Özcan; at our request, she became directly involved in the process: she attended our meetings, tried to know the team, served as a liaison with other investors, and gave valuable feedback on product and strategy. She led me through important decision-making moments, increased the team’s motivation, and acted almost like a “co-founder.”
Refika Özcan’s impact on us remains significant even after her death. Even now, whenever there is good or bad news, I feel compelled to share it with her; however, this is no longer possible.
The biggest lesson we learnt from this process was to incorporate people who can help you not just with the results but also with the process. Success isn’t only about getting results—it’s also about the relationships you build along the way.”
On this occasion, I would like to once again commemorate Refika Özcan and thank the TRAngels family for giving us this opportunity.
