Mert Yentur / What I’ve been up to
I started with my father’s computer.
Here’s what I’ve built since.
Both my parents are engineers. My father introduced me to computers with AutoCAD when I was seven.
Apparently, crayons were too straightforward.
Neuromancer on the desk. A Lamborghini Diablo and Michael Schumacher on the wall. The Matrix, eXistenZ and The Thirteenth Floor waiting to be watched.
The books and VCDs were new, and the computer ran Windows 98.
I reverse-engineered the original iPhone and built Crossy: a snow globe driven by the accelerometer, one of the first native iPhone apps.
There was no official SDK yet. I wanted to see what I could get running on it.
On the home screen, look for the Swiss cross in the dock.
After my computer engineering degree at Istanbul Technical University, I went to UZH and ETH Zürich to study computational neuroscience and neuromorphic engineering.
I explored silicon retina and cochlea systems, including experiments with a foveal vision sensor. I wanted to understand how brains work and find useful applications.
I founded Pitcher and built its original prototype. A presentation tool grew into an enterprise platform with offline CRM and field workflows.
I was the founder, CEO, salesperson and an engineer on the product. The customer conversation and the code were parts of the same job.
The meeting could happen anywhere.
In-person meetings stopped. A field-sales platform needed another way to reach people.
I built the Node.js backend and integrations for remote detailing in approximately a month. Browser access and WhatsApp invitations took the experience beyond the sales representative’s iPad.
I grew Pitcher to eight-figure ARR. It found a new home with Crest Rock Partners in 2022.
I stayed on, first as CEO of a 150-person team, then as Chief Innovation Officer until 2025. As the team rebuilt the core platform, I worked on prototypes for the next version.
2010–2025 / The Pitcher years
I build the apps. Alexandra looks after the business and tests what we make. Our son helps test Tellytide.
Music, training, screen time, the drive home. We start with something our family needs, use it ourselves, and keep working on it.
Visit the AUGE kitchenI’m going deeper into Python, PyTorch and language models. Time Sloths and Boxing Stash are on the workbench.
I’m still building the things I want to use.
Let’s make somethingI’m Mert. I build products
to solve problems I care about.
I like taking an idea all the way to a product people can use.
I work out what to build, choose the architecture, and get a prototype working. Then I keep going through the integrations, debugging and launch.
I did this with Crossy in 2007 and Pitcher in 2010. Now I’m doing it at AUGE. Sometimes I write the code; sometimes I direct AI agents or work with a team. I’m responsible for the architecture, the decisions, and whether the product works.
I start with the problem and work out what would actually help.
I choose the architecture and get the difficult part working first. Then people can try it.
I follow the bug through the system. Sometimes the assumption is wrong, not the code.
I ship it, see how people use it, and fix what needs fixing.
I’ve shipped products at Pitcher and AUGE. I’m now learning more about training language models with Python and PyTorch.
I’m learning how the data, architecture and training objective affect a model. I start with a small experiment and a baseline before trying a larger run.
I’m exploring fine-tuning and feedback: pick a behavior to improve, define how to test it, then compare the result with the starting model on examples it hasn’t seen.
I connect the models, data and interface, then work through the state, latency and failure cases. It has to work when someone actually uses it.
I build the apps. Alexandra looks after the business and tests what we make. Our son helps test Tellytide.
Music, training, screen time, the drive home. We start with something our family needs, use it ourselves, and keep working on it.
Visit the AUGE kitchen
I like metal. I like singing along. Understanding the vocals is a separate engineering problem. Lyrical puts the lyrics where I can see them.
I’ve trained since I was 16 (with mixed results). I built NAFA to keep workouts, food and health data together, so I can ask my own agent about them. You choose the agent.
I built Tellytide for my son. I use it too. You pick the channels, and the feed shows nothing else.
Roadcast brings private subscription feeds to the car browser. Add your feeds and listen to your own queue.
Explore Roadcast
What I’m
working on next.
A family day planner in ten-minute blocks.
IN DEVELOPMENTA memory for where you put your stuff.
IN DEVELOPMENTI founded Pitcher in 2010 and built its first prototype. I was CEO for eleven years, its lead salesperson and an engineer on the product. I grew the company to eight-figure ARR. Pitcher found a new home with Crest Rock Partners in 2022. I stayed on as CEO of a 150-person team, then as Chief Innovation Officer until 2025.
I built and maintained the iOS app, the conversion engine and the analytics engine for most of that run. When the engineering team rebuilt the core platform for Pitcher NG, I returned to building the next version from the ground up.
The product kept changing: offline presentations, CRM, remote detailing, then a new platform. I worked on it for fifteen years.
Build the
first prototype.
Move the meeting
into the browser.
A new
home.
Reimagine the
platform underneath.
I wanted to understand how brains work, and what consciousness is. That’s why I went into computational neuroscience.
That took me to the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zürich in 2008, to study computational neuroscience and neuromorphic engineering: electronic systems that borrow ideas from nervous systems, down to the way circuits sense and communicate.
I explored silicon retina and silicon cochlea systems. My project work included experiments with a foveal vision sensor, looking for practical ways to observe people and vehicles. I wanted to find something useful to build with them.
In an event-based retina such as the Dynamic Vision Sensor, individual pixels report local changes in brightness as they happen. Each event carries a location and a time. A moving edge becomes a stream of activity, without waiting for the next full camera frame.
A silicon cochlea takes inspiration from the inner ear, separating sound into frequency channels. Event-based versions encode activity as precisely timed spikes. Sight and sound become signals that other circuits can process as events arrive.
The practical applications were still years away. I completed the coursework but didn’t finish the degree. I wanted to build things people could use. Pitcher came next.
I’m still interested in perception. AUGE means “eye” in German, and Lyrical puts lyrics on smart glasses while the music plays. I’m working on different applications now.
Back to what I’m building nowThat’s the number I want to optimize.
Both my parents are engineers. My father introduced me to computers with AutoCAD. I was seven. Apparently, crayons were too straightforward.
I drew talking-animal cartoons, made a magazine and handed it out at school with bubblegum attached. My father printed the copies at his office. The distribution strategy was edible.
I’m from Ankara. I studied computer engineering at Istanbul Technical University, then moved to Zürich. I worked with WebObjects and an iPod simulator before getting into the iPhone. In November 2007, I reverse-engineered it and built Crossy before the SDK or the App Store existed. It was an accelerometer-driven snow globe and one of the first native iPhone apps. After that came silicon retina experiments, then Pitcher.
After fifteen years at Pitcher, Alexandra and I are building AUGE as a family business, around things we need at home. I choose the problem, decide how the product should behave, direct the work and keep pushing until it works that way.
I’m also learning to build a small language model in Python and PyTorch. There’s plenty left to figure out.
My biography · Explore the timeline
Making Engineering Ridiculously Tangible.
Have something you want to build?
Let’s build