Today we’d like to introduce you to Tolga Onuk
Hi Tolga, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started as early as I was 5-6 years old, by playing legos and the video (cassette) games of commodore 64. I was so amazed and inspired by the digital technologies at a very early age and after I first got my PC, I became an avid gamer and a game design enthusiast.
I was an athlete at the same time and I was playing (American) Football at the Baskent University, Ankara. Our college team needed help with some custom website design, branding and marketing production which became a great way for me to both learn new things and execute my talent on how to rebrand an organization and promote it digitally via websites, posters, videos and even animations. I even found a sponsoring brand -Pizza Hut- to fund the manufacturing costs of our fancy Football Jackets when I was 19 years old.
After graduating with double majors in statistics and computer sciences, I worked for a digital agency in my hometown Ankara, Türkiye. After gaining some experience I wanted to move to California, USA to learn more about interactive design and digital technologies. I attended to Palomar College where I both played football as a defensive lineman and studied Interactive Design & 3d Animation as my post graduate education. After my graduation, I moved to Los Angeles and started working for top Digital & Interactive Studios.
After gaining years of priceless experience at several different studios, I built my own digital product development studio in Beverly Hills, CA at the end of 2013. At Thunderbolt, I led a team of 20-25 people that included multiple overseas engineering partners, and we built dozens of scalable startup projects, digital and interactive campaigns and corporate websites for global brands. Thunderbolt co-built Curbstand in 2013, an original LA transportation startup which raised $6.9M investments, and is still an active and operational company today. Thunderbolt also built Grassp, the first legally available Cannabis Delivery Startup which raised $1.5M Angel investments, and Grassp is also still an active company today.
Later on, Thunderbolt built an equity-crowdfunding platform that helped Startups to fundraise on a digital interface which ultimately got acquired by a Toronto based e-Sports Holdings company New Wave eSports. Later on, I was appointed as the CEO of the holdings company and helped the company to invest into variety of eSports organizations and online gaming startups.
After 2020, I focused on the emerging EVs & EV Charging industries. I was a part of Loop EV Charging Network and I helped the company to raise $5M in Seed and $60M in Series A funding with my contributions to fundraising, product design, management and marketing of the organization. Then I became a part of Envoy E-Mobility Series A Startup where I directed a team of engineers to build an enterprise level fleet tracking platform for EV sharing which got acquired by Blink Charging for $34M.
Since last year, I have been enthusiastically working on a new EV Charging startup.
In 2023, after playing one last semi-professional football season in the West Coast Football League (WCFL), I became the first Turk-American to win a National Championship Ring in the grid-iron league of the USA. On July 27th of August 2023, I played in the Sunshine Bowl as a part of Beach City Giants Football Team where we beat the east coast champion Sumter Sharks in Atlanta, GA.
I currently live in Playa Vista with my beautiful fiancé Paula and we are planning to get married next summer.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not at all.
First, I must say that there are significant cultural differences between American people and Turkish people. Turks are usually naturally givers and I realized more I give in the USA, more people think I am just “stupid”. However after almost 20 years, I still do not think in the American way. I try to be unconditionally be kind and be a giver under all circumstances.
I also had a major car accident which could leave me paralyzed in 2010, but I survived. A young kid who had no valid insurance hit me with his car while I was passing across the street on Melrose ave. Fun fact, the car was in inbound for 2 weeks but I left the hospital the next day.
I had serious personal issues during obtaining my green card which truly effected me and my life back in the day.
I also had many failed projects when I first launched my studio which almost made all the critics question the purpose of my company (even though it was one of the first streamlined outsourcing studio in West LA).
After selling my company for equity, the value of the shares dropped significantly during the Covid times, and I lost potentially million of dollars.
And of course, I had to go thru hell in the dating scene of Los Angeles, until I finally found my Finnish soulmate, almost 6 thousand miles away from LA!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have done a plethora of creative work and you can find some of my old portfolio pieces at www.be.net/tolgaonuk
Even though I have a deep expertise and experience in software product design and development, I consider myself as a talented designer, who can basically design anything from scratch. I also studied Statistics as my major, and my mother is a mathematician so I am very good in analytical thinking, numbers and overall organizational management.
All of these qualities helped me to be a leader in my industry and I strive to be better everyday. I am in the process of writing my own book to help guide younger immigrants who are willing to become the best in their fields, especially in the technology industry in the USA. I hope to have something fully drafted in a few months.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Integrity, Intelligence and Enthusiasm.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tolgaonuk.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/tolgaonuk
- Twitter: https://x.com/tolgaonuk
