On September 27th, 2006 I was so enthusiastic. I wrote an e-mail to Tom Fischer, then VP of EMEA for Pay By Touch, an innovative Biometrics company. It was almost one year I got out of college and Pay By Touch was on top of my wishlist for my entrepreneurial aspirations. Among many ideas, Pay By Touch became my favorite beucase I thought it really cut some serious friction out of people’s lives, by giving them an alternative payment method: biometric identifying information tied to people’s credit cards and bank accounts. I guess I was wrong. Totally wrong. Yet, I am glad I learnt it the easy way.

The way I was denied was a bit of failure for me. I applied with a detailed business plan depicting how to expand into Turkey, which merchants to start partnership and which banking institutions to get alliance. VP Tom Fischer had replied with a standard e-mail of denial and the rest is history.

Here is the e-mail I received:

Dear Mr Dogan

I returned from my US trip this morning having discussed your proposals with my US colleagues. While we appreciate your interest in Pay By Touch, we are not looking to expand our operations into Turkey at this point.

We do believe that Pay By Touch is applicable globally and intend to provide the service around the world in the future. As our international expansion plans evolve we would be pleased to explore the possibility of a partnership with your organization. However, we would not anticipate this taking place for another 12–18 months.

We would like to keep your details on file and will contact you at the appropriate time. I have copied your details to my colleague Gus Spanos who is the Executive responsible for Investor relationships.

Thank you again for your interest in Pay By Touch.

Best regards

Tom Fischer

Vice President

And here is the Pay By Touch landing page as of March 28th, 2008 (click for a readable copy):

So, sometimes denial is really meant for good.