Eat this, tech purists: Aunty Binnaz reads fortunes from coffee cups, makes a killing

Technology startups are today’s entrepreneurial rockstars. Not a week goes by without an announcement of a new location-based app, niche social network, or online travel discovery service.

But like many hard-luck musicians, these startups burn bright at the beginning, relying on the quick fix of seed or venture funding, only to fade later on.

That’s because they are still searching for a business model, and until then, they can’t be legitimately called a sustainable business.

In the midst of this fever, Aunty Binnaz is an online service that stands out for modernizing an un-sexy industry — fortune-telling. Yes, I’m talking about psychic reading of the tarot-card, astrology sort.

Except in this case, Aunty Binnaz’s main product is coffee-cup reading, a popular form of fortune telling in Turkey.

Started in January 2011, the business is on track to generate an annual revenue of US$1M by doing “hundreds” of readings a day, says Turkish entrepreneur Sertac (pronounced sir-tarsh) Tasdelen, who’s also an Ernst & Young business consultant, fashion photographer, and part-time model.

He is based in Singapore, while his co-founder and CTO Kaya Diker works from the United States.

Aunty Binnaz’s business model is straightforward. It is a Turkish and English website that enables users to upload pictures of their empty coffee cups to any of the 30 carefully selected and listed fortune-tellers.

Customers pay a US$6 fee per reading, which can be received either via text or voice recording. Aunty Binnaz (which is actually branded after Sertac’s mum) keeps a share of the revenue.

The company, registered in Singapore, recently added Tarot card and Astrology readers to their ranks, and has just launched an iPhone app in Turkish. 90 percent of customers are from his native country, and that market is their focus for now.

Like me, you may be skeptical about the fortune-telling business, or even the ethics of it.

But it makes a lot of business sense. Psychic reading is a money-spinning endeavor. A study suggests that one in seven Americans have consulted a psychic. In Asian countries like Japan and Taiwan, fortune-telling is huge too. That goes without saying: The Chinese are a superstitious lot.

“We grew organically. That’s the key in any startup.”

“Starting a business is a childhood dream of mine. I believe that sometimes, you don’t push things, they catch you if you have a open heart.”