The bonus amounted to over $200,000 per person—a huge sum, especially considering the employees’ monthly salaries ranged between 3,000 and 5,000 Turkish liras (about $1,000 to $1,800). “There were emotions, because you affect the lives of the people. People can buy homes, cars,” Aydın said.

This type of reward is rare, but not completely unheard of. A US businessman similarly gave out $6 million to 570 employees recently after the sale of a company. He said he shared profits after a previous sale as well.

Yemeksepeti was started in 2000 with $80,000 of capital, and has raised $44 million in two rounds of funding. Aydın says the company now does over 3 million transactions a month.

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