Laytime and demurrage: where small owners lose money
A look at where the chain from voyage documents to a demurrage claim leaks.
Founder of Yugen Zetta
Builds software for maritime operations from Mersin. Spent four years in Shanghai and works in Turkish, English and Mandarin.
Ege Baykal is an entrepreneur based in Mersin. He graduated from Tarsus American College in 2019 and lived in Shanghai from 2022 to 2026, studying the Chinese Language Program at Fudan University and then the Business Chinese Language Program at East China Normal University.
Alongside his studies he worked the trade itself: he built supplier contacts for companies at trade fairs and brokered deals, sold copper and aluminium to cable factories in Türkiye, and found manufacturers for foreign investors and e-commerce sellers. He checked and reported on suppliers' reliability and joined pre-shipment checks on the ground.
Today he is building Yugen Zetta: maritime software that brings laytime and demurrage, voyage, fuel, certificate and compliance work for owners and operators running 3 to 12 vessels into one place. He runs both the business and the technical side of the product himself.
Music is part of his life too. In high school he sang lead on the TAC Echo'17 stage at Tarsus American College and went on with the band Boş Kemikler, leaving before his move to China. His song "Çık Karşıma" is on Spotify. In Türkiye he has also independently produced concerts with well-known artists.
Maritime operations software. It brings the laytime and demurrage, voyage, fuel, certificate and compliance processes of owners and operators running 3 to 12 vessels onto one screen, and backs demurrage claims with historical vessel positions and weather data. Currently in demo. As founder he runs both the business and the technical side of the product.
Collected supplier contacts for companies at trade fairs and brokered deals. Sold copper and aluminium to cable factories in Türkiye. Found manufacturers for foreign investors and e-commerce sellers, checked their reliability through company registries such as QCC and reported on it, and took part in on-site checks such as pre-shipment counts.
Four months spending a week in each of the terminal's departments, seeing how a container port runs from end to end.
Sold BP fuel and Castrol lubricants to factories and farmers. Covered the Adana, Mersin and Tarsus organised industrial zones in the field, selling hardware and spare parts such as Timken bearings and V-belts.
Two-month summer internship during high school in the international trade department.
A look at where the chain from voyage documents to a demurrage claim leaks.
Where AI does real work in fleet operations today.
How living in China shaped the way of working and the trade lane.
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