$1.45B in Sight: Gurhan’s High-Risk, High-Impact Model That Skips Over-Planning

Gurhan Kiziloz doesn’t spend much time looking back. His attention, by choice, remains fixed on what’s ahead and how fast he can get there. When asked what happens when he makes the wrong call, he doesn’t hesitate: “I get it wrong all the time,” he says. “But those few right moments are so big, they wipe out all the wrongs.”

This mindset, aiming for impact over precision, shapes how Kiziloz has grown Nexus International, the holding company behind Megaposta. With no external funding, no board, and full operational control, Nexus reported $400 million in revenue in 2024. Projections for 2025 are set at $1.45 billion.

Rather than optimize for consistency, Kiziloz leans into what he calls “home runs.” He references Babe Ruth, the baseball icon known for both his record-setting home runs and his strikeouts. Ruth’s legacy wasn’t built on avoiding failure; it was built on accepting it as part of the process. “They once asked Babe Ruth what he thought about when he struck out,” Kiziloz explains. “He said, ‘I just think about home runs.’ Same here.”

This approach doesn’t stem from overconfidence. It comes from conviction, a belief that impact only happens when you’re willing to act without hesitation. It also means that failure isn’t something to fear; it’s something to pass through. In practice, that mindset shows up in fast-paced decision-making, minimal layers of management, and an almost complete rejection of traditional startup advice.

Kiziloz has turned down venture capital repeatedly, despite clear traction. “I’m too proud to borrow money,” he said. “If I can build it myself, I will.” This independence is closely tied to his philosophy of learning through action, not consensus. He doesn’t aim to get everything right. He aims to move quickly enough that when something clicks, there’s no delay in acting on it.

That pace is built into the culture at Nexus. A typical decision cycle doesn’t involve committees or documentation. “Give me an idea. If I like it, I go get it done,” is how Kiziloz describes it. The result is a system that prioritizes velocity over perfection, where good ideas go live quickly, and bad ones are discarded without ceremony.

The tradeoff is structural. A company designed to swing for big wins must be comfortable with misses, and the culture has to absorb that risk without losing momentum. Not every team can adapt to that level of pressure. “Not everyone is designed to take a ride in a rocketship,” Kiziloz has said when asked about burnout or staff turnover.

That remark isn’t flippant. It reflects a core operating truth inside Nexus: momentum is a priority. Reflection, while useful in moderation, is often seen as a luxury. “I don’t reflect; I just keep moving,” he told us. The model isn’t about stubbornness; it’s about maintaining a rhythm that allows mistakes to be outpaced by wins.

There’s a long-standing debate in business around the value of precision versus speed. Kiziloz’s approach aligns more closely with founders like Elon Musk during Tesla’s early years, where failure was an accepted cost of rapid development, rather than leaders who focus on tightly-controlled scaling models. But unlike many operators in that mold, Kiziloz has done it without raising external capital, leaning entirely on revenue to fund expansion.

The absence of outside pressure also plays a role. There are no investor updates, board approvals, or performance reviews structured around quarterly optics. Without that structure, the only real accountability is internal. If something doesn’t work, it’s dropped. If it does, it’s scaled, often aggressively.

That simplicity, according to Kiziloz, is part of the advantage. “If it fails, I start again,” he says. For some founders, that may sound cavalier. But inside Nexus, it’s treated as a safeguard, a way to avoid analysis paralysis and maintain creative momentum.

Still, this isn’t a blueprint. Not every company can or should operate with that level of personal ownership or tolerance for risk. But for Nexus, it has delivered scale at a rate few self-funded businesses match, from zero to $400 million in a single year, and a target that’s more than triple that by the next.

In a world where founders are often taught to avoid risk, minimize mistakes, and build slowly but steadily, Kiziloz represents a different philosophy. Not better. Not worse. Just different. One that accepts getting it wrong, if it means having the chance to get something else right.

And for now, at least, the numbers suggest that the swing-big approach has connected.