Merve Okutan

Hey Contra,

I’m Merve, a London-based freelancer turning messy ideas and half-formed thoughts into clear, inviting visual stories for startups. Think engineering precision meets creative chaos.

I spend most of my time shaping narratives people actually want to follow, with pitch...

The end of year freelancer limbo is real. Work slows down, clients go quiet, but there’s still things to do.. and focusing is NOT easy.

How do you all handle this period? Do you lean into rest and planning, or just accept that productivity looks different right now?

I don’t often use AI visuals in my work, and honestly, I used to be completely against it. But seeing how the Contra community uses AI as an extension of their process (rather than a replacement) really shifted my view. So I started exploring how it could enhance mine.

One of my...

Sometimes I catch myself thinking, “Do we really need the kitchen sink in there?”. Some founders expect a pitch deck to feel ‘full’, like it needs every possible visual idea thrown in with all the bells and whistles.

But in my work, intentional simplicity almost always leads to...