Turkish real estate mogul Emir Bahadir is known for his love of luxury. His Instagram feed gives a glimpse into a jet-setting life of only the finest things, amassing 1.6 million followers to date. Emir’s latest venture marries his tech background and natural affinity for social media with his eye for good design. Bmoji is the personalised emoji app for those seeking a more bespoke avatar to represent their individuality online.

The market for personalised emojis is thriving. While Bitmoji’s cartoonish mini-mes have dominated the space for years, tech titans Facebook and Apple recently entered the arena with Avatars and Memoji stickers. Now Emir’s Bmoji has arrived with a unique proposition: rather than piecing together the personalised emojis from generic design elements, each likeness is handcrafted by a real designer. In this age of auto-generated everything, the reality of a human sitting in a chair and creating your digital likeness brings an appealing degree of authenticity. 

“While looking at other apps I noticed how I wasn’t able to make the emoji my own,” says Bahadir. “It was a stretch that people would recognize who it was, unless I sent it to them personally. I saw the gap in the market, and it got me thinking how I could create something much better. Unlike cartoon filters that simply blur and recolor your image, with the Bmoji algorithms and our skilled designers, a highly realistic Bmoji of yourself is created,” he says. “This enables users to express themselves in the highest level of authenticity, by capturing what makes one an individual.”

Bmoji is the latest strand to Emir’s many business interests. He has already branched out from his highly successful real estate brokerage and development business into entertainment and lifestyle projects, including a skincare line. His stellar career has gained him recognition in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list of standout entrepreneurs. 

The seed of the idea for Bmoji was planted while Emir was pursuing his degree in Technology Engineering at NYU. “During that time I saw a multitude of things changing from being more on a personal level to technology based, and I wanted to see how I could bring the two together,” he says. “My goal was to bring clarity with a sense of familiarity into the digital world.” 

Social media and messaging has transformed the way we communicate, with 6 billion emojis and stickers sent everyday. With so many little pictures carrying meaning across time zones, we no longer have to be in the same room or even speak the same language to have a conversation. And in the absence of a person’s face and body language, we search for emotional intention in the images that pop up on our screens. Bmoji speaks to this wish for emotional connection, meeting a basic need for understanding and closeness. “We live in a time when emotions are critical to understanding and supporting one another.” Says Emir. “At Bmoji we strive to personalize digital experiences and restore the humanity of our communication.”

The process of ‘Bmojification’ starts with the user’s three favourite selfies. After downloading the free app, the user uploads these and the design team proceed to create their personalised emoji. By breaking out of a limited selection of options for hair, skin and facial features, the designers bring a human touch to the finished result, which is a stylish likeness of the user. This personal Bmoji features in a range of stickers that can be used across multiple platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. New stickers arrive every month, featuring your Bmoji in a range of moods from starry eyed to fuming mad, loved up to celebratory. The app’s Instagram feed @Bmoji shows celebrity Bmojis in various guises, revealing the uncanny likenesses that are created and the fun that can be had with them. 

The app comes with a deck of free lifestyle emoji stickers from representing a range of items from plane to passport to glass of rosé, displaying more realism and finesse that standard emojis. Bmoji also allows for brand collaborations, with the potential for huge exposure across social media and messaging. The Baglietto superyacht 55M has already been Bmojified. “It’s an excellent way for a company to brand themselves in the most innovative and cutting edge way,” says Emir, “I’m looking forward to other activations and brand collaborations”.

With his eyes on the future of the app, Emir is aiming high. “The possibilities are endless, and because I believe in the accuracy of my designers, the strength of my operational, QC and development teams. I aim to keep the application evolving, further growing it into an even larger, more fun and customized application.” He sees the potential to capture a huge range of moods and emotions. “Some of our most experienced feelings have yet to be made into an emoji, and sometimes they just can’t be expressed in words. Some things can be conveyed much easier simply by using a Bmoji.”

Get the Bmoji app at www.thebmoji.com/downloadapp