So the young entrepreneur Ally Khalil Iversen decided to invest her years of experience in the entertainment industry and came up with Mixfame.com to make your film and television dreams possible in the Middle East.
We chatted with Ally to learn more about her career and the concept behind the free registration website Mixfame.com.
AM: Please tell us more about Mixfame.com?
Mixfame is a modern day talent platform that connects people to production houses through their full service casting platform www.mixfame.com. The candidate is not required to have previous experience and we provide production houses the chance to recruit fresh-faced talent while giving everyone a chance to live their dream of bagging a job as a star, a model or an entertainer.
AM: Where did the idea of the talent platform’s name come from?
We wanted to draw parallels with the multi-cultural and mixed ethnicities represented in the Middle East hence the “Mix” and obviously combined it with “Fame,” as this would easily identify with our target group and the entire motivation of signing up to our platform. We never saw our platform as something limited to the Middle East, so it also had to have an international potential.
AM: What differentiates Mixfame platform from other talent recruitment agencies?
The clear difference is the fact that you don't need prior experience to register on Mixfame since we are not just a talent agency who is always looking for previous experience. Mixfame is a casting platform that allows talents, regardless of their lack of experience, to connect with producers and directors, have an opportunity to be discovered, become TV stars and land jobs that they have only dreamt about. Missions like; audiences of a show, actors in commercials, models for a photographer or work in any other entertainment industry looking for people for short-term limelight opportunities. We like to promote our people more than jobs.
AM: What are some notable success stories of people who registered on the Mixfame.com platform with no prior experience?
We barely know where to start, with more than 1000 roles posted in the past 12 months, someone, somewhere was bound to achieve success. On an average a few hundred people land first time experiences in the performance/acting industry every month. Achieving this alone is our biggest success, removing the barrier of entry into this industry in the Middle East - which is unprecedented. We've seen housewives and unemployed talents now working more or less full time in commercial projects, such as acting and modeling, and we've placed some inexperienced talents with a natural flair, in full time TV presenting jobs. As a result we have successfully engaged with 100s of thousands of people on TV every week. Our most notable success is not with a singled out individual, but with the fact that we connected thousands of U.A.E. based talents with production houses, photographers, casting professionals, movie makers and professionals within entertainment industry. Creating opportunities is everything we are about!
AM: What are upcoming projects for Mixfame?
At the moment, we just finalized casting for a large Middle Eastern TV show, we are now
working with both a Nollywood (Nigerian) feature film and an international TV show for the Cartoon Network auditioning and scouting options in the U.A.E.
We are constantly working on creating more and better opportunities to our 25,000 plus
members in U.A.E. and Lebanon.
AM: Back to you, how challenging is it to be a female entrepreneur in the Middle East?
I'm very lucky to work within media production, entertainment, events and similar industries, which is definitely a stronger representation of female entrepreneurs, so I don't see it as a challenge at all. On occasions, dealing with the wrong people can still trigger small but noticeable reactions from decision makers when they see a young woman like me for the first time, negotiating half a million Dirhams budgets, or talking about expanding business into the entire Middle East. But in general I feel very capable here in the U.A.E. as a female entrepreneur.
AM: What is your advice to all the young entrepreneurs in the MENA region?
Work with something that you have a real passion for, don’t think about making money as the primary goal. You are in it for the wrong reasons if money is the driving force of your business. Obviously the business plan needs to make sense, but passion should always be the primary driving force that wakes you up in the morning. Also forget everything about being good. Hundreds of other people are “good,” you need to be magnificent to make it big.
Editor’s Note: Go ahead and sign-up for free to Mixfame.com and become part of the success stories who got to live their dream and achieve their potential.