Today we’d like to introduce you to Rum Sheikhani.
Rum, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Castifi makes event and media productions more environmentally sustainable and less expensive to build and operate.
I was inspired to find a better way to manage the operational challenges I was facing while working in production accounting at television studios. I noticed my team and I were spending hours on repetitive, administrative tasks. I devised my own hacky tools from Excel to help, but as I started looking into it more, I realized there was a larger problem with how background actors were sourced, hired, managed, and finally paid out. I saw that there were pain points for everyone involved, and ultimately, that’s what inspired me to create Castifi four years ago.
The platform has a network of 20k BTL cast and crew members that have been sourced, staffed, tracked, and paid out for over 750 productions, from CBS’s “Seal Team” and “No Activity,” to events for Apple and AT&T.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Definitely not a smooth road! There were a lot of challenges along the way, and the biggest I faced upfront was that I didn’t have a background in building software. I spent the first three years learning everything I needed to know about software development.
I chose not to outsource our software development because I came to understand as the CEO, it was essential for me to understand every aspect of our product inside and out. Not just because I wanted a great product, but because I knew I would need to be able to hire the right team and make sure we executed to a certain level as we scale.
The next biggest obstacle has been waiting for the industry to be ready for new technology. We found that a lot of key players in the industry do not enjoy change, and bringing new technology to set has been an uphill battle. I’m finally now seeing, four years later, that more people are open to adopting technology to make life on set more manageable for all involved.
Lastly… I’m a female, minority CEO at the crossroads of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. I have lost count on the number of times my male colleagues have been mistaken as the CEO instead of me.
Castifi – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Castifi is a W2 short-term freelancer solution hyper-tailored to the workflow of a $10B media/event production industry that still predominantly operates on paperwork and spreadsheets. We help make productions more environmentally sustainable and less expensive to operate.
Our solution provides operational tools for freelance teams to cut down on time spent on repetitive administrative tasks while getting better results. Our platform acts as a broker for production teams to source, hire, manage, and pay thousands of short-term freelancers with ease, while taking into account the complexities of the media and event production industry.
Media productions are notorious for long working hours, with little to no HR supervision, which leads to short-term freelancers personal and professional lives to suffer as a result. We intend for our platform to provide an easier way for actors and crew members to find consistent work, promote diversity, have better work/life balance, and be treated with the same professionalism as long-term employees.
As we continue to grow, we have found many other industries who are looking to staff short-term W2 workers in a similar format and have gotten a lot of interest in the cannabis and trade show markets. We aim to create an ecosystem where short-term staffers can safely rely on a network of job opportunities to work on according to their schedules.
We’ve worked on so many great projects, such as music videos for Nick Jonas, Wiz Khalifa, and TI, to commercials with Snoop Dogg, LinkedIn, and Coffee Bean. Even TV shows such as Seal Team and No Activity on CBS. We’re really honored to have been able to promote diversity, veterans, and underrepresented groups as much as possible on all of these projects.
We truly make sure that our actors and crew members have the best experience possible, get paid on time, and get job opportunities they might otherwise get passed up for. That’s what makes me the proudest about the work we do.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success to me is improving the lives of others as much as I can. That’s what I find most rewarding about the work we do at Castifi. We get to provide job opportunities for thousands of talented, hardworking people. I feel very blessed to be able to do this on a large scale. Nothing makes me happier than hearing positive feedback from people who have benefitted from our platform.
Pricing:
- We are free for actors and crew members to sign up for a basic profile.
- We are free for Casting Directors to book talent through our platform!
Contact Info:
- Address: 8619 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232
- Website: castifi.com
- Phone: 866-894-7885
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: instagram.com/castifiapp
- Facebook: facebook.com/castifi
- Twitter: twitter.com/castifiapp
- Other: linkedin.com/company/castifi
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