Art is for the soul what food is for the body. Yet, it’s a fact that artists all over the world struggle to make a living out of their artwork. This is especially so in the Middle East, where it’s rare to find a family willing to support their child’s artistic endeavours, since more academic careers tend to take priority, writes Mostafa Adel.

But two sisters in Egypt are aiming to change that particular mindset and challenge the status quo.

Enter More Of, a start-up focusing on the arts, helping those in relevant fields make a living out of it.

“It all started three years ago. My sister and I used to study theatre and marketing, so we both had artistic and entrepreneurial sides,” says Sara Seif, co-founder and CEO of the start-up. “We were always surrounded by artists, and we always saw the struggle they faced, with so many talents out there and so little revenue. The artists can’t monetize their art, and it’s not because they’re not good; it’s because they don’t have the business skill set.”

It wasn’t until Sara stumbled upon an Injaz Egypt start-up competition – with just 12 hours to deadline – that the idea started to take form. She scrambled to put her ideas into words and called her sister and business partner Hania to help. Invited to attend a pre-incubation programme, where they learned how to turn their idea into a business model, they ended up winning the competition, receiving EGP 100,000 in seed funding, as well as a trip to Silicon Valley.

For More Of, there was a very specific problem they were trying to solve, says Sara: “There was this gap between the talents and the marketplaces; people didn’t know where or how to look for opportunities.”

The company works in two ways; the first is geared towards people who have creative end-products.

“Creative artists have something you can actually buy, like wall paintings, fashion, jewellery, and so on. We offer them a talent management platform; we’re like a talent incubator for them,” Sara explains. “What we do in this incubator is try to build capacities on the business side.”

They started doing so by conducting a workshop series with topics including how to turn art into a business, sales for creative artists, and personal branding.

“Our part is to teach you the business side. If you’ve got the talent, now let’s sell your art,” fellow co-founder Hania, who serves as More Of’s chief creative officer, says.

BEYOND SELLING

The second area they are facilitating is the performing arts.

Sara elaborates: “We’re going to build an online platform for performing artists – theatre, dance, and music – and it’s going to work like an online casting agency, where there’ll be a lot of opportunities posted for the artists.”

The twosome plan on making the platform free so that any artist could utilise it, but there will also be a premium option.

“Premium users will have an edge, where we’ll be their own consultants and manage their talent. We’ll basically be an agent for the artist,” Hania adds.

While the start-up is still at an early stage, they have no plans of slowing down.

“We want to collaborate with as many people as possible, to create as many initiatives as possible, and pull all resources out there so that the artists and art community could come together and establish an ecosystem. We see ourselves becoming the leading talent management platform in the MENA region and then internationally,” Sara says.

Their plans to expand on an international level is a means so they could land local artists opportunities on the global stage.

“People want to reach talent in Egypt and they want figures to address, and we plan on becoming that figure,” Hania adds.

Making money out of being an artist might have seemed like a long shot at some point, but with initiatives like More Of, it is slowly but surely changing. 

“It’s no longer a hopeless case for artists to turn their art into an everyday career,” Sara says. “We want to empower artists to do ‘more of’ what they love. And that’s how we [came up with] our name,” Hania concludes.