Entrepreneur of the Week: Abdullah Mando of UTURN Entertainment in Saudi Arabia

Before graduating from college, Abdulla Mando, Anmar Fatheldeen, and Omar Murad founded production house UTURN Entertainment in July 2010 in Saudi Arabia, with the goal of producing local, high quality online entertainment with a positive message.

Today, UTURN’s orange and blue logo is a well-known symbol among Saudi youth and a good number of its 25-member team have become regional celebrities, including Omar Hussein, the host of “‘Ala Al-Tayer” and Bader Saleh, host of “Eish Elly.”

With more than 130 million views, hundred of thousands of subscribers and 16 ongoing shows under various categories, the production house is now on par with other more traditional entertainment companies and its productions have a fan base that traditional TV shows can only dream of. Last year alone, UTURN averaged 20-30 million viewers per month in MENA alone, while competitors like Yahoo’s video services in the MENA region average only 13 million views a month.

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with co-founder and former CEO Abdullah Mando. UTURN is closely aligned with Abdulla’s teenage dreams of creating his own production house (which is also part of the reason he decided to return to being an executive producer after his turn as CEO). Abdullah spoke to me about the humble beginning of his film career dreams in Jeddah, how his education in Montreal, Quebec channeled his dream into a new, business-focused direction, the inception of UTURN Entertainment, how he grew the company from an initial business plan, and his future aspirations for the company. 

--

Ahmed Al Maid is a graduate of McGill University with a degree in engineering and management. He is interested in collaborative consumption and the application of gamification elements to increase user/costumer engagement in social entrepreneurship projects. He currently works as a project engineer with Saudi Aramco at the Kesytone Center, an idea translation lab being built inside the anticipated King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He is also the co-founder of the upcoming mobile app KareSpot, a mobile network that aims to connect volunteers with volunteering opportunities in MENA. You can find him on Twitter at @ahmed_oo.