Our History

Voice123 (vois wŭn tū thrē) was born at the end of 2002 when Tania Isabel Zapata and Alexander Torrenegra got together and decided to start a different kind of business.

2001 - 2002

And there was love

Back in 2001 Tania Isabel and Alexander met in Miami, Florida. Tania Isabel was traffic manager at radio station WKAT and hosted a radio show. Alexander Torrenegra had recently founded Torrenegra Internet Solutions. He was an online marketing consultant for several companies, including Yahoo and Lycos. Tania Isabel was invited to a media party Alex's roommate was organizing. It's easy to imagine how Alexander felt attracted to Tania Isabel, but we are still trying to figure it out how Tania Isabel fell for Alex. Alexander says it was because of his oratory. Voice123 lore says it was because of his blue contact lenses. Who knows?

Their love and drive would eventually find common ground in business as well. They figured out a unique approach to the voice over industry.

The passion grew

By the end of 2002 Tania Isabel quit her job and they moved to New York City. They then began collaborating on developing Voice123. Alex, who had always enjoyed tinkering with computers and programming code, started developing the technological guts of Voice123. He was helped by university friends Andres Herrera and Milton Avila. In the meantime, Tania Isabel figured out how Voice123 was supposed to be experienced by both talents and voice seekers and did her fare share on market research. Afflicted by the perennial shortage of cash common to newcomers to New York, the pair lived in a very small studio in Queens saving the money needed to invest on Voice123. As they were working from home, rumor says that they would work on their computers, prepare lunch, and even clean the studio without ever getting out of bed. Not because they were lazy, but because of the size of the studio.

2003

Three, two, one, go!

Finally, in June 13th of 2003, and after more than one year of planning and development, Voice123.com opened its doors - virtual doors - to the public. Tania Isabel and Alexander continued working to perfect their technology through the second half of 2003. As they were still under budget, they bought a server and placed it in their studio. It hosted the first online recording tool the voice over industry had seen, which allowed talents to record auditions on their computers while connected to the Voice123 server.

As easy as one, two, three

Tania Isabel and Alexander soon found they were not alone in thinking that the web would be a very useful resource when looking for voice talents. Before long, hundreds of people were accessing their service all over the world. Word spread to what quickly became a significant and loyal customer base. By the end of the year Voice123 had already the largest directory of voice over talents ever created (both online and offline) with more than 2,400 talents.

2004

And the family grew

Voice123 quickly grew. It was already processing more than 1,000 audition submissions per day. Tania Isabel had been in charge of day to day communications with talents and voice seekers. In short order key hires began to increase the size of the team: Caroline and Albert joined us. Alex, on his side, also needed help. In November of 2004 Alexander co-founded Torrenegra MarketLabs along with Andres Felipe Hernandez. Their objective was to create the most elite team of web architects, web developers, and web usability designers. The goal was achieved. Since then Torrenegra MarketLabs has been developing state-of-the-art e-commerce technologies, including Voice123.

2005

Be happy to work, don't work to be happy

Voice123 joined the Torrenegra Group and a unique company culture was developed. An informal and fun atmosphere bred both collegiality and an accelerated exchange of ideas. The Voice123 Team made many incremental improvements to the Voice123 engine itself and added such enhancements as the grading feature that allows voice seeker to rate auditions, the similar talents feature where you can easily find talents that are similar to other talents, and the new voice123 look and feel in blue and orange colors.

In less than two years Tania Isabel found herself managing a team of almost 20 team members and internal contractors. If you have met her, you will quickly know she is an artist and animal advocate, and a justice-driven person. It was time for her to move on. In November of 2005 Tania Isabel stepped down as General Manager of Voice123 to continue pursuing her film career. Alex, who had been managing the Torrenegra Group, took over the challenge of bringing his expertise in management and technology to the front line. He has been leading the Voice123 Team since then. Tania Isabel continued as business advisor.

As 2005 ended, the Voice123 operation was supported by almost 30 people, most of them focusing 100% of their working time on Voice123.

2006

A fairer marketplace

The Voice123 snow ball continued rolling and by June of 2006 a new milestone had been reached: 1 million auditions were submitted through Voice123 since its inception. Voice123 had an issue, though. Twenty-four percent of talents and voice producers would submit 80% of the auditions to posted projects. Why? There are several reasons: many talents do not work full time, other talents didn't like the fierce competition the system allowed, etc. A change was required to fix this and many other issues that arose as the Voice123 marketplace grew.

In April of 2006 Voice123 embarked on the most ambitious project it had ever done: a New Voice123. Led by Omar Duque, the project was to take 18 months and twelve full time software architects, developers, designers, and testers. The project was secret until November, when Voice123 announced publicly that a new version was coming:

2007

Winds of change

In July 9th, 2007, the New Voice123 was released featuring “SmartCast®”. The SmartCast system was designed so that it would no longer be the quickest talents who are able to audition. Instead, Voice123 SmartCast, using patented technology, would invite the best matching talents and voice producers first, and give them time to audition; invite a few more, give them time to audition; and so on, until the desired number of auditions was received.

SmartCast was very controversial, but after just a few weeks of having been released Voice123 started breaking its previous records once again.

2008

Connecting the Community

In January 2008, two employees assumed new positions when former Marketing Manager of Voice123, Juan Salcedo, replaced Alexander Torrenegra as General Manager, with Alexander Torrenegra becoming President of Voice123. Also important, a former Voice123 talent & Customer Relations Specialist for AIG/GM/Disney, Steven Lowell, was promoted to Quality Assurance Manager. All of us at Voice123 realized that public relations needed a boost, and the staff needed to be a part of the voice over online industry to have empathy for how it works!

In response, Juan Salcedo and Steven Lowell have engaged in an aggressive campaign to make sure that Talent and Voice Producers know what Voice Seekers want, Voice Seekers understand what Talent Voice Producers do, and customer service understands all needs, in between.

Always listening and working with the community

Even more exciting, illustrated through the new parameters provided in Version 2.5 released on March 9th, 2008, all members of the community updated their profiles to give more details into what they offer as professionals, all beta-tested and guided by feedback of the Voice123 community to make sure the customers are satisfied, people are working, and the process runs smoothly!

The new Voice123 Community, both internally and externally, is now educated on what others members of Voice123 need and want, with the understanding that this is a business that never sits still for any long period of time! Voice123 recognizes how rapidly the Internet and voice over industry changes, and we work hard to make sure we stay the best choice for finding voice over work online!

2009

The Age of Transparency

In a greater effort to share the experiences of what happens behind the technology of Voice123, so that all can make informed decisions about starting an online casting career, Voice123 opens up its doors in the forms of various forum posts and blogs that explain 'what works' and 'what does not work'.

Voice123 engages itself in the community even further by joining Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, and other social media, to be closer to its user database.

More Work Than Ever Before

In January 2009, the customer service team of Voice123 took on more tasks in an effort to bring more work to Voice123. In March 2009, Voice123 also extended its customer service hours and in just a few short months, has broken records for jobs posted on Voice123.

The Future

The Internet, through the usage of social media, has proven that the opinions of the community must be attended to at all times. Therefore, 'the future is now'.

We will continue to work hard at Voice123 to make sure all the needs of the user database are met to the best of our ability, and share any information we know will make for a stronger voice over community!