In the spotlight

What’s your story? 
 

I have parents who are sticklers about time and discipline. As a child I just assumed that was the way the world worked. As an adult, I realised this was unique and very valuable for many people who worked with me. Like most creative people, I am also wired as someone who loses track of time when I get deep and obsessive about work. Perfecting something till your vision comes to life, thinking until something extraordinary appears, tolerating creative blocks, exploring design ideas and playing with them with zero regard of time. All essential ingredients of the creative process, despite what AI tools seem to endorse. The silence, the pause. I'm still a staunch believer in the ‘magic’ that happens and creating space for it. The flip side however, when it comes to the service industry is that clients don’t care for that kind of time and they certainly don’t like to pay for it. Make it magical but please make it fast. To them our work is functional, mostly, and a commitment to their service means respecting their time. I was raised with a tremendous respect for my own time as well as everyone else’s and if I could factor in ONE marvellous influence in my story - this would be it. 

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It goes deep. For clients, it is not just meeting timelines, it's also empathy - knowing what the client loses when you take too long. It is knowing how they feel everyday while they wait. It is truly being on the journey with them. Working as creative partners. With your team, it is knowing delaying one approval means they may have to cancel plans with friends. Knowing those plans brings them joy, and their joy fuels their work. With your family, it means arriving 5 minutes early to pick your son from school is critical when they’ve asked you to. Nothing else should matter. Listening to excruciating details about Minecraft and Youtubers, barely keeping up while your phone is buzzing. Respecting those minutes and dedicating them where they belong. For parents, it means creating space so they don’t need to apologise for picking up the phone and wanting to hear your voice. Time and our relationship to it is what makes the journey worth sharing. Were we able to slow down, speed up, show up, stay away and all the while, watch time go by as spectators? All of it is the journey. 

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Brass tacks: 11 years in a convent school, born and raised in a German influenced nuclear family in the 80s and 90s in Karachi, middle child, always the poet, the artist, never a mathematician, never a material girl, always a dreamer. Explored a mix of sciences and arts and accounts for O levels, zoomed into English and Urdu literature and art exclusively in A levels and went to IVS to do communication design with zero interest in advertising or design. Fast forward 10 years had delivered creatively in leading ad agencies, serviced many FMCGs and Corporate brands. In 2017, by then as a mom of 2 young boys, I jumped to a self-employed status to see what I could do with my time, if I had complete control. One of the most difficult decisions to have made and so glad to have made it. 

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Why did you set up Backspace, and what was your vision for the agency when you started?

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I had no intention of owning an agency. I just worked with clients who kept asking me to scale and as most creative people do, I had no idea how to do more. If I hired a team, they would need to deliver on the quality and style my clients needed from me. How would I find such people? How would I teach the ‘how I work’ bit? Also, like many other creative professionals, I had barely any access to capital. How would I invest? 

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Luckily, people took bets on me. Surely, the ‘seed’ had been planted every time clients, colleagues and employers gave me a vote of confidence over the years. I had learnt a lot having been surrounded by the most critical and ruthless of creative projects. But practically speaking, Backspace was built brick by brick, without a clear end goal. It was born of necessity. My first symbolic investment was in an 8 feet by 4 feet Ikea wooden table, which a cousin carried for me from Dubai to Karachi. That was truly the very first space that was  ‘Backspace’. Next was a friend who agreed to incubate us, a room within his office, a few desks and chairs and some equipment. We hired carefully, slowly, with tireless training, coaching, mentoring. Some things held us in place - we rejected clients who were not chasing the triple bottom line. We over-delivered for clients who were purpose-led. We worked beyond the list of deliverables. We figured ourselves out and banded like-minded people together as we did. The good thing about being jaded with the malpractice and lack of quality within the industry is that you are very sensitive to temptation. You learn from the industry’s mistakes if you passionately despise them. It helps to channel that rage. My vision was not only to scale commercially. My vision was always to scale mindfully and commerce would start to make sense eventually as the cliches often say. It did happen. My vision was to have a workplace where time would be respected, people would work happily and the leadership would not use their experience to lord over the rest, only to problem solve faster and smarter and often.