Success Story of Jahanzaid Shafique

This is a success story of an individual who is driven with passion, an unswerving passion, to fulfill his long-dreamt aspirations. Jahanzaib Shafique, is the co-founder of JB and JAWS Productions, one of Pakistan's premium events, marketing, activation, entertainment and talent management agency. The forte of the company is event management, which was the only service it provided at its birth. To do justice to Jahanzaib’s story, we’ll take a look back at how he started out. So sit back, and enjoy re-living the ordinary story of an extraordinary businessman.

Like any other success story, Jahanzaib started out small. He became interested in the area of event management in 2004, when he organized a concert for his school. He never thought of it as his life’s profession at that time, but his initial experience led him and his friend to make an agency that would offer management services for various types of events. He used his schools platform to make contacts in the corporate world. However, at that time, it was a no profit- no loss type of a game, where they were themselves investing more in the business than the amount they were getting in return. In 2006-7, this process of greater investment than returns continued, until they began doing brand activation for brands such as Pepsi, Nokia, Advanced Telecom and Nikon. During this time they faced intense competition from their competitors in the market, but continued to excel.

The fact that Jahazaib initially had no monetary support to bank on, and instead, put all his energy in to a project that extracted revenue from him instead of giving him profits, led us to see the extent of self belief as well as the long term vision an entrepreneur needs to succeed. We learned that struggles are always temporary, but hard work always leads to permanent results.
The idea that Jahanzaib, at an age of 15, had achieved more than most people with professional degrees do in their twenties, led us to believe that there is no predetermined timeline for success.  You’re never too old or young to begin being an entrepreneur, as passion and creativity are universal at any age.

JB and Jaws were initially two separate entities but in 2007, both the entrepreneurs met and decided to merge. They did two events to see if their merged team would work out, and work out it did. Hence,precisely on 30^th November 2007 they started their business officially and obtained an office space. Although, at that particular time their business was not their only commitment, since Jahanzaib was studying at LUMS, while other people of the team were working elsewhere.At that time JB and JAWS was less structured; their cash flow was really tight in the beginning and they even had to close down their office for a year until 2009, when Jahanzaib graduated from LUMS and invested in a bigger space. Now that JB and JAWS had an unfaltering commitment from Jahanzaib, they started working together formally.

In 2009, JB and JAWS also won themselves a corporate event, on a bigger scale than ever before.They had to work hard to convince the company management to give them this chance. Although, this project served as their first big learning experience in the corporate world, and had limited success, Jahazaib’s determination remained undeterred. This project was the first of many to come. From 2010-13, activation process hiring of JB and JAWS increased rapidly along with event management.

The fact that Jahazaib was ill equipped to handle his first project fully did not deter him from pushing on and fighting for his first big chance, as he believed that the learning potential at stake was huge for his future growth. This showed to us the amount of courage it is required to take a leap and look at the long-term gains, and to use small set backs in a productive manner.

Jahanzaib was not fond of having a boss and believed in being “his own boss” and therefore preferred “profits over salaries”. He decided to become an entrepreneur because he had a passion to be independent,take risks and exceed beyond limitations.He wanted to explore a field that others had not discovered fullyand do something different with his life. When questioned why he chose entrepreneurship, he answered, “You know how there is a lecture in university that you just don’t want to attend, or a course that you just don’t want to take, working with a regular job was like that for me”. Moreover, when asked about a particular incident that made him realize how he did not want to depend on anyone, he said it was when he first paid his entire senior year LUMS fees from his own earnings. This pure satisfaction is what drove him.

            Jahanzaib had pretty interesting things to say about the imperative qualities an entrepreneur must have. According to him, the most pivotal thing in this regard is whether a person is risk averse or a risk taker. “Risk takers are the ones who thrive as an entrepreneur as they are not afraid of converting their passion into reality” he said. He missed his classes and quizzes to attend meetings and plan his projects. He really lived his words, since he started to work on his business during his studies, he withstood losses both in terms of academics and financials, just to serve his passion. This was the most important characteristic according to him for an entrepreneur to be successful. Moreover, self-confidence and resolute were the driving forces which pushed him to pursue his passion as a professional career. “Don’t let failures weaken your passion” was one of the many inspirational things he said in this regard. His relentless efforts and persistent determination brought his company into the top three companies of Pakistan in the event management industry. This helped us realize that one has to sacrifice something to achieve another and failures are inevitable, it’s what you make of them that matters.

“One of the most important things, which a new start-up should consider in a business, is to take good use of the age they are at”. He believed that “every age has its own benefits” and from that, we learned that every era has its own level of resources, their availability, applications, limitations, and before starting a new business, entrepreneurs should be aware of these opportunities and limitations to make the best out of what is available.On defining success, he told us that everyone has their own set goals to achieve in their lives, these metrics, or performance indicators could be in terms of monetary value, or others like how much exposure one has received in his life. According to him, to be on “the right track”, one must define their own success, how they will achieve it, and how will they measure it. “I consider myself successful for my age but still I have a lot more to achieve. May be I have achieved the benchmarks of Pakistan but we are a local story. We have to go global and compete with companies there.” One can therefore judge by his firmness of purpose and determination about how optimistic one has to be to endure the difficulties of life in order to succeed.

            Jahanzaib mentioned how being an entrepreneur in Pakistan comes with its own sets of obstacles. “In order to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to find a gap in the market that hasn’t been tapped, thus be innovative and creative”. Trying something different though, comes at a price in Pakistan, and he was willing to pay that price. He never gave a recruitment interview for any large corporation during his college days, since he already had a plan laid out for the kind of life he wanted to lead. He talked to us about how people seem confused when he tells them he is the manager for celebrities like Ali Zafar, and they continue to ask him, “but what do you really do?” as if his work has been simply sidelined to a past time or a hobby.  Thus, we apprehended that the desire to break the traditional mindset and to follow a different path has to come from within as the society would never pressure you to become an entrepreneur in Pakistan. They would always view it as a risky, unstable option.  For a young entrepreneur, the desire for success has to come from within, along with the self-belief required to sustain that criticism. 

“Apart from societal perceptions, the unstable socio-political environment and the law and order situations also comes at a heavy price for an entrepreneur in Pakistan”, he shed some light on the common obstacles new start-ups face in Pakistan. Without a big multi-national company’s name to seek shelter in, Jahanzaib’s business had to face the storm of political certainty head on. During times like these, extreme resolve is needed to be able to survive, and that is exactly what Jahanzaib successfully did.  He diversified his business and thus began to rely on advertisement shoots and celebrity management in order to have the money to continue working. There were also times when he had to close down his office due to lack of funding, but he continued to persist and not conceive failure. 

Jahanzaib, continuing with his tantalizing tale of success also shared his thoughts on startup businesses in Pakistan and how they’re following a growing trend. With rising globalization, E-commerce and internet usage, opportunities of exposure to innovation capabilities are increasing.

            Before conducting this interview we had a very simplistic perception of an entrepreneur. We thought that Jahanzaib, just like every other successful businessman, had everything conveniently handed over to him in a silver spoon, along with proper monetary backing from his family. It did not occur to us that external socio-political factors, which are not in our control, tend to affect entrepreneurial initiatives to a point where they have to fight for survival. Our perception just like everyone else’s was oblivious to the impact entrepreneurs create on the world today.

Towards the end of our interview with him, we proposed an interesting scenario to him. We asked him, “If you go back in time to day one of your start-up and have 10-minutes with your former self to communicate any valuable lessons that you have learned with the intention of saving yourself from any mistakes, what would you tell yourself?” After a few laughs and thoughtful moments, he told us this is an evolutionary process. You need to keep improving and pushing yourself to the limit. He felt like the path he chose for himself was the right path for him then, and it’s the right path even now. “Once you find something you love, regrets are rare”. If you’re a student and want to do something productive, make sure you follow the right leader and the right values and most importantly, be persistent, and don’t give up. That is the point where we started to realize that our perceptions of an entrepreneur who we thought of as a person who had money to start off with, a set path to follow, everything laid out in rules and have all the necessary links to the corporate world, is insufficient in explaining the essence of what a real entrepreneur is. Indeed, the stroke of serendipity is always fortunate.

This is the alluring story of how a 15-year old boy, who had no idea what he was going to do with his life, became one of the biggest faces in Pakistan in the event management industry. The purpose of sharing this story was to give an insight on how even ordinary people among us can reach new heights. The story of self-belief and determination isn’t a new one, but Jahanzaib stands a living proof to us that even if everything stands against you in life, with the right determination, persistence, and a staunch belief in yourself, you can do wonders that are unheard of.