My chief aim in life is to create content whether it be music, animation, movies, or comic books that impact people in a positive manner. I truly believe that it is my duty as someone who is in a privileged position to help bring about a positive social change.
What\’s your educational background, and on what projects are you currently working?
I have done my BBA in finance from George Washington University in Washington DC. But I have educated myself a lot in the field of recording studio engineering, as well as spent many years learning about video making and animation. Also over the years, I have taught myself Music and songwriting skills. Education is an ongoing process in my mind.
What\’s your backstory & how did you come up with the idea of Unicorn Black & Burka Avenger?
As a musician many of my songs touched on social issues such as corruption and interfaith peace. Living in Pakistan, many of the issues are staring you right in the face and you can’t ignore them. I became interested in producing and directing a movie in 2010. I began writing stories and shortlisting ideas. It was important for my story to be more than just entertainment. My goal has always been to address issues, make people think and help change hearts and minds. In 2010, I read about girls schools being shut down by extremist elements in Pakistan. Like most people around the world and in Pakistan I was appalled. Pakistan has one of the lowest rates for female literacy and this was the last thing we needed.
I started imagining a teacher fighting back. The idea for Burka Avenger grew from there. She is a schoolteacher in her everyday life but disguises herself in a Burqa-like costume to fight the baddies. I have always been anti-guns and I wanted to reinforce the message that the pen is mightier than the sword. So her weapons are books and pens. Literally she clonks the bad guys over the head with books. Her motto is “Justice, peace and education for all”. Instead of a movie it ended up being an animated TV series which worked out great because there is hardly any local entertainment for children. The Burka Avenger is a great role model to the kids of Pakistan and the show’s women empowerment themes and importance of education for girls are essential. The show imparts these great messages and morals without being preachy.
Since then we have been working on some exciting projects at Unicorn Black. We just launched an English learning app partnering with RELO (the Regional English Learning Office). The app allows children and adults to learn English in an entertain- ing and engaging manner. I encourage you to download the app from the android app store. Just search Burka Avenger.
Other recent projects are a mother health and nutrition animation project for Unicef. As well as an online safety, privacy and security animation project for Facebook.
We are aiming to launch 13 Burka Avenger comic books by the end of this year. We are super excited about that.
Some of the other notable projects from the recent past are Taazi.com a music portal to promote Pakistani musicians; as well as “Teeto and Tania” an animation series that highlights Pakistani heroes and role models.
From a Singer to an entrepreneur, what exactly made you think to switch your career?
That is an interesting quest- ion because to be a successful musician in Pakistan you have to be an entrepreneur of sorts and market your own music through music videos and other means. I would spend my own money recording my albums and music videos and then I would go out and recover my investment through shows. Of course it built up step by step from a very basic recordings and music videos to being able to do lavish recordings and videos as the success hit. So for me when I set up my Unicorn Black animation production studio and started working on Burka Avenger it was something I was used to doing all my life. I believed in the concept just the same I had self belief I my music career. But above all I attack any project I am excited about with an incredible amount of passion and this allows me to focus huge amounts of energy to see the project successfully through to the end. Luckily all the time and energy and money was rewarded with a critically acclaimed award-winning tv series.
How did you build Pakistan’s first digital content delivery platform called Taazi.com? You had your own money or you raised capital for it?
The idea behind it was to create a product that I as a musician myself wish existed. The concept was to make a music platform for musicians by musicians. Where musicians get to retain all their rights and most of the revenue. It was a very challenging project and very programming heavy. I invested my own money. When I originally came up with the concept of Taazi in 2012 at that point youtube was banned. The Taazi app that we built is truly exceptional and I am exceedingly proud of that. However it is hard to find a good model to financially sustain a platform like Taazi when music is considered a free product in this day and age. People can get all the music they want for free on billion-dollar platforms like Youtube. The whole model of music has changed. We are planning to ramp up Taazi in the coming months when things get better with the Coronavirus situation.
As a celebrity we don’t see you on TVCs or social media.
I am so busy with the day to day or working on my own exciting projects that doing TVCs almost seems frivolous to me. If something exclusive and a great project came along I would then definitely be interested in being part of a TVC. Otherwise it is not something I would actively pursue.
Which were your marketing strategies to grow your entire business portfolio?
The most important thing is to continuously deliver outstanding products. The other thing is that rather than spend millions on advertising we were able to leverage press coverage to highlight the great projects that we were working on. Anytime we launch a new project we make sure we hold a press conference and invite the print and electronic media and simultaneously send out a a well written and interesting press release with images and video.
How do you manage your core team?
I am very luckily that much of my core team has been with me since the inception of Unicorn Black in 2012. We have a great relationship. It is important for me as CEO to roll up my sleeves and get involved and put in as much hard work as anybody. I think it is also very important to motivate the team by sharing the big vision with them. Then it is easy for them to realize that the every day tasks are leading us to a bigger goal. I think nothing succeeds like success. And all of us as a team have tasted success and critical acclaim so we always strive to do the very best work possible and not cut corners.
How do you plan your day? What is your daily routine?
We have a morning team 9:30am meeting and we plan out the day from there. These morning meetings are super important.
What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur?
It takes vision and then the ability to channel ones energy in a massive way into achieving that vision. It takes self belief, it takes an understanding that failures are just part of the journey to achieving your dreams, it takes the ability to communicate, motivate and excite people, partners and employees about your vision, and most of all persistence.
What is your chief aim in life?
My chief aim in life is to create content whether it be music, animation, movies, or comic books that impact people in a positive manner. I truly believe that it is my duty as someone who is in a privileged position to help bring about a positive social change.
Which are your greatest disadvantages? What were your worst mistakes?
In the past my biggest disadvantage was linked to my biggest advantage. It is my ability to become very excited by an idea or project and pursue it relentlessly with unbounded energy. The problem arises when you become excited by multiple projects. Sometimes I would try to work on too many projects at once and then naturally one or the other projects suffers. Now I have learnt to focus on my strengths and work only on those projects that I am most passionate about and no more than 2 projects at a time.
