Drive full-speed at opportunity, w/AKQA’s Ajaz Ahmed

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Richard says to me. What are you doing tomorrow? And what goes through my mind is Anything you want, Richard. way I actually answer it is oh I can make myself available.

So He writes down his phone number. He says, Call me in the morning. There's a meeting that you should be at. I think it'll be of great interest to you.

That's Aja's Ahmed. the founder and CEO of the digital advertising agency, AKQA. And the Richard he's referring to? Sir Richard Branson. Permit.

Where else, but on a virgin flight? Tod Ja's Sir Richard. is an idol. That night. A jaws could barely sleep.

filled with excitement and intrigue over this mystery meeting. In the morning. I just doubt the number he was given. When Sir Richard answered, he told Ajas where to meet, but still not What he was being invited to.

Jaws was still in the dark when he walked through the door and into that meeting. What he saw. Or rather. Who he saw. Astounded him.

Archbishop Desmond Two, Mary Robinson, Kofi Nan. Mohammed Yunus, Jimmy Carter. This venerable group. was brought together by Nelson Mandela. Sir Richard Branson and the musician Peter Gabriel.

They would be known. As the elders. Their mission. To assemble experienced leaders from around the world. The fight for peace.

And Justice. And they were all there in the room with the jaws. One of the interactions that I had was with Desmond Tutu. He said to me Listening is a healing.

And I remember Yes. in so many areas one is pay more attention and being an active listener And secondly The way that he was listening.

To my conversation. Providing A healing. To me. And I feel so

privileged and blessed and honored. The I had This interaction and this gift from him. Which is

Change the course of my life. Just through Four words listening is a healing. This profound advice. Listening is a healing.

Is something I've took to heart, and he's used it as a touchstone ever since. And the reason he was in the room to receive it. Was that when Sir Richard extended a vague invitation, Ajaw said Oh, I can make myself available. Jaws immediately accepted Sir Richard's invitation to what turned out to be a life changing meeting.

Despite Being unsure what would happen and with no way to prepare. He drove full speed towards the opportunity. As soon as he got the green light. But once.

Jaws was in that meeting. He saw what a huge learning opportunity this was. And did more listening. Than talking. That's why I believe.

That you should drive. Full speed at opportunity. As long. As you remember to read the road signs.

You gotta have incredible talent at every position. There are fires burning when you're going out. Can you believe it? Such an idiot. And then you go back to this is totally gonna be amazing. There are so many easy ways. I have no idea what to do. Sorry, we made a mistake. But you have to time it right. Oops. It just seems absolutely nutball. Ten years later, I'm like, well, that's just how you do it. We haven't made just how you do it. This is masters of scale.

I'm Reed Hoffman, co founder of LinkedIn. Partner at Greylock and your host. And I believe that you should drive full speed at opportunity. As long As you remember to read the road signs.

Have you ever been part of a scavenger hunt? It's a race where clues are scattered around a vast location. Each clue. Gives you a hint. To the locale of the next

Now the trick is finding the balance between speed and and carefully reading the signs. If you focus too much on going fast. You're more likely to misread the clue. And get sloppy.

If you get the clue wrong. You could wind up miles. the correct checkpoint. On the other hand If you spend all of your time at the first clue, weighing each possible answer.

you will lose valuable race time. You need to go as fast as possible. Wow. Still being able to absorb the signals. This same balance is true in entrepreneurship.

Time and again, a growing company. Will sacrifice speed over focus. Or vice versa. But both. are integral.

In winning the race to scale. I wanted to talk to Ajaz Ahmed about this because throughout his entrepreneurial journey. He accelerated towards opportunities when the stakes and outcome We're still up in the air. Aja's founded the digital design and communications agency.

AKQA In nineteen ninety four, at the age of twenty one. AKQA cut its teeth making innovative web applications and solutions for brands throughout the nineties. It pivoted toward creative marketing content in the two thousands, producing commercials and online campaigns for BMW. McDonald's.

and Microsoft, among others. If you've used Nike's personal training app, you've already interacted with an AKQA product. This year. The digital ad agency. Expects to exceed one billion dollars in revenue.

Hajs grew up in the UK's equivalent of Silicon Valley. The Thames Valley. In the nineteen eighties, the era was booming and Ajas was surrounded by striving tech companies. In fact. A deft awareness of surroundings and a radar for opportunity.

Started for our jaws as a pre teen. My father Got me a newspaper around. I arrived at the store. And I was given

an incredibly Heavy bag. For a twelve year old. And I looked at the first Address.

And I almost leaped with joy. When I saw That it was number one bathroad. And I knew that was the headquarters Uh what at the time was the third largest software company in the world called Ashton Tade.

So with incredible enthusiasm And gusto. I started The newspaper rounds.

Every morning on his paper route. Ahja's passed the Ashton Tate office. And each time He couldn't help imagining. The excitement.

Inside. It's worth noting here. that Ashton Tate was known for their financial modeling. and office productivity software. Not.

The kind of thing that motivates. Most twelve year old boys. But for Ajas it was tantalizing. One morning. He couldn't resist any longer.

So he marched in the lobby. And introduced themselves. Hajs didn't have much idea of what would happen next. Сопрай. When they not only let him in, but he was also treated to a VIP level tour of the offices.

They gave me a tour. of the entire building and so took me through every single department. And I was like a kid in the candy store, just learning and absorbing What to most twelve year olds would appear nothing more than a boring adult office producing spreadsheet was a glorious wonderland.

Come with me. Yeah. Two be Ajaz had driven directly to what fascinated him. and saw beyond the office and into a world of pure imagination and opportunity.

I fell in love with the company. And I was only twelve at the time and you can't work when you're twelve, legitimately. So I kept writing letters. I wrote letter after letter to the managing director. Rather than starting a lemonade stand.

Or another simpler venture for a kid. Aja's set a course for this world renowned company. and put the pedal to the floor. He sent more than a dozen letters to Ashton Tate. Despite being too young to work there legally.

After three years without a response. Ajaz took the lack of response as a sign he needed to change his approach. And instead of asking for a job, I listed what I could potentially do for the company. And I got a hand delivered letter back the following week. That letter.

Came straight from the managing director. offering Aja's work at Ashton Tate during breaks in the school year. Someone less hungry. This part time job. might have been limited to making cups of coffee.

And filing papers. But Ajah's instinctively recognized That being new in a new environment is when you're primed to listen. And learn. So he drove as fast as he could to make the most of his time there.

What started off as menial administrative tasks. quickly to working in every single department in the organization. and using their software to improve systems. I would proactively see

an area that was inefficient and could be better. Or I would be given a challenge. One challenge they taste the young Ajas with. Analyze the warehouse. And see where the company could be saving money.

So Ajah's traveled the four hundred miles up the British Isles to Scotland and did just that. His advice was taken on board. And successfully save the company money. As a leader. You will find yourself in situations where you have the opportunity to give

Less experienced team members, real power. But you might hesitate. Is now really the right time? Are they really the right person for this task? Are they ready?

This is when you need to take a moment. To read the signs. You hired this person to your team. And it is in your interest. And

Their interests. To challenge them. And help them grow. And their fresh perspective and enthusiasm. Could bring unexpected upsides.

For the next few years, Aja's return to Ashton Tate. And continue to thrive. Instead of going on to university, like many of his graduating classmates, Ajah sped into the business world. Leveraging his Ashton Tate experience to land jobs at other prominent tech companies. Including Apple.

However, despite his quick rise, Hajah started to feel like he was missing something. A voice told him they may have skipped a valuable life experience. So he made the U turn. When you're driving fast.

You're relying on your peripheral vision. To decipher the signs around you. Because the middle of the highway is no place to pour over every left turn. If you miss something, it's actually okay to stop. Study your map.

And double back. It's not always efficient. But efficiency. Sometimes is actually not nearly as important as speed. In Ajaz's case, it didn't take long to find his way back to university.

I received an unconditional offer from Bath University And It is considered you know, the best school for management

in the country. And so that kind of opportunity gave me this gut feeling that If I don't go to university, I will regret it. my entire life. So I had an inner voice telling me

That I must go to university. However, it only took a handful of months for Ajaz to discover an unexpected opportunity. A different stretch. It wasn't a professor who opened his eyes.

But a classmate. We had these dorms. And one day I got a a knock on my door from One of the mechanical engineers next door.

And he said to me, Come with me, I want to show you something. And he took me to the computer lab. There before a jaws, on a flickering CRT computer screen was the world wide web. So new.

It had been dubbed. The information. Super highway. He took the mouse. Hovered it solemnly over hyperlink.

And clicked. He downloaded a picture of Cindy Crawford. And I said, Well, it's a picture of Cindy Crawford. And he said.

I got it from America. Right now. Fascinating as Cindy Crawford may be to two college students. It wasn't just her picture. that was inspiring their awe.

It was the future of information delivery that Aja saw signpost it. In the image. I immediately realised after he showed me that picture That this was the beginning of multimedia convergence.

Which was gonna be the next revolution. In Technology In the early days of the internet, multimedia convergence was a term that referred to the merging. of previously separate media formats that can now mesh together.

On the web. Finally, a page that could deliver video, text, And music. At the same time. Hajj saw a gigantic, blinding sign that this convergence was about to become the new zeitgeist going forward.

It would change everything we know about communication. And consumption. Moments like this one. Don't come along often. When they do.

You need to trust that it's time to move. There's no room to wait and see if others agree with you. Because once something is trending into the zeitgeist and others have caught on. It may be too late to gain your advantage. Just as Ajaz heeded the signs that sent him back to school.

He now trusted the arrows. Pointing them. to the untapped potential of the internet. Potential so great that he knew he needed to take the next exit. And steer toward it.

There was a real Urgency I must start. a company That helps organizations to embrace

This new revolution. Hajj saw this tech rightly. as a moment to put the pedal to the floor. Diving into the early internet was like merging onto the famed German Autobahn. The Autobahn has no mandated speed limit.

So Ajas was able to go as fast as he wanted. By the way. Any time you start a company. You'll have this merging into high speed traffic. Healing.

One entrepreneur who knows this well is restaurant Lin Ta. She is the co-founder and managing partner of Here's Looking at You. An all day baby. Favorites on the LA food scene. Lynn experienced a massive trial by fire.

What all day babies opening? coincided with the early days of the pandemic. In fact The very day that LA Times devoted one of its sought after reviews. To all day baby, Covid was declared a global pandemic.

The restaurant. had only been open for ten days of full service. It was sort of in the middle of our brunch service that we understood That we would need to close.

indefinitely. I mean it was grave and we had to Pack everything up. I needed to Right. a large email explaining

what a closure was going to look like, even though I didn't know, send them links to sign up for unemployment. No that I had bank accounts, unfortunately, in the red. We were overspending'cause we had just hired up and we were in a process of training. Besides keeping her staff safe.

Lin's priority. was finding fifty thousand dollars to cover payroll. With employees. Desperately relying on her. She had to act fast.

And cook up an idea. We still had a bit of food left and by Friday night I created a a website in which people could pre order what I thought was the marquee item of All Day Baby, which is our biscuit sandwich. So I called it the biscu. People could choose a time and feel Save. As far as picking that up from our takeout window. the takeout biscuit window on the side of the building.

was an idea born of pure speed. Which was crucial. Rapid decision making is key not only to rapid growth, but in Lynn's case, survival. When you're moving fast, you may make mistakes. But the biggest mistake is not making decisions in time.

Lynn was hyper aware. of the signs surrounding her. Lynn had some of the worst driving conditions you could imagine. It was the equivalent of driving during a snowstorm with ice on the roads while running out of gas. In Lynn's case, that meant volunteering without pay.

To keep all day baby afloat. And it also meant doubling down on our pivot. to the biscuit window. It was just creating and activating more biscuit windows and other kinds of windows, a bagel window, a pie window and all of these windows. And it was actually this really beautiful and glorious time that we could inspire A small neighborhood of forty thousand residents.

I mean they just bought everything we sold. Lyn could have spent months Sourcing new financing. Or waiting. For dining rules to change.

Instead, she listened to the consumer reaction to her biscuit sandwich. This speed. Likely saved her business. Entrepreneurship. Is all about.

What do you see as possible that other people don't see? You might not always find a biscuit window. Or a pie window. But you will find. A window.

Having found his own window of opportunity in the internet's capabilities for multimedia convergence, Aja's dropped out of college along with multiple friends. He helped them imagine. A world in which the internet Was central to everything.

From commerce to courtship. This, a jaws thought, would be best applied to modernizing marketing. With a focus on application building. The band of twenty one year old dropouts. Wasted no time building a new agency.

with an ambiguous name. AKQA You may think, what do building web applications have to do with advertising? The way Aja sees it. A brand wants to sell their product and get their messaging across.

With applications that aren't streamlined or user intuitive, the messaging is weakened, and the consumer is less likely to digest what was intended. A KQA Is all about Less clutter to let the brand's product speak for itself. The Marie Condo

of digital advertising. When the agency started We opened our doors. Without a single client.

And That's usually a mistake. For an agency. Because when you look at the great history of professional services companies or investment companies, you see the practitioners behind it have an opportunity. Or relationship.

with an an existing person or organization and it makes sense for them to branch out on their own. We didn't have that. A jaz is right. Most people wouldn't have the hood spa to start an agency without clients. Especially a new kind of agency.

That was envisioning. A whole new world. But AKQA was driving full speed toward opportunity. That allowed Ajaws to read signs in the distance that other slower competitors were missing. All he needed was a way to share that vision with others.

And he was about to fight it. When you've built substantial wealth through your business, it's often tied up in a single equity position. The upside is real, but so is the risk, and knowing when to act isn't always obvious. Creative planning works with business owners to build a strategy around concentrated equity. When to diversify, how to manage tax risk, and how to protect what you've spent years building.

Creative planning where wealth works together. Learn more at creative planning dot com slash masters of scale. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There can be two types of companies. Those are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future?

That is human centered. I'm Rana El Kalyubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives.

Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford's CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there.

We're back. With our episode on driving full speed towards opportunity. with Ajaz Ahmed. If you're enjoying this episode. Share it with friends. Just hit the share button in your podcast app.

And to listen to my full conversation with Audas, become a Masters Scale member at masterscale dot com. Slash membership. There are more stories we couldn't get to. Including Ashton Tate's unusual cross country challenge to Ajaz. And

How AKQA built an app that users surprisingly found. Too fast. You won't want to miss it. When we left off. Hajas had just founded AKQA with no clients.

A brave feat for a new agency. Especially One composed of twenty one year old dropouts. So How could they attract clients when competing with established advertising agencies?

They're inspiration. Came from a phenomenon. Known as vaporware. Vaporware is when a product is being advertised, but isn't available yet. And in fact may be very far from completion.

So AKQA decided to do a one eighty instead. Whenever they'd pitch a campaign to a potential client. They would put in the work to build a prototype. Ahead of time. They drove quickly to design and build.

before the client even approved the pitch. This way. The client could see exactly what they would be buying into. We had to

Create a vision. We were demonstrating applications of the internet. to inspire organizations to embrace it. And Because it was such an abstract and difficult technology for people to understand until the applications existed.

So we would create prototypes Of Ideas. and share those prototypes with potential organizations.

And most of the time the organizations would fall in love with the idea. And want to build it. This aligns with a belief you've heard me say on the show before. Show your work early. And show it often.

Building the prototypes was mission critical for AKQA as they were creating technology. That the lay person couldn't comprehend yet. One of the first major brands that AKQA had the opportunity to woo was Nike. Despite respected agencies also aiming to secure the account, the presentation went so well that That Ajaws and the team left the pitch with confidence and swagger.

A couple of weeks went by The client from Nike got in touch with and said, We absolutely love the recommendations, we love the creativity, but this project is a pan European project. We can't take the risk. of working

with an organization that only has one studio And I remember Putting the phone down. And being

absolutely gutted as you would be. And having this in a voice Saying get big. Or die trying. And so I never wanted to lose a pitch.

Again. for being Too small. And The

Mission. Of not being too small. started The journey of becoming an international firm. A KQA

So a clear sign from Nike. Roadblock ahead. The pitch had proven that AKQA could compete. But Before they could land a dream brand like Nike.

They'd have to race on to get big or die trying. But Ajaz and his team. Also took encouragement from the experience. A K QA. Spent the next few years building not just their volume of clients, but specifically targeting those with high name value.

who also wanted to expand online. Eventually. They got traction with high profile brands like Coca Cola and BMW. A brand that became synonymous with AKQA was Virgin. As you heard at the top of the episode, with Ajaws' nerve wracking meeting with Sir Richard Branson on a plane,

AKQA and Virgin formed a thriving. working relationship. Growing up in the UK when I did Richard Branson Is

T. Ultima. On uh visionary and pioneer. Perhaps no entrepreneur.

better embodies the drive full speed ethos than Sir Richard. Having started a record label as a teenager. Branson saw Kindred Spirit in Ajas. Virgin got in touch with us because Virgin wanted to launch a new product called Virginet.

They want an organization to facilitate the interface and the onboarding and all of those components. Because of the success of that. We then received a number of other commissions from other parts of Virgin. So An example is Virgin Radio.

where Virgin Radio became The first radio station on the planet. to broadcast live radio on the internet. This strengthened Hajs and Richard's already fruitful relationship and cemented a long road ahead together.

Bolstered by successful contracts. I just felt like he could continue to book it. In the fast lane. He saw no reason. to believe otherwise.

But Ar Jaws wasn't content. He'd never forgotten. That early lost Nike account. Despite considerable success and growth. He was still haunted by that get big or die trying lesson.

And he kept his eyes peeled. For the next scale leap. Off ramp. It materialized. Ironically.

From a moment of deep trouble. It was the early two thousands, and after years of boom times, the internet bubbst. Valuations plummeted. Companies disappeared. AKQA was hardly immune from the carnage.

By this time No one needed convincing. about the importance That the internet was gonna play in business.

However There wasn't The consumer base. of audience requires to give the internet the critical scale it needed to ensure these businesses

Could generate the returns. That they needed. And that inevitably led to the dot com

Crash. And so it became the perfect storm. For us In short, the dot com crash caused a pileup. But while other businesses were focusing on their engines up in flames.

Ajaws use the moment of smoke and carnage to remake AKQA for the future. Bigger and better. with everyone else afraid of dot com winner. He used the pit stop to resupply for the next leap. AKQA raised capital.

And when shopping for agencies that were momentarily struggling. But could amplify AKQA's aspirations. Everything that we did. was about surviving

and then thriving for the future. Unfortunately We managed to do that. In two thousand and one, AKQA received a seventy one million dollar investment.

And merged. With three other firms around the world. Become an international agency. Haj's inner voice had told him, Get big or die trying. Well.

Now they got big. Five years after that disappointing blow from Nike. Ah, I've got a call from them. Nike wanted AKQA to work on their next campaign. In the years that followed.

The agency became closely tied to Nike. working on a soccer campaign in the UK. And later. and an Airmax sneaker release. From your

greatest To feel. You can often have A profound triumph. And in fact, it's those defeats along the journey.

That can often spur you on. And Make For a much better organization. As always, the perceived failures at a business can make you stronger in the long run.

I would say that We are able to take more risk with the work now. and push the work even further. Because when you're small If you make mistakes or if you take risks

Sometimes Those risks can have a catastrophic effect. Yeah. But when you benefit from the scale or the size You can

carry out more experiments. And if some of those experiments fail Then Fine. We learn from that experiment. You know, we take on board the learning so we make sure we don't do it again.

This is exactly right. Scaled organizations have the capacity to stomach risks. without them becoming existential threats. If they take a risk and it missfires, they can absorb the loss and move on. But counterintuitively.

That doesn't mean a small startup shouldn't take risks. Small, scrappy organizations. Actually must Take risks. Because at that size, your main advantage is speed.

If you bet wrong, you failed. But at least You failed fast. And if you're right. You can gain.

First mover to scale. advantage. You should still be reading your own signs, but you have to read them faster. And the competition. At this phase.

The most important sign of all is Minimum speed one hundred miles per hour. You can't slow down to the speed of competitors if you want to beat them to scale. Keeping the minimum speed in mind. Aja shifted once again to seek inspiration and

in a new avenue of content creation. The agency. Drove full speed at the chance to use revolutionary technology. In music videos. In two thousand fifteen.

AKQA collaborated with the artist Usher. On a song Chains. The music tackled. The ongoing plight. And oppression.

Of African Americans in the United States. It's easy to turn away. And not pay attention while this social injustice keeps taking lives. And so What we did is to ensure the audiences paid attention.

We launched the song. using facial recognition technology And so It would hold The gays.

And if the viewer looked away. Then the music would stop. Rather than use this new technology as a gimmick in pursuit of virality, Aja saw signs to use it to send a significant message. This release was a year after the murder of Michael Brown and Ferguson. And five years before that of George Floyd.

So retrospectively AKQA's collaboration can be seen as miles ahead of most major content corporations' social consciousness. The road signs employing responsible. And moral leadership. We're becoming obvious.

On every block for Ajas. He couldn't ignore them. He saw this moment in his career as a time to pivot into nonprofit work and open his car to those that need a ride. How's form two. A KQA buff shoots.

Ajaws.org and AKQA Bloom As AKQA Bloom focuses on environmental causes, the agency partnered with NGOs worldwide to launch an open source software called Code of conscience that fights illegal deforestation. Fleets in both Australia and Brazil.

began to implement the code. And in response. to the catastrophe created by Covid. Hajiz dot org. began to offer emergency grants to families and children on the poverty line.

The idea with these grants is that they focus on what we call small scale philanthropy. Even though I'm a big believer in systems change, it doesn't put food on the table. So there's a lot of, you know, families and children that are missing out. you know, while they're waiting for the system to change. So These grants that we've made are helping in the meantime. Ah jazz knew that this was an example of where speed means everything.

They read the signs that pointed to a bureaucratic grind. if they were to navigate towards wider change. So instead They drove full speed.

quickly. Arch is a long tenure at AKQA. Armed him with a skill set and faith and speed to best lead the charity initiatives. A KQA is still redefining. What it means to be a digital agency.

as it continues to scale. Now we're about twenty five years on. Around six and a half thousand people And Yeah, if our projections go well, then we should exceed one billion in revenue.

This year. So That all began. Because of the paper rounds. that my dad organized for me. You're likely.

Too old for a paper root. But think about what the next paper root sized opportunity might be for you. An opportunity can appear small in the distance, but if you drive full speed. And remember to read the road signs along the way. The opportunity may lead you to vistas you never thought possible.

I read often. Thank you for listening. Masters of Scale is a Wakewater original. Our executive producers are June Cohen, Darren Triff, and Jordan Cloud. Our head of content and production is Lori Hoffman. Our producers are Adam Skus, Catherine Clark Gray, Marie McCoy Thompson, Alex Morris, Tucker Legersky, and Holly Bonby. Our editor at large is Bob Safia.

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