Cat How on founding How&How

Our founder, Cat How, was asked by Katy Cowen from Creative Boom, to share some tips for success in the creative industry. Here's the unedited Q&A

• When did you know you wanted to found your own agency? 

For a very long time I’ve founded and run my own businesses — from early scratching around selling hand-made jewellery as an impoverished Central St Martins student at Brick Lane markets; to a design and illustration shop, to co-working spaces catering to creatives. Setting up How&How was a distillation of all of these things, and all of the experiences I’ve picked up along the way. It was a way of using business knowledge, a love of design (from when I worked in design agencies) and a love of finding a true and original story to tell (a passion from when I worked as a journalist and art critic). But it certainly didn’t fall into my lap. It was scary to take the leap at the beginning — I think mostly because of all the things I felt I couldn’t do, so a sizable imposter syndrome! — but now looking back, I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do. I bloody love it. 

• How has founding a creative agency enriched your life? 

Well, perhaps I can start with how it has perhaps impacted my life first, in the sense that it’s not for the faint of heart. I quite often work 10 to 12 hour days, and often skip lunch to smash through more work (not great!). 9 times out of 10 I work until midnight after putting my kids to bed. A mantra my husband (and co-founder Rog How) say to each other when there are huge crunches at work is, “it’s not meant to be easy” — which I think gives a flavour of how mad you sort of have to be in order to set up and run something like an agency. Because you have to blindly, doggedly keep at it against all odds. Things go wrong. Clients pull out. We lose out and come second in a pitch we’ve spent thousands on. There are lots of worries. There are lots of responsibilities—especially to all our wonderful team who I see more as an extension of my own family, and whose happiness at work keeps me up at night. But. I love it. Because it is weirdly quite addictive, the feeling that if you hit the right formula (and it is this formula that is so hard to crack) of the right sales strategy, the perfect team, a lot of hard work and a generous dose of good luck, then you can create something really original and really beautiful. Ideally this something beautiful can also impact the world in a positive way. It has also enriched my life because we’re always talking to so many interesting people! Not just designers and producers applying for work, but interesting clients all with a really interesting story to tell. So I might not get much sleep, but I certainly never feel bored!

• If you could go back in time to the beginning of your business, what piece of advice would you give yourself? 

It would probably be: take your time. Build up slow. I have a tendency to want to move very fast, and sometimes playing the long game—growing a team slowly, waiting for our reputation to grow, not wanting everything to happen at once—is probably a better business strategy at the beginning. But I’m not sure you can teach an old bitch new tricks… Other than that it is probably: hire people in the beginning who really give a shit. Who are really invested in the values of the agency, and who can see the potential and ambition that you (as a founder) have got for it. Obviously as a founder you’re the one who gives the most shit about everything! It’s your job and your baby after all. So, naturally, there are always going to be people in your agency who don’t give a shit as much as you, but try and find the ones who reflect your passion and see your vision as much or as closely as you. Then you’ve got the foundation for a dream team. So in a nutshell it would be: hire missionaries for your company. As you grow, you attract more mercenaries—people who want to work for you because of the company reputation, perks or whatever—and this is fine, don’t get me wrong. But always look to hire missionaries at the beginning, and the mercenaries come second.

• What's one thing that's surprised you about being a founder? 

Probably the constant grind of unpredictability (which I think any small agency has) and the stress of being at the whim of clients and socio-economic forces outside of your control. Interestingly, a thing I've been surprised about as a result, is how used to the stress you can get. How actually you start to see it as a feeling that you can manage and control. At the beginning it was so spiky and I really felt the rollercoaster of emotions of winning or losing jobs, or clients who had negative feedback or team-members moving on and me feeling like I'd failed. Now, I certainly feel more zen. A bit more like that swan analogy often banded about, where I feel things wash over me far more easily and I feel more serene and calm gliding along the surface… even if my legs are frantically padding below water at 1000 miles an hour!

• What's the biggest challenge you've overcome in your founder journey? 

Probably the old imposter syndrome. Ha. It’s such a cliche to talk about imposter syndrome now (I see articles come out about it every day) but I suppose it’s because the feeling is quite prevalent in the creative industries where we’re always overthinking and self-analyzing ourselves. It took me a long time to realise that the different life experiences I had gained before I set up the agency were actually beneficial, not detrimental, to what I’m doing now. For ages I was kicking myself that I hadn’t gone down a conventional design route after finishing my A-Levels. I felt I didn’t have ’the knowledge’. Now, thankfully, I realise that a lot of it is actually just a belief in yourself… because quite often you actually just don’t know. In fact it is impossible to know everything. In fact, most people are faking it most of the time, aren't we? But if you believe that you should know it and roll with it, then that counts just as much. After a while that belief turns into conviction. Conviction turns to confidence. And you feel like, yeah, maybe I sortof do know what I’m talking about after all!

• Anything you'd like to tell aspiring female founders today? 

There’s never a good time to set up an agency. So the best thing to do, is to start yesterday. When you’ve taken that plunge: hustle. Do whatever it takes to get a few killer projects in your portfolio—ask friends with businesses if they need a rebrand. As your brother if he has any mates at big companies at his work who might know the CMO. Be active on LinkedIn. Network. Think outside the box. When you bag your first client: listen to them. Prove that you are listening, but also be ready to provoke them to think differently in order to get the best from them. If they’re good ones, they will thank you for that provocation in the end. When you have done all the above and are starting to think about hiring people to your team, remember: team, team, team and work in that order. You should worry about them more than you should worry about your clients. They are who you’re going into battle with so think about what they need and how you can provide that for them. Remember that as a founder—you work for your team. Not the other way round. Your job is to facilitate them to produce the outstanding work the agency needs. You are the enabler. Then, remember to have fun! My sister is a doctor. She worked in a Covid ward over the pandemic and it was horrific. I remember having this huge stress in May 2020 (that was when we set up the agency) when everything was falling apart. Then I spoke to her on the phone, and I thought… no one is dying. I’m not responsible for lives, just beautiful pictures and telling interesting stories. So even when shit gets real, I try and remember that. I try and remember to enjoy the ride. Oh, and the part about how “it’s not meant to be easy.” Other than that, it’s a piece of cake ;)

An edited version of this article appeared in Creative Boom 2023.

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