By Anas Alyusuf

JEDDAH — Elaf Trabulsi represents the vibrant and ambitious young Saudi women generation who are the major beneficiaries of the social and economic reforms being witnessed in the Kingdom, thanks to the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 launched by Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman.

As a charismatic and enterprising woman, the 22-year-old Trabulsi cherishes a lot of dreams and visions and is working hard to translate them into reality by developing her own brands with active involvement in myriad experiments in pursuit of achieving her goals and missions.

Though she studied electrical & computer engineering, her passion is in writing and entrepreneurship. At a very young age, she proved her mettle as an established content writer and an enterprising entrepreneur. She is fully aware of fulfilling her social commitment and maintaining a close rapport with members of the society even while working hard to realize her ambitions.

This is evident from her words: “My prime purpose was to motivate people through the content that I create. The more I connect, the more I want to write and share the stories I hear.”

She started writing as a freelancer even before she joined university. Within a short span of time, she emerged as a prolific writer on social media on diverse topics and a well-known content writer for prestigious publications, especially topics of communications and fashion.

Trabulsi is expected to graduate soon with an outstanding performance from Effat College of Engineering, Jeddah. Currently she is a well-known freelance Content writer, who wrote for Niche Arabia, a prominent Arabian marketing and communications agency, and Azha Workshop, a major Arab brand in fashion lifestyles.

Ctrl C Agency a blend of my duel in one

In 2020 she made a vibrant entry as an entrepreneur with her designation as the CEO & Founder of Ctrl C Agency. “Ctrl C Agency was the fulfillment of my long-cherished dream. I made the submission for licensing in February 2021 after making payment and fulfilling other procedures. The content agency was launched on March 6, 2021, first at home and then opened office in May.

Unveiling the vision behind the agency, she said: “The brand name actually represents me as it is the blending of my duel in one.”

Further elaborating, she said: “In the entire process of entrepreneurship, the control is mine while the letter C stands for cooperation with others in fulfilling the mission. As an ambitious young woman cherishing a lot of ideas and visions, I have to apply them only through my own brand where I can make many experiments,” she said while emphasizing that this culminated in establishing the Ctrl C Agency.

“Someone else works to realize their ideas but I have a lot of ideas and visions and I have to exert extra efforts to realize them,” she said while elaborating her dream of establishing her own brand.

Since its launch, the agency offers diverse content services for various clients and cooperating with other agencies. “Content making involves different skills and I am keen on producing clean and excellent content whether it is culture, fashion or social issues as they are in huge demand among the clients.

“We are keen on satisfying the clients and supporting them in the midst of the stiff competition with mushrooming of myriad agencies,” she said while pinning great hope on taking advantage of the golden opportunities in the post COVID-19 scenario.

Trabulsi said she hired staffers for the agency. All are young women writers. “Initially my focus was on building our base as I am writing the content in English and editing the work of internists. The staff members are also very passionate, proactive and supportive to achieve my dream and vision through extending qualitative output and raising the standard of the brand.

“We are very friendly and it is heartening and lucky to have such a great team. We need investors to fund our future expansion,” she said.

Enterprising entrepreneur

Shedding light on her entrepreneurial experiments, Trabulsi said: In the beginning of any venture, one has to tackle different types of clients. I have had such issues in dealing with clients before understanding them properly.

One needs to be very selective in choosing clients in the initial stage of any entrepreneurial venture. We were very careful in picking clients and now clients are picking us. We are not compromising on quality and professionalism, while giving no consideration for gender like issues.

In the initial stage, we have to do a lot of groundwork and put in extra efforts until consolidating our base and the team is very supportive and cooperative in this respect. We have to be more patient until becoming more adept and qualified. Adapting to social life is also important in such a profession.

On future plans, Trabulsi said she has plans to launch a design agency and offer various design services but has no plan to spread wings to marketing. “I want to be involved in the whole process and so will take some time. Even writers are applying to become part of our dynamic team as they become more excited when seeing the quality of our output.

At present, we trust our clients as we have no data of them. I want to build a big establishment with our own social media management and editorial team, professional studio, web sites. We will associate with other media outlets with extending them some sort of support they needed.

Proven mettle as successful content writer

Referring to her passion in writing, Trabulsi said that she used to write ever since she was a kid and she has always been passionate about writing despite her shyness. Earlier, writing was the only way for Trabulsi to express herself. “I never actually thought of taking up writing as a career and no one knew I was writing until I started writing blogs in 2017. Before this blog, people never knew I wrote anything and I think this was one of my greatest milestones.”

Trabulsi started writing in 2018 as a freelancer, and started sharing her writings on social media from 2019, though recently, she started calling herself as a ‘content writer.’ After launching Instagram page, she felt relaxed in writing. “And then I started posting my writings everywhere; I wasn’t shy about it like I used to be when I was growing up. I got inspiration from my uncle who is a writer and author of a couple of books about Jeddah.”

Responding to queries about the secret of her success as a prominent young content writer, she spoke about the homework and research she makes in this respect. “My writing styles changed in course of time; the more I wrote, the more I discovered new aspects of my writing. After I started writing, I learnt a lot of things and that resulted in improving the copy by changing the modalities of writing after getting feedbacks,” she said while emphasizing, “in due course, my personality also got impacted with positive changes.”

Before penning down any piece of article, Trabulsi used to do a lot of research. She also focuses on writing about the massive social changes being taken place in the Kingdom. “After the outbreak of the pandemic, people are more aware of values and there is a growing tendency to appreciate creative works. The audience also has become quite different.” “

I wrote on Abaya for Niche Arabia, and on fashion topics for Azha Workshop. Both have different fields and readers and keen on writing to cater to the taste of their diverse readers.” She is also eager to explore different fields and visualize and write down her innovative ideas and concepts about relevant contemporary topics.

Thrilled in shouldering challenges

Trabulsi shared her boldness and thrill in shouldering challenges, and that had a groundbreaking effect ever since she chose her major. She elucidates: Initially, engineering was the only major I never thought of choosing. Nothing else seemed to scare me half as much as engineering did. I wanted the challenge, so I picked this major.

“My passion for my major grew the deeper I got into it. Now, if I had to love something other than writing, it would be electrical circuit analysis. The more I connect, the more I want to write and share the stories I hear. I took engineering, my major, as a challenge. Every semester I took it as a challenge. The more I indulged in it, the more I liked it.”

Trabulsi, recently also moderated a talk in Riyadh International Book Fair 2021 on Marketing for Fashion Brands, where she showed excellent public speaking skills.