And that will be true of product and itll be true of markets, itll be true of this thing. We already captured that segment. Cairo has grown seven percent from last week. He offers tips on how to prepare for the changes in the CEOs role by sharing how he adapted as processes broke and he struggled to balance family obligations. : where I think the burden becomes higher is sort of to reinvent yourself. : So what does your day look like? : So when we get a phone call and say hey, whats going in? Thats the default one. We already captured that segment. Angel, Fund of Funds, Venture Capital), Number of Investments the Individual has participated in, Number of Investments the Individual has partnered in, Total number of current Jobs the person has, Total number of events the individual appeared in, Number of news articles that reference the Person, Careem expands to Sudan with the launch of operations in Khartoum, Careems tech drive: Going beyond mobility, Careem says restaurants got the short end of the stick, cuts commission for food delivery, The Year That Was: Mudassir Sheikha, Co-Founder And CEO, Careem, Chasing scale: A Pakistani investors insight. [25] In October 2018, the company secured US$200 million funding from its existing investors. Mudassir Sheikha: Theyre output oriented. Friday is a working day in many parts of the world, so Friday is when we do meetings with investors. Mudassir Sheikha: Someone, one of our colleagues that worked with us on the OS, he asked me, do you know where Mackenzies revenue was? : So the two things that I would do differently is one, more upfront. How do you balance these two things? We just thought get the right people in place and they will figure out what to do. These are the values that we stand for. Drive experience for our captains and customers thats going to bring growth. He started his career with Trilogy Software before joining San Francisco-based mobile experience startup Brience at the height of the dot-com bubble in March 2000. Sheikha and his team did not only focus on providing tech training to these captains. Then you have to sort of make sure that it gets embedded in every aspect of the organization. Because as we have said multiple times, smart and very capable people, they dont want to work at startups. So that person can translate and say look, hes ambitious. And family does suffer. And you have the features that they want, the payment methods that they want, the interfaces that they want. However, the rough estimates also indicate him to be . And when that service is provided, it needs to have very clear SLAs. And Ill see the growth, but as soon as that promo code is over, the growth will vanish, right? : So the three pillars are to the moon and beyond, be of service, and take ownership. The entire company is looking at these numbers. So it was very incrementally, okay, we need to open this market now. A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH MUDASSIR SHEIKHA, Co-Founder and CEO Careem "At Careem, our mission is to simplify and improve lives. And weve had these cases now where we have actually internally debated some of these principles and when we go and interview someone and we find someone that is amazing and very tempting to get that person on board, but not the right values fit, then we have the courage to make the call and say, look, were happy to keep on looking until we someone thats a values fit. Rumours of the said acquisition have been floating around since December 2018. Is it right? Some of the Careem executives other than Mudassir Sheikha, Magnus Olsson, and Abdulla Elyas whose net worth will skyrocket after this transaction are likely to include: The employees who will create wealth are not only the executives and operational team who have been associated with the company since its early days but also those who left after serving for a time period and earned company stock. And the idea was that Magnus and I would hold each other accountable to what we were supposed to do. How do you transfer that, then? And what is it that the local market has to adapt for its own thing? Empowering the front line to make the decisions to do as much as possible that they can do on their own. They feel aligned and driven to make it happen. Like, okay, yes, if we had done something differently back then, then this would have actually saved us a lot more time. So the default role that a country or Dubai plays is advisory. : So that part, in hindsight was we underestimated that challenge and we didnt invest enough in it. We sent it to each other. Nothing is impossible. So we were very hands-on and theres a culture of being hands-on at Careem. Its Karachi should do something, Lahore should do something and the people that are running those cities need to be empowered to do those things. : When you start thinking of this a bit more, the more you think of these things and the more that you discuss these things, you start building more conviction behind them as well. Careem received seed money of US$1.7 million in a round led by STC Ventures in 2013. Shikhar Ghosh: So last topic that I want to go through is as youve grown, the issue of you know, what do you keep in the central place that you can learn from everybody? Let me just be out there and make sure that we are hitting our growth numbers and we are competing and we are doing the right things. : No, it was forced on us. This has to have your signature on it. So these are people that are super capable that we trust. Like ambition. Like ambition. You know, hiring people, putting them out there, designing the part. Shikhar Ghosh: You know, why not 10% a month? And Ive actually made a note of it and I tell myself this every day to remind myself that look, I need to now focus on people that will drive the business. While Careem started off as a car service for professionals, it morphed into a ride-hailing service for the masses. Almost 300 employees of Careem will become millionaires, after Uber acquired the Middle Eastern ride-sharing company. Mudassir Sheikha: So look at the Netflix deck, right, which most people respect. And then profitability follows. So growth was a big, you know, weekly growth rate. [15] The service was discontinued in early 2020. Growing at a rate of nearly 30 percent per month turned Careem, a mobile-based ride-hailing service, into the first unicorn of the Middle East. Mudassir Sheikha - Author Biography | Entrepreneur Mudassir Sheikha: So this is reinventing yourself and reinventing the way that you do things, every few weeks, every few months. Where things were fine, we didnt bother. And focusing on people is not just focus on individuals, but focus on the culture-. So just like the buses that we had in the subcontinent where you open a thing, it tells you this is the nearest bus station, go ahead walk to that bus station, the bus will be there at this time. You know, whats the completion rate of the trip? Shikhar Ghosh: So, you know, this sort of working on these very short time schedules and intervening when things go off, so youve got dozens of markets. It would have made us, you know, correct a lot of the hiring decisions. Careem Co-Founder Mudassir Sheikha announces USD 2 Million for LUMS Or were we giving just people feedback on their delivery and their performance? And then we regressed. Two years ago now? : So by going through that exercise of putting these down, you started building conviction. [10], In June 2017, Careem launched operations in Palestine as part of a commitment to create one million jobs in the MENA region by the end of 2018. And in the very beginning, even the people that were doing different things were sitting very close to us, so we knew everything that was happening. Like many things that we should have done differently, whether it is in financial processes, or the technology side, they were starting to leave a lot of skeletons that we were then having to go back and fix. So we tried that. So the first two years we bought, and I think somewhere in the second or third year, and it coincided with me having twins and I think there was something happening in Magnuss life as well, where I think the wives forced a discussion on us. Mudassir Sheikha: You know, we havent tracked it fully yet, right? In your case, its been constant. So these are the experience KPIs both for the captain and customers. So Saturday I catch up on things that have to be done that I didnt get a chance to do during the week, so Fridays off. This transaction will be completed by the first quarter of 2020 and will be divided into $1.4 billion to be paid in cash and $1.7 billion in convertible notes into Uber stock. : When we raised our CVC, we actually promised ourselves that we will get away from that mindset, that were not going to keep patching things because that whole debt was starting to catch up to us. : One is like, look, youre not at home much, so youre leaving at six a.m. sometimes, many times. : Profitability then is an output, right? Qatari Sheikh Jassim just bid $7.5b for a soccer team. In 2014, it received funding of US$10 million in a Series B round led by Al Tayyar Travel Group and STC Ventures. And the more I get into it, the more I realize that if you just get this right, then this thing will start running like a machine. : And the KPIs were mostly output-oriented? Shikhar Ghosh: Give me a sense of what tough means? And then people start adjusting to the new reality. And so youre going to go through similar cycles of growth. ", Leadership Coach & Educator, Fortune 500 Executive. Shikhar Ghosh: So, you know, in your first values, if I remember correctly, one of them was we will I think you phrased it as we will always create wow of some kind, right? : Its an investment for sure, right? The numbers dont change immediately. You can do it. Shikhar Ghosh: So why every 15 minutes? Shikhar Ghosh: But the question is how do you transfer that skill? : I think the big turning point was when we started going to new markets, which is when we started having people that were running different cities that were away from us. Its Karachi should do something, Lahore should do something and the people that are running those cities need to be empowered to do those things. : So we just need to now build that operating system, we call it the Careem operating system, thats going to enable us to build this thing and realize the vision. It grew pretty rapidly, even initially, and then at some point it became clear that your hands are not big enough to do all the things that you have to do. See Mudassir Sheikha's compensation, career history, education, & memberships. It didnt seem impossible to pull off. This thing will start putting the right people behind the right rules. You cannot have the same level of person, quality, systems, all of that, at each local branch. Mudassir Sheikha: So that part, in hindsight was we underestimated that challenge and we didnt invest enough in it. But the food delivery or the telecom or the anything else that you start is again going to be brand new, with all kinds of new problems. So slowly your matrix has sort of been built out and you can judge very quickly whether somebodys in the range or not. You can do it. : Yeah. Maybe this thing that were doing will not even materialize. She assembled a team, asked us to fund this thing. Now, if you allow all the cities to do their own pricing, then youre probably going to leave, youre going to make mistakes because its very sophisticated. Consuming good content is clearly your thing. We are a business that whose process and systems are behind where we are as a business. So you always have to, so this is what we keep telling ourselves, we have to always be better than competition. Mudassir Sheikha: So literally for the first few months of Careem, we kept phones with us when we were sleeping so if someone calls at three a.m., the phone that rings is the phone that is next to me and it wakes up my wife and it wakes up Magnuss wife as well. : You know, why not 10% a month? Have you actually started working less as a result of that? Shikhar Ghosh: So this particular thing is driven a lot by the industry that youre in? It initially started in 4 cities and grew to over 100 cities in 14 countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa since its inception in 2012. : But there was a process, right, where we were even testing people on values. Mudassir Sheikha: So the companies that come closest are the companies in China like Tencent or Alibaba in the way they sort of became the platform that others are built on top of, and they provide a lot of the enabling infrastructure for internet commerce. Mudassir Sheikha, CEO and Co-founder Careem, Middle East and Pakistan's leading everyday Super App, has made a generous donation of USD 2 million to LUMS to establish the "Sekha Scholarship". And now youre coming full circle and going back to saying once you see all the linkages, then you can reliably focus on this side because you know that its going to carry through. What is the quality of customers that were giving him which is measured by the ratings that he gives to the customers. Mudassir Sheikha is the co-founder and CEO of Careem, MENA's leading car booking service that is based out of Dubai and operates from Morocco to Pakistan. Because a lot of times what happens is some strategies or things that work for us today and give us growth today will not be the things thatll give us growth six months from now because weve sort of played those things out. Lets hire people that will run this country. And in the very beginning, even the people that were doing different things were sitting very close to us, so we knew everything that was happening. Basically these are starting routes for now. [25] Careem is planning to have a female workforce of 20,000 by the year 2020. But youre building a structure to do that. You need to wow them every time. And get some early head start in this business. So it was very incremental and as it fired up, we solved it. : So this product market fit is a continuous thing. So if some opportunity comes up in Riyadh, we will prioritize it above anything else in the world, right? July 2012 Careem is launched by co-founders Mudassir Sheikha and Magnus Olsson September 2013 Careem secures funding of $1.7 million in a round led by STC Ventures Comparatively the first year of growth was slow for the company, but the next two years experienced a 30 percent growth per month. We created some values and we just left it there. : Yeah. Do you have a demand issue, do you have a supply issue? Whats your sense of the trade off? Once we do this, we can actually start doing a lot more than passenger transport. But the question is why minutes and not hours or days, right? Mudassir Sheikha | LinkedIn Mudassir Sheikha: A certain relative scale to be competitive in the offering that youre providing, not in anything else. Mudassir Sheikha: So this product market fit is a continuous thing. Now, when we put that down we of course debated a lot internally. : So they are writing agreements with their families now? Be super, super ambitious. So that vision has been defined and that vision has been somewhat detailed as well at the next level. Thats a very unusual thing. But my view in looking back at this is it would have saved us a lot more fires. Is it wrong? Both companies apps will also continue to operate under separate brands. Mudassir Sheikha is the CEO and Co-Founder of Careem. Exactly. Mudassir Sheikha: Experience is an interesting one, right? The next year it was why just the GCC? Almost 300 Careem employees will become millionaires as a - TechJuice Shikhar Ghosh: So whats an example of an input KPI that would affect growth? So the way a manager behaves in Egypt or Pakistan might be completely different. Both ride-hailing companies will operate their respective regional services and independent brands. Mudassir Sheikha: Like the customer relationship. Mudassir Sheikha: So we just need to now build that operating system, we call it the Careem operating system, thats going to enable us to build this thing and realize the vision. Here's how Mudassir Sheikha built Careem into a unicorn - Tech in Asia So thats really where we started our taxi, limousine booking service in the GCC, which is the six oil-rich countries. Transportation Acquired Companies With More Than $100M in Revenue, Transportation Acquired Companies With More Than $50M in Revenue, Asia Acquired Companies With More Than 50 Employees, Logistics Acquired Companies With More Than 100 Employees, Customer Service Companies With More Than 50 Employees, Polytechnic University of Turin Alumni Founded Companies, United Arab Emirates Acquired Companies With More Than $1M in Revenue, Quinnipiac University Alumni Founded Companies, Number of portfolio companies associated to the Person, Total number of current Advisors and Board roles the person has, The organization associated to the person's primary job, Where the person is located (e.g. The company also has locations in Najaf and Erbil, Kurdistan Region. Or a formal recruiting process? Or for that matter, engineering. I think some of these things are tested locally as well. And then our families could raise the flag as well and say you guys are not abiding to the contract that you signed with us. Regulators are typically national. : Yeah, and you know, since we are closer to the cities and closer to the markets that we operate in than competition, we are in most cases able to find local opportunities before them. Mudassir Sheikha: And the second thing which has happened, and you know, we had a conversation six months ago where I think you said something very interesting. : But there are common systems, right? When we did the OS, we have these seven principles now. Shes the entrepreneur now, right? : I hope thats happening. Even when youre there, youre not present. [20][21][22] In October 2016, the company reached an agreement with regulators in Dubai whereby customers are able to book all taxicabs and limousines operating in Dubai via the Careem mobile app. Give feedback to our colleagues to keep growing them, and to drive progress in our communities. The particular context that somebodys in. Thank you very much. So then you dont have to be as proactively pushing for it because now I know that people are looking at these numbers, right? So this was something that she, being from Egypt, understood the opportunity, understood that there was a need for it. And so its interesting because you started by saying, you know, we focus on the outputs, the growth, every other thing. It will slow you down in the very, very beginning because it requires some thinking. Women are also employed as drivers in Egypt and Jordan. Careem's Mudassir Sheikha on Co-Founders, Establishing Culture With the new acquisition deal worth $3.1 billion, $1.4 billion will be paid in cash and $1.7 billion will be in convertible notes into Uber stock. So thats one thing which is different. It didnt seem impossible to pull off. Mudassir Sheikha: So well hopefully create these type of initiatives-. Mudassir Sheikha is an American Pakistani business executive and co-founder and current CEO of the Middle Eastern and North African ride-sharing app company Careem that is based out of Dubai, UAE. The previous model we used with our restaurant partners did not live up to our mission; so, we pivoted. And if theres a super crazy important reason to do it at the other level, well do it the other way. They need to be rallied and they need to be encouraged and they need to be inspired. Now, of course, it could be cause and effect but when weve invested in people and getting people excited, weve actually seen growth happen I those markets. Shikhar Ghosh: Right. Shikhar Ghosh: Youve been talking about the vision of slowly desegregating the pressure so it all doesnt come to the talk. This thing will start creating incentives for people to take risks. Lets hire people that will run this country. You know, if you miss growth in one hour, then its going to be difficult to recover in the rest of the day. So we were giving people feedback. So thats what the definition of tough maybe was in the early days. Thats when people really look and see. The task at hand was to find a meaningful purpose for the business they wanted to build. Every year, literally, there was an expansion of the vision based on what we were seeing in the market and some of the success and the growth that we were having. Thats what creates a lot of stress. But some of these values are universal too, right? [39] Then after that, we said why just, you know, passenger transport? What percent of the times is a car available? You can say, okay, wow for someone in finance means your customers are not just the external customers, which is you have a limit of external interaction as well, but a lot of your customers are internal, right? Europe, Menlo Park, China), Where the person is located (e.g. Mudassir Sheikha: Yeah, because one thing you have to realize is there are some net worth effects in this business. But youre across multiple countries, and these countries have very different cultures. Those things did not happen as well as they should have. How Mudassir Sheikha, a Pakistani entrepreneur built the first unicorn And if you were in a different industry, you might think about growth differently? So it was difficult to get the caliber of people that we were hoping to get. I should have the ability to fire the service provider if the service provider is not performing well. Shikhar Ghosh: Somebody that we had in class one day was talking about profitability as being like jet fuel for an airline. Search for: Search. The product was able to gain startup funding of USD 1.7 million in 2013 from STC Ventures. Mudassir Sheikha: And the second framework is if the function is not done at a city level, what role does the country or Dubai play for that activity, for that function. There will be some cultural nuances. If Qatar's Sheikha Moza is worth $15b, she's undervalued. : Yeah, because one thing you have to realize is there are some net worth effects in this business. The things that we commit to our wives that we will do on a weekly, monthly basis. Careem is a Dubai-based super app with operations in over 100 cities, covering 12 countries across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia regions. Mudassir Sheikha: No, it was forced on us. She came up with that idea herself. Then after that, we said why just, you know, passenger transport? And if Im not mistaken, there were once or twice flags were raised and things did not get much better. So at what point did you and Magnus sort of say, weve got to have some discussion with our families, think we should balance this out in some ways? [34] In Saudi Arabia, Careem and Uber have started recruiting women, as part of the Saudi Women to drive movement. : Because the context is so important, right? [7], Sheikha is married with a family. Mudassir Sheikha: So the ambition initially was actually not so big. Youre not listening to them. So they are starting to become a part of the product. Mudassir Sheikha: Yeah, and you know, since we are closer to the cities and closer to the markets that we operate in than competition, we are in most cases able to find local opportunities before them. Youve got sort of 18 working hours in a day and you have to do the practical things. Every 15 minutes we know where a city is vis a vis last week the same time. And go to the office, you know, there are bunch of meetings depending on the day and depending on the time of the month. And I think Abdulla earlier this year sat down with me and said, look, you cannot outsource values and Careem operating system to someone else. And the third one is theres some things that the country or Dubai needs to control, right? So basically what happens is lets say, you have this great product that customers love. At which point, there was some resignation that it is what it is. The service is popular for tailoring its features to match the socio-cultural norms of the countries it operates in. And you know, you worked at BCG and I spent some time at Mackenzie. And so the pressure on the top comes down a little bit. Latest article by Henry Joseph-Grant, to see more click here. But the path to becoming a unicorn wasnt straightforward or easy. And the last is take ownership of Careem. And if Im not mistaken, there were once or twice flags were raised and things did not get much better. Its not that Pakistan should do something. You know, now is that something that you defer to the local, or is it something that you say, no, as a Careem, we have certain values that supersede anything thats local? Mudassir Sheikha: Yeah, they dont change immediately but weve actually been pleasantly surprised that our colleague NPS, strongly correlates with our growth numbers. Mudassir Sheikha: So some of these things like analytics, growth hacking, in general, the product is expanding to cover these things. [50], Careem has been a supporter of Cricket for a Cause and has supported the league's efforts to raise funds for children in developing nations. Shikhar Ghosh: So when you reflect on that, you know, because this is going on and theres no end in sight because the ambition keeps growing, you might reach a point where the systems are in place for the transportation side of the business. They know what theyre doing and they are extremely driven and in line with the mission and vision of Careem. And family does suffer. And people get exhausted and they work really hard. Share a story with me, asra@techjuice.pk, India Expects Apple to Triple Investments and Exports Over the Next Few Years, Snapchat Explores Newer Ways to Make Money While Sticking to its Roots, Twitter Goes into Meme Mode as Babar Azam, Virat Kohli, Cristiano Ronaldo Lose Blue Ticks, 10 Ways To Make Money Through Virtual Reality, At Auto Shanghai 2023, Honda Unveils Three Electric Vehicles, ChatGPT Will Soon Be Able To Replace Teachers: Bill Gates, Artifact, An AI-Tool That Summarizes And Simplifies Lengthy Articles, Super Chat An AI Chatbot that Will Allow You to Talk to Fictional Characters. : And then youve got to have some process or approach by which you can even judge whether the person is a values fit or not. [16], In May 2019, Careem announced the acquisition of UAE-based bike-sharing startup Cycle which will re-brand as Careem Bike. : So, you know, in your first values, if I remember correctly, one of them was we will I think you phrased it as we will always create wow of some kind, right? : So if you compared that vision to any existing company, whos the closest analog? So that person is living in that context, right? Its not a subjective thing. : Now the first two, well win by being local and well win by being speed automatically translate into empowering the front line as much as possible. You did something inspirational. But even at relatively high levels in that organization, you had no idea what a business was producing, right? [1][2], Mudassir grew up in Karachi, Pakistan. : Then you have to live the process. We didnt take it to the extension where it should have gone. Mudassir Sheikha: And that did not happen at the quality and the rigor that should have happened. Startup founders whose companies were acquired by Careem will also gain considerable wealth with this acquisition. At least, I never did it. Everyone says value is important. The company now operates in 100+ cities and was acquired by Uber for $3.1 billion in 2019. And what gets done in Dubai, which is our head office. The task and the challenge of getting that right was not as I was nave on that front. Shikhar Ghosh: Because the context is so important, right? And now we think we should become the internet platform of the Middle East. [12][13], It was announced in February 2018, that Careem has acquired RoundMenu, a restaurant listing and food ordering platform that operates across the Arab world. And on the customer side, for example, experience is a function of, you know, when you open the app, is a car available? Investing in the long-term win | McKinsey https://hbsaccelerate.wistia.com/medias/cscc8k9qrv?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640. : And a lot of the values around taking ownership start to kick in and people are like, look, this is an opportunity.
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