So how do you deal with that? Entrepreneur and its related marks are registered trademarks of Entrepreneur Media Inc. Mudassir Sheikha is the CEO and co-founder of Careem. Where we, you know, we were giving people feedback, right? And we said we are being ambitious and we are trying to build something really, really big. Why such high growth rates? : 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. : So there are least two things which are different now than before. We were obsessed with weekly growth rate. Regulators are typically national. Even weekly is unusual, right? Mudassir Sheikha: So they were suffering from not even getting proper sleep in the early days. At which point, there was some resignation that it is what it is. And the something new, initially, was markets. Mudassir Sheikha: Yeah, so a lot of the interviews are done, if theres a very local candidate, the results are done by the local person, right, thats going to be the manager for that person. Required fields are marked *. LinkedIn Mudassir Sheikha . : So that part, in hindsight was we underestimated that challenge and we didnt invest enough in it. Shikhar Ghosh: So would it be possible to get us a weekly calendar? What gets done in the city? Then, do I get rid of this person? When did you shift or start shifting towards the input rather than the output metric? So we tried that. : So some of these things like analytics, growth hacking, in general, the product is expanding to cover these things. And now we think we should become the internet platform of the Middle East. Investing in the long-term win | McKinsey Thats what creates a lot of stress. You know, if you miss growth in one hour, then its going to be difficult to recover in the rest of the day. So thats really where we started our taxi, limousine booking service in the GCC, which is the six oil-rich countries. Mudassir Sheikha: The kids are asleep. However, Careem captains are not part of the transaction. They feel aligned and driven to make it happen. So thats one thing which is different. . Mudassir Sheikha: The first principle is driven by mission and values. : So last question and then we can stop here. And we are basically funding her and we are supporting her to make this thing happen. Mudassir Sheikha, CEO of Careem Operating in more than 100 cities across 14 countries, from Morocco to Pakistan, the group has more than 33m customers and can deploy more than 1.2m "captains . Careem has been competent from the day it rolled out its MVP. Client satisfaction, repeat work from those clients, and there was a belief that if you focused on these things, then they dont have anyone to follow, right? So you always have to, so this is what we keep telling ourselves, we have to always be better than competition. Or the systems that have to run, you know, like a railway thing. : I think 15 minutes or 30 minutes is within the same range. If you dont deliver them the right experience, and they get a certain quality of experience from within Careem, how can we expect them to deliver an outstanding experience outside of Careem, right? And where weve had leaders that have not invested enough in people, weve actually seen growth over time slow down. Mudassir Sheikha: So by going through that exercise of putting these down, you started building conviction. Those things did not happen as well as they should have. Not yet. Both ride-hailing companies will operate their respective regional services and independent brands. There are review meetings that I do and now I actually block the times on my calendar to do thinking. : I hope thats happening. On day one, literally on day one, one of the first things that we did was we created the first version of our values. : So this was the other mistake, per se, right? Sheikha and his team did not only focus on providing tech training to these captains. Because as we have said multiple times, smart and very capable people, they dont want to work at startups. I dont know remember what Magnus had. : And is it that growth itself, you know, so people like I think it was eBay, originally, that would change its system every day, every night and they would say, you know, so if Amazon is doing Amazon auctions, they would say Amazon works on a monthly cycle, which they think is great. Its not that Pakistan should do something. But even at relatively high levels in that organization, you had no idea what a business was producing, right? Or were we giving just people feedback on their delivery and their performance? We didnt really define what these values meant, what kind of behaviors we expected, took enough time at the beginning when people joined to onboard them properly on these values. So I come in, Ive only been there three months. Even a manager who follows the basic good principles that you have, these behave differently because thats the way organizations are. Two years ago now? Mudassir Sheikha: So should pricing be done at the city level with some advisory support from the country? In December, it raised US$350 million from superstar investors such as . Do you have a demand issue, do you have a supply issue? For the next 10 years, he set a goal for building an institution from the region that delivers great products and creates a positive impact on the regional population. You look at it and you say, if we can do this, then we can change our view. And even if they find those local opportunities at the same time as us, were able to prioritize them much before them. So you have to work through other people. So these are the experience KPIs both for the captain and customers. You have to make sure that the questions youre asking are the questions that get asked by the person that is testing for that value fit. : You know, why not 10% a month? : And this would have been your job. : And this all analytical in the sense that you could just look at the numbers. I dont know if you remember, where you said instead of focusing on problems, focus on people. Mudassir Sheikha: So this is not something that can be done right away or that can be outsourced. 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. You have to keep finding the next thing thats going to give you a differentiated product, a better product that will command a slight premium on prices because we arent able to be cheaper than them. I just got on the phone with her early today and shes saying theres another small team that is doing something similar that she would just like to get on board full time. Generous, the meaning of Careem, defined the ethos of this ride-sharing startup. And you look at that and you say if Im in engineering or Im in accounting, you know, how do I translate that into do I really want a great experience in accounting? This thing will start putting the right people behind the right rules. So thats what the definition of tough maybe was in the early days. : So this real-time nature of the real time transparency allowed us to catch any issues a lot faster and then react to them. Then we empower them to the right resources to do this and we support them and do this, right? 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. The service scaled rapidly by ensuring dignity and respect for its captains, and safe transportation solutions for the masses. And then one thing led to another. And people get exhausted and they work really hard. You start at six? 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. Both ride-hailing companies will operate their respective regional services and independent brands. What will happen? So for me, I remember it included at least being home on Fridays. You go through that deck, you know, I think in literally half an hour, you get a very good sense of what this organization stands for. And now we had five different ways of running Careem because these five different leaders were not working in a consistent, coherent way. : Yeah. A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH MUDASSIR SHEIKHA, Co-Founder and CEO Careem You understood the business completely. So the thing that we have done is weve defined a very clear vision of where we want to be in 2030, right? Give feedback to our colleagues to keep growing them, and to drive progress in our communities. So they say theres seasonality and theres this and that, so I cant do monthly, even. You know, if you create the right operating system then individuals take the initiative and so they have to deal with the startup phase and all of the two year cycle and all of that. But my view in looking back at this is it would have saved us a lot more fires. Shikhar Ghosh: So youve got to take each of these values that you had, in some ways, which is sort of this is the way I want people to feel in many ways, right? : So, you know, you started up the company. How do you transfer that, then? And in the beginning, we were not able to hire a lot of senior people that would proactively see that things would not work and reinvent proactively. You could drive growth differently and probably the healthier way if you target lesser, lower growth rates because then you can focus on the right things, which might take a little bit longer to put in place, but theyll bring healthy growth. They decided to have a conversation with the cab drivers in the Middle East. : Two years ago. Mudassir Sheikha: And when we even got the right people in place, you know, we got them from different backgrounds and different places, and we didnt do enough upfront to define the culture that we wanted. Can we help you with anything? Mudassir Sheikha: Not at the moment. And even if they find those local opportunities at the same time as us, were able to prioritize them much before them. "Sure you can open a retail store, but it's going to be difficult to make it into a large business - a billion-dollar . And this was an initiative that was started by her. 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. At which point, there was some resignation that it is what it is. [35], Due to the impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Careem announced on its blog[36] it was laying off 31% of its workforce, amounting to 536 employees. You know, hiring people, putting them out there, designing the part. This page is not available in other languages. Cairo has grown seven percent from last week. So they can provide a service to a city. You know, if you miss growth in one hour, then its going to be difficult to recover in the rest of the day. What started in Dubai as a grassroots ride-sharing app back in 2012 has evolved into a . Mudassir Sheikha: So that part, in hindsight was we underestimated that challenge and we didnt invest enough in it. [1] The company, which was valued at over US$2 billion in 2018,[2] became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber after being acquired for $3.1 billion in January 2020. Did you think about that? Youre constantly thinking of whats happening in the business or Its actually even more frustrating for them because youre there, but youre not there. You know, you can be ambitious in Pakistan and you can be ambitious in Egypt and you can be ambitious in Saudi, right? : So if you were starting a company again, or youre advising somebody whos starting a company thats going through a similar ride in terms of the growth, what would you tell them to do? Before McKinsey, Mudassir spent a decade in the Silicon. They want to work at multi-nationals and get a stable career. : 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. Careem CEO: 4 ways to build a billion-dollar startup And then people start adjusting to the new reality. And they give that thing for 20% less than what youre giving. You can do it. You know, one of our first things was driven by our mission and values. What gets done in the country? Drive experience for our captains and customers thats going to bring growth. [25] In October 2018, the company secured US$200 million funding from its existing investors. So it takes them longer to prioritize. Mudassir Sheikha: So, I think there is some Thats a great question. I need to get responses in this time, Im going to pay this much money. They know what theyre doing and they are extremely driven and in line with the mission and vision of Careem. So we made some progress on it and if you think of our position, our strategic position vis a vis others in the industry, you know, we ar a local player that has to compete with someone that has more money. You have to be at a certain scale to be competitive. 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. Not just on the day to day side, but then to make sure that these transitions were caught early enough or late, not too late, and then fixed. Spend the first three to four hours just doing the things that Im supposed to do, which a lot of times is thinking through some of these topics that require more deliberate thinking. Why can it not be in the Middle East? And the last is take ownership of Careem. Were we giving people feedback on the values? And now we think we should become the internet platform of the Middle East. We are a business thats growing rapidly. Mudassir Sheikha, co-founder and CEO of Careem, one of the first unicorns in the Middle East, discovered this the hard way. So slowly your matrix has sort of been built out and you can judge very quickly whether somebodys in the range or not. Shikhar Ghosh: So if you were starting a company again, or youre advising somebody whos starting a company thats going through a similar ride in terms of the growth, what would you tell them to do? Mudassir Sheikha: 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. And youre always doing things in a hacked up way to buy yourself another few months, right? Mudassir Sheikha: 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. How do you think about that challenge? So we have these three value pillars and there are 12 values. But my thing was, look, I enjoy problem solving. Like off the record, I can say the number, but I think it was quite a bit, almost twenty exact number, right? Its not a subjective thing. Shikhar Ghosh, Marilyn Morgan Westner, Mudassir Sheikha and Matt Fischer. Full interview with Careem Founder and CEO Mudassir Sheikha : So in the Careem operating system, one of the principles is invest in experience to get growth. Careem received seed money of US$1.7 million in a round led by STC Ventures in 2013. So that person is living in that context, right? The particular context that somebodys in. : And a lot of the values around taking ownership start to kick in and people are like, look, this is an opportunity. Okay, this is what I want, now do it. They ruled in favor of the TNCs, ensuring that they can operate legally and provided legal protection for the TNC drivers who had been facing attacks by both state police and angry taxi drivers. Careem Co-Founder Mudassir Sheikha announces USD 2 Million for LUMS Should it be done in the city, should it be done in the country? And what gets done in Dubai, which is our head office. Even weekly is unusual, right? Mudassir Sheikha and his colleague Magnus Olsson left McKinsey in 2012 to start Careem with the mission to simplify and improve the lives of people in the Middle East. Shikhar Ghosh: And then you have to live the process. We were obsessed with weekly growth rate. So at that point, we rolled down what we called a family contract. Mudassir Sheikha: So there are least two things which are different now than before. Born in Doha, Qatar in 1948. But to sort of get it in that shape probably took a lot of time and a lot of thinking and a lot of iteration, right? And so the pressure on the top comes down a little bit. Very early, Careem recognized the need for providing two different types of customer service. The organization always spoke about other things, right? Then you have to sort of make sure that it gets embedded in every aspect of the organization. So we were very hands-on and theres a culture of being hands-on at Careem. And then become a lot more involved in the hiring and the onboarding process. We were providing a 24/7 transportation service. And automatically are starting to get absorbed in what the system does, versus what people do. Just, you know, a typical weekly calendar sort of thing. You start at six? : Yeah, for us it was we will figure it out. Sheikha gave himself the ambitious time period of just six weeks to roll out the first iteration of Careem and be in the market at the earliest. So thats been a huge focus for me for the last six months. Mudassir Sheikha: So there was definitely a transition from doing everything to then having people who were doing things. But thats not what generates anything. A conversation with Careem Co-Founder and CEO Mudassir Sheikha Why such high growth rates? Like, okay, yes, if we had done something differently back then, then this would have actually saved us a lot more time. Mudassir Sheikha: Like the customer relationship. And over time, I think just by bandwidth limitations, I had to sort of step back and let people drive a lot of the local business. https://hbsaccelerate.wistia.com/medias/cscc8k9qrv?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640. Shikhar Ghosh: You know, this mountain, then the next mountain, the next mountain at the same pace, almost because your growth rate has continued at very high rates. Shikhar Ghosh: Give me a sense of what tough means? And then what you realize is one, this business is 24/7. 2020, The Year That Was: Mudassir Sheikha, Co-Founder - Entrepreneur And the third one is theres some things that the country or Dubai needs to control, right? : 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. And when KPIs would not be right or would be going up or going down too much, then we would get involved more and start fixing things. And then it sort of, things are in place, youve got product market fit. Im going to give a promo code that gives people 50% off for the next 10 trips. So would probably have an edge in how much they can invest in our markets and they might have better core technology than us. This thing will start driving and incentivizing people the right way. But before that, Shikhar Ghosh, you know, product market fit is a relative thing as well. Even people that werent hands-on in the beginning, after six months, theyre forced to be hands-on because thats the expectation the organization has because we started doing everything ourselves and thats how we built this. And if theres a super crazy important reason to do it at the other level, well do it the other way. [41] Those are also very respectable growth rates. So analytics just as an example. : Then we realized that we should become the public transport system for our cities because the public transportation systems were not existent like they were in Europe and the U.S and elsewhere. : Right. And the idea was that Magnus and I would hold each other accountable to what we were supposed to do. So the way a manager behaves in Egypt or Pakistan might be completely different. So thats one thing which is different. This thing will start driving and incentivizing people the right way. So that, you just trained the organization to be on it. This thing will start putting the right people behind the right rules. So basically what happens is lets say, you have this great product that customers love. : Yeah, so it wasnt really that you said, oh, if were going to be this many people, we need all these processes, lets design the process. Mudassir Sheikha: One is like, look, youre not at home much, so youre leaving at six a.m. sometimes, many times. 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. But generally, Friday Ive been able to block. So then you dont have to look at these numbers because everyones looking at these numbers. Mudassir Sheikha: In fact, if anything, I felt I was busier two years into it than I was busy in the beginning because there was just a lot more to manage. Shes the entrepreneur now, right? From the moment that Mudassir Sheikha and Magnus Olsson first decided to launch their own start-up in the Middle East, they knew they wanted to build something both "big and meaningful." Almost a decade into their journey with Careem, they are succeeding beyond the wildest expectationson both counts. Its sugar high that you get in that process. Should you Careem around Karachi, Lahore? : One is like, look, youre not at home much, so youre leaving at six a.m. sometimes, many times. So these are people that are super capable that we trust. So thats the way we are approaching those things which require more scientific planning, thinking, and doing. : So there was definitely a transition from doing everything to then having people who were doing things. Shikhar Ghosh: So if you compared that vision to any existing company, whos the closest analog? But obviously, changing from six countries to the whole Middle East has all kinds of implications on the organization, how you need to organize, who the people are, how big its going to be. Shikhar Ghosh: Because the context is so important, right? Mudassir Sheikha: And our answer is that we will win by being more local than them. Well win by having much better people and by having a culture that drives a certain mission and vision type of behavior. So youve done it a hundred times, right? What ETA do you get? And this is not just in growth, but this is in everything. So they are starting to become a part of the product. If its a necessary part of it, but its the customer service, its the on time, you know, its all of those things. Interview: Mudassir Sheikha CEO & Cofounder of Careem, the $1 Billion Shikhar Ghosh: So you want to do the values in a particular way. And that seemed like a big business in the Middle East back then, right? Mudassir Sheikha: Well, so you have to institutionalize it, right? : 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. And the cities will make the choice, typically, if theyre not getting the right service or if theyre not getting the right speed of service. So to the moon and beyond, be of service. This scholarship will allow LUMS to reward the high performing undergraduate scholars at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE), inspiring and nurturing a vision for . Even a manager who follows the basic good principles that you have, these behave differently because thats the way organizations are. What gets done in the city? The next year it was why just the GCC? So if theres an activity that needs to be done, the first place that it actually should be done is the city. And then become a lot more involved in the hiring and the onboarding process. Empowering the front line to make the decisions to do as much as possible that they can do on their own. 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. Shikhar Ghosh: Youve been talking about the vision of slowly desegregating the pressure so it all doesnt come to the talk. And then you go home at? You get a boarding pass. 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. 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. Mudassir Sheikha shares how navigated leadership challenges, including balancing family needs and establishing culture, while rapidly scaling Careem. 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 But the path to becoming a unicorn wasnt straightforward or easy. We are a business that whose process and systems are behind where we are as a business. Celebrities Mudassar Sheikh Net Worth Mudassar Sheikh Net Worth 2023, Age, Height, Relationships, Married, Dating, Family, Wiki Biography The acquisition of the entire company means that these shares will be acquired by Uber as well creating millionaires. So this is something that we never did. So people are working really, really hard. These are the behaviors that we want, this is how we add this to our recruiting process, this how well add this to our performance measurement process. Mudassir Sheikha: Yeah. And the something new, initially, was markets. Shikhar Ghosh: Like the customer relationship. Meaning understanding local opportunities and adapting our product to meet those opportunities. And thats the main driver of high growth rates. Right? So lets say some city needs to grow 30% a month, which means seven percent week on week and theyre only growing three percent week on week when I look at the screen, then theres clearly an issue, right? And she basically created a team and went after the opportunity. : And that did not happen at the quality and the rigor that should have happened. They need to be rallied and they need to be encouraged and they need to be inspired. Women were legally allowed to start driving on 24 June 2018, and Uber and Careem women drivers were able to start working on the same day.
