She came up with that idea herself. Mudassir Sheikha: The three pillars are shoot for the moon and beyond. Careem received seed money of US$1.7 million in a round led by STC Ventures in 2013. This thing will start putting the right people behind the right rules. And automatically are starting to get absorbed in what the system does, versus what people do. 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. What percent of the times is a car available? Because if you wow them, then they will wow your customers, right? 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, the Uber acquisition deal worth $3.1 billion, WhatsApps Exclusive Feature For iOS Users:Not For The Android Users, Employees Secretly Using ChatGPT-AI: Threat For Tech Leaders, Potential Of Cryptocurrencies To Accelerate E-Commerce Growth In Pakistan. Shikhar Ghosh: What did you expect it was going to be when you first started? : So whats an example of an input KPI that would affect growth? Give feedback to our colleagues to keep growing them, and to drive progress in our communities. Even a manager who follows the basic good principles that you have, these behave differently because thats the way organizations are. You know, we feel its okay to ping our databases every 15 minutes, thats fine. So thats what the definition of tough maybe was in the early days. But for you, it feels like its more that this is what you have to do to be competitive, but from a pure sort of market share and all of that perspective. So, you know, in this first part of the journey, say up to CVC or so, you were hands-on on everything. Sheikha and his team did not only focus on providing tech training to these captains. An ever-expanding vision. And the more Ive done it, the more I realize that this is something thats missing. So this was something that she, being from Egypt, understood the opportunity, understood that there was a need for it. So next time you interview someone that is amazing in what needs to be done but is not a culture fit, youre more comfortable making that call that this person is not the right fit for Careem. Co-Founder Careem, Mudassir Sheikha Donates USD 2 Million to - LUMS And then you have to come up the next play, right? Mudassir Sheikha: The biggest learning and the biggest surprise has been around people leadership, right? So this was something that she, being from Egypt, understood the opportunity, understood that there was a need for it. We were obsessed with weekly growth rate. Mudassir Sheikha: Its an investment for sure, right? The particular context that somebodys in. 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. [15] The service was discontinued in early 2020. And get some early head start in this business. Its not a static thing that we reach and we-. So if you miss one or two days of growth, thats going to be very, very difficult to hit those growth rates because youre not going to be able to make up for that. Because as we have said multiple times, smart and very capable people, they dont want to work at startups. Mudassir Sheikha: I hope thats happening. And initially, it was difficult to even get the right people, right? All the employees of Careem had stock options and their company shares will be bought as part of the Uber acquisition deal worth $3.1 billion. Mudassir Sheikha - UAE So shes making all the decision. You know, I was an EP at Mackenzie, but I didnt know what Mackenzies revenue was because is not something that the organization spoke about ever. : Its an investment for sure, right? Its not even the country, right? They feel aligned and driven to make it happen. Thats a very unusual thing. : So, you know, you started up the company. So that says that this is by far the most effective sort of way that you can do it. You look at it and you say, if we can do this, then we can change our view. Not, you know, head of HR or not people person. 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. 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. Careem's co-founders on finding purpose building a unicorn And thats the main driver of high growth rates. Careem CEO Mudassir Sheikha at the CNBC Evolve Global Summit 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 . Thats a very unusual thing. 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? Wed but another six months. Shikhar Ghosh: So you want to do the values in a particular way. Its sugar high that you get in that process. In fact, they were helping us-. And then what you realize is one, this business is 24/7. 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. Generous, the meaning of Careem, defined the ethos of this ride-sharing startup. Careem: It's Full Speed Ahead For This Middle East Startup 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. Mudassirs career in tech started with Silicon Valley startup Brience. However, Careem captains are not part of the transaction. So focus on these two things and growth will happen. And what gets done in Dubai, which is our head office. : Profitability then is an output, right? They all knew it was going to be tough. 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. And this is not just in growth, but this is in everything. 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. I get this question all the time from people-. Almost 300 Careem employees will become millionaires as a - TechJuice And, you know And its not something that is easy to do as well, right? Mudassir Sheikha: So this product market fit is a continuous thing. So it was difficult to get the caliber of people that we were hoping to get. So youre basically not there when theyre awake. But the question is why minutes and not hours or days, right? : Yeah. Mudassir Sheikha: And it takes time, it takes thinking. And focusing on people is not just focus on individuals, but focus on the culture-. Should you Careem around Karachi, Lahore? So youre basically not there when theyre awake. So they are starting to become a part of the product. Or the systems that have to run, you know, like a railway thing. Is it right? And what gets done in Dubai, which is our head office. A committee was organized by the Egyptian government to assess the complaints of the protesting taxi drivers and standardize taxi services in Egypt. We just thought get the right people in place and they will figure out what to do. Mudassir Sheikha: Yeah. But for them, Riyadh is probably much lower in the pecking order. What ETA do you get? Anything outside of it, we want it to be as local as possible. And so youre going to go through similar cycles of growth. Its not a static thing that we reach and we-. Mudassir Sheikha | LinkedIn : So one opportunity for example, one of our early, early colleagues, she realized that bus, Careem bus was an opportunity. : And then we would have some weekly check ins, sometimes even daily check ins. Just, you know, a typical weekly calendar sort of thing. So basically what happens is lets say, you have this great product that customers love. And the front line for us is the cities. WATCH LIVE. : 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. And we said we are being ambitious and we are trying to build something really, really big. And go to the office, you know, there are bunch of meetings depending on the day and depending on the time of the month. So if you look at the first business plan that we presented to investors, we basically said we will be, I think it was 50 million dollars in revenue by 2017. Mudassir Sheikha interviewed by Shikhar Ghosh, August 30, 2018, at Harvard Business School. We believe that the benefit of hyper-transparency is well worth the costs. And these values we protect, even if the culture says otherwise, well protect these values and well push these values down on culture. Thank you very much. Like off the record, I can say the number, but I think it was quite a bit, almost twenty exact number, right? [25] Careem is planning to have a female workforce of 20,000 by the year 2020. 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. Regulators are typically national. In your case, its been constant. And now we had five different ways of running Careem because these five different leaders were not working in a consistent, coherent way. We sent it to each other. Mudassir Sheikha, Careem Networks FZ LLC: Profile and Biography Mudassir Sheikha: So the three pillars are to the moon and beyond, be of service, and take ownership. 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. Mudassir Sheikha: No, it was forced on us. At least, I never did it. So would probably have an edge in how much they can invest in our markets and they might have better core technology than us. And we started that exercise. They decided to have a conversation with the cab drivers in the Middle East. So not much changed. Mudassir Sheikha: So this real-time nature of the real time transparency allowed us to catch any issues a lot faster and then react to them. 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. Mudassir Sheikha: So if I could start all over again, I would take that exercise and complete this a bit more. Mudassir Sheikha: Someone, one of our colleagues that worked with us on the OS, he asked me, do you know where Mackenzies revenue was? 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. And you have the features that they want, the payment methods that they want, the interfaces that they want. Shikhar Ghosh: So would it be possible to get us a weekly calendar? And when you make the hard choice, you know, I can get more revenue by doing this, you know, heres this person who is our best salesperson, but hes a jerk to all the employees. Mudassir says that when the offer came up, he and Magnus looked to their original purpose for guidance. : Every year that vision sort of expanded. This was a five-year business plan that was prepared in 2012. Second is be of service which is the whole serve our customers, serve our captains. Shikhar Ghosh: And the KPIs were mostly output-oriented? In a good month, we were simplifying the lives of four to five million people . So then you dont have to look at these numbers because everyones looking at these numbers. And now we think we should become the internet platform of the Middle East. Shikhar Ghosh: So quick question, why do you have to hit such high growth rates? Mudassir Sheikha: So there was definitely a transition from doing everything to then having people who were doing things. But youre across multiple countries, and these countries have very different cultures. We came from a culture that was giving very regular feedback in the consulting days. Mudassir Sheikha: But the contract was sort of written. You know, you can be ambitious in Pakistan and you can be ambitious in Egypt and you can be ambitious in Saudi, right? : So the day looks like start at four. 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? Shikhar Ghosh: But the way it manifests might be different in each of those cases. And these values we protect, even if the culture says otherwise, well protect these values and well push these values down on culture. : 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. : So why every 15 minutes? Mudassir Sheikha: One is like, look, youre not at home much, so youre leaving at six a.m. sometimes, many times. : And then shes the one who has to think through all of the day to day things and build a team and do all these things. We are a business that whose process and systems are behind where we are as a business. Its not a subjective thing. Thats the default one. They need to be rallied and they need to be encouraged and they need to be inspired. Shikhar Ghosh: Right. Required fields are marked *. [39] We were providing a 24/7 transportation service. So analytics just as an example. And what have you learned about that? You know, we feel its okay to ping our databases every 15 minutes, thats fine. : I have been able to, except in the last few months when weve fundraising. : If you are constantly looking at these numbers and chasing people when numbers are low, then after a certain point, people start looking at these numbers proactively. Because if you wow them, then they will wow your customers, right? Mudassir Sheikha: So they were suffering from not even getting proper sleep in the early days. So thats when Magnus and I would have to be a lot more involved in the business. Mudassir Sheikha: A certain relative scale to be competitive in the offering that youre providing, not in anything else. Shikhar Ghosh: So what does that mean? And thats the main driver of high growth rates. Then after that, we said why just, you know, passenger transport? Friday is a working day in many parts of the world, so Friday is when we do meetings with investors. Mudassir Sheikha: If you are constantly looking at these numbers and chasing people when numbers are low, then after a certain point, people start looking at these numbers proactively. So we have these three value pillars and there are 12 values. Shes the entrepreneur now, right? Both on the captain side and the customer side. : So in the Careem operating system, one of the principles is invest in experience to get growth. You know, whats the completion rate of the trip? And so the pressure on the top comes down a little bit. [17], In April 2021, Careem launched Careem Pay, a digital wallet for money transfers and withdrawals in the UAE. Mudassir Sheikha - Co-Founder and CEO @ Careem - CrunchBase And then people start adjusting to the new reality. You know, just the norms. This has to have your signature on it. Processes were working fine three months ago but theyre not working now. You go in, you show the boarding pass, youre in. Mudassir Sheikha: So we have two frameworks that weve come up with. 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. Or a formal recruiting process? So we were very hands-on and theres a culture of being hands-on at Careem. : The biggest learning and the biggest surprise has been around people leadership, right? This thing will start attracting the right people. And then become a lot more involved in the hiring and the onboarding process. And then people start adjusting to the new reality. Mudassir Sheikha will lead the Careem business, which will report to its own board made up of three representatives from Uber and two representatives from Careem. Shikhar Ghosh: But for example, if you have something that says that people who work for us should have opportunity. But for the most part, the thing that changed is instead of managing and doing things directly, we started becoming a lot more KPI- focused and when there were big deviations on the KPIs, then we got super, super involved. How to work with our systems. Lets try to create some management layers that will create some sanity to it. Both ride-hailing companies will operate their respective regional services and independent brands. 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. So how will we win against someone like that? [41] 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. So these are experience KPIs that we look at that tell us what retention rates will be for customers on some longer term basis. In 2018 in Pakistan, Careem and Robin Hood Army took the initiative to feed more than 10,000 people across the nation.[51]. Or the systems that have to run, you know, like a railway thing. Deep Purpose Details - Newsroom - Harvard Business School And the third one is theres some things that the country or Dubai needs to control, right? It drops you at a predetermined location. 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. Versus what is it that someone on the ground has the autonomy to make their own choices. I think some of these things are tested locally as well. : Where things started breaking, we put processes in. While Careem started off as a car service for professionals, it morphed into a ride-hailing service for the masses. And then one thing led to another. So it was very incremental and as it fired up, we solved it. 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? There are review meetings that I do and now I actually block the times on my calendar to do thinking. [37] Shikhar Ghosh: But you didnt even have a performance management process, right? Many of our customers will value it for long haul routes. Well win by having much better people and by having a culture that drives a certain mission and vision type of behavior. Ideally, youd designate some people that you believe are super-aligned with the values and these are the people that do this for It could be a few of them that do it for everyone so that theres some consistency thats applied to that process. : And the cause-effect relationship is never completely clear.
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