Like, okay, yes, if we had done something differently back then, then this would have actually saved us a lot more time. And then you have to come up the next play, right? So if your competition is a lot bigger than you, then . So if theres an activity that needs to be done, the first place that it actually should be done is the city. So that task was a surprise that in the role that Im playing now, you know, I can look at Magnus and look at Abdulla and say, look, you guys should play that role, even though they do that role but I feel now this is my responsibility now as the CEO of the business. So thats been a huge focus for me for the last six months. He grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, before graduating from the University of Southern California with a degree in economics and computer science . Unlike various impact focused companies that focus on the end user, Careem started with its employees. 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. You look at it and you say, if we can do this, then we can change our view. 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: So why every 15 minutes? 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. : I think that the thing that was most surprising for me was around people and culture. The things that we commit to our wives that we will do on a weekly, monthly basis. Wed but another six months. Now, when we put that down we of course debated a lot internally. And even if they find those local opportunities at the same time as us, were able to prioritize them much before them. And the third one is theres some things that the country or Dubai needs to control, right? How do you think about that? 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. A conversation with Careem Co-Founder and CEO Mudassir Sheikha And these values we protect, even if the culture says otherwise, well protect these values and well push these values down on culture. Theres a lot of learning that happens across all these markets thats common, even though theres differences. Okay, this is what I want, now do it. 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. Mudassir Sheikha: Yeah, so we would have this joke in the office that, you know, lets only fix it for the next six months because anything beyond that would take a lot longer to fix, that we would not have the time for. You know, you can be ambitious in Pakistan and you can be ambitious in Egypt and you can be ambitious in Saudi, right? Mudassir Sheikha: So we have two frameworks that weve come up with. But guess what happens? Keep improving and stay humble. Even when youre there, youre not present. And now in the next couple of weeks, were launching buses in Egypt. Shikhar Ghosh: But you didnt even have a performance management process, right? : So the two things that I would do differently is one, more upfront. And so youre going to go through similar cycles of growth. Ive got a company that Im working with that does annual. If its a necessary part of it, but its the customer service, its the on time, you know, its all of those things. LinkedIn Mudassir Sheikha . Shikhar Ghosh: Give me a sense of what tough means? Now youve got a sales force, theyre doing their thing. So this was something that she, being from Egypt, understood the opportunity, understood that there was a need for it. So you want them to behave differently if its a critical problem versus its not a critical problem, and so on. They need to be rallied and they need to be encouraged and they need to be inspired. 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. This has to have your signature on it. Mudassir Sheikha: Theres no fixed time but generally nine, ten p.m. Shikhar Ghosh: Okay. From that came Careem. : Yes, of course. But my view in looking back at this is it would have saved us a lot more fires. : But you didnt even have a performance management process, right? Mudassar Sheikh Net Worth 2023: Wiki Bio, Married, Dating, Family And if you miss one day of growth, then its going to be difficult to grow at 30, 40% monthly, which is sort of the targets that we had initially. It completely exceeded our expectations of speed and growth. Where things were fine, we didnt bother. Mudassir Sheikha: So, I think there is some Thats a great question. And drive engagement for your people and thats going to drive growth. So it was very incremental and as it fired up, we solved it. Vince Staples net worth, height, age, family, dati Muni He (golfer) Wiki Biography, age, height, boyf What happened to Stephanie Soo? 1/2. Careem Co-Founder Mudassir Sheikha announces USD 2 Million for LUMS : So, yes. So we have these three value pillars and there are 12 values. And then what you realize is one, this business is 24/7. Careem has been competent from the day it rolled out its MVP. So that person is living in that context, right? Careem CEO Mudassir Sheikha at the CNBC Evolve Global Summit : And on the captain side, similar KPIs. Cairo has grown seven percent from last week. 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 youve done it a hundred times, right? : Right. And once this is in place, then we will be able to take a step back and make sure that we keep evolving this thing, versus evolve the business that this thing produces. And on the customer side, for example, experience is a function of, you know, when you open the app, is a car available? 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? : So by going through that exercise of putting these down, you started building conviction. When we did the OS, we have these seven principles now. Im going to give a promo code that gives people 50% off for the next 10 trips. And youre coming at midnight. 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. Mudassir Sheikha: So the day looks like start at four. So growth was a big, you know, weekly growth rate. Shikhar Ghosh: 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. : 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. : Yeah, so we would have this joke in the office that, you know, lets only fix it for the next six months because anything beyond that would take a lot longer to fix, that we would not have the time for. But the question is why minutes and not hours or days, right? Shikhar Ghosh: Youve been talking about the vision of slowly desegregating the pressure so it all doesnt come to the talk. Almost 300 employees of Careem will become millionaires, after Uber acquired the Middle Eastern ride-sharing company. This thing will start attracting the right people. : And the cause-effect relationship is never completely clear. : But we unfortunately are in an industry that is-. 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. 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 they are writing agreements with their families now? They want to work at multi-nationals and get a stable career. Most of them were living in groups in a single room and working the entire seven days to send money back home. They feel aligned and driven to make it happen. So they are starting to become a part of the product. But there was no sight of things getting better. And then we regressed. You know, one of our first things was driven by our mission and values. You know, all of that. : Yeah. What started in Dubai as a grassroots ride-sharing app back in 2012 has evolved into a . : So if I could start all over again, I would take that exercise and complete this a bit more. Required fields are marked *. The task at hand was to find a meaningful purpose for the business they wanted to build. I should have the ability to fire the service provider if the service provider is not performing well. So its just the real time nature of the business and the realizing that we have to hit high growth rates and reacting faster if somethings not right. This thing will start driving and incentivizing people the right way. : So this is not something that can be done right away or that can be outsourced. Thank you very much. And then things would break again and wed buy another six months and then things would break again. We signed it. It drops you at a predetermined location. So we were giving people feedback. Have you actually started working less as a result of that? And when that service is provided, it needs to have very clear SLAs. And then what was also happening in the early days is we had no customer service. Mudassir Sheikha: So if I could start all over again, I would take that exercise and complete this a bit more. Youre not listening to them. You can test people on them. With over one million captains spanning across 100+ cities, Careem embraced the diversity of different cultures to build for scale. 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? I should have the ability to fire the service provider if the service provider is not performing well. Europe, Menlo Park, China), Where the person is located (e.g. 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. : 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. : But for example, if you have something that says that people who work for us should have opportunity. : Yeah. Born in Doha, Qatar in 1948. Were we giving people feedback on the values? So that vision has been defined and that vision has been somewhat detailed as well at the next level. 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. 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 this is reinventing yourself and reinventing the way that you do things, every few weeks, every few months. So we were giving people feedback. Just, you know, a typical weekly calendar sort of thing. And this was an initiative that was started by her. So thats what the definition of tough maybe was in the early days. What does it mean? : Yeah. So thats something that weve done in the last-. : Yeah, they dont change immediately but weve actually been pleasantly surprised that our colleague NPS, strongly correlates with our growth numbers. In a good month, we were simplifying the lives of four to five million people . You start at six? So after CVC, we said lets start-. Now, when we put that down we of course debated a lot internally. We came from a culture that was giving very regular feedback in the consulting days. Or for that matter, engineering. In an interview that took place before the acquisition was announced, Careem co-founder and CEO Mudassir Sheikha explained what the company had to do to adapt the go-fast culture of a start-up as it expanded rapidly. So thats when Magnus and I would have to be a lot more involved in the business. We believe that the benefit of hyper-transparency is well worth the costs. Mudassir Sheikha: So by going through that exercise of putting these down, you started building conviction. So that person can translate and say look, hes ambitious. So we would only patch things and buy us six months. Mudassir Sheikha: Every year that vision sort of expanded. 7 Of The Richest Sheikhs In The World - Sheen Services Whats your sense of the trade off? They know what theyre doing and they are extremely driven and in line with the mission and vision of Careem. [43][44][45][46], In January, 2018, Careem discovered data on more than 14 million riders and 558,800 drivers were breached. 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. They need to be rallied and they need to be encouraged and they need to be inspired. : 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. Define the values and the culture that you want to create. Because there are a lot of things that are in your head that you believe in and its not even easy to articulate them and give them to someone. 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? 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. : 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. 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 thats not what generates anything. Mudassir Sheikha: Yeah, because one thing you have to realize is there are some net worth effects in this business. So that, you just trained the organization to be on it. We are a business thats growing rapidly. She assembled a team, asked us to fund this thing. Or the systems that have to run, you know, like a railway thing. It was a very short time to build any kind of technology, and they skipped a lot of features and launched the service. And thats the gap, right? Every 15 minutes we know where a city is vis a vis last week the same time. 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. The entire company is looking at these numbers. : Yeah, its a good question. Nothing is impossible. So the thing that we have done is weve defined a very clear vision of where we want to be in 2030, right? Shikhar Ghosh, Marilyn Morgan Westner, Mudassir Sheikha and Matt Fischer. Initially, 10 markets. So they say theres seasonality and theres this and that, so I cant do monthly, even. : Every year that vision sort of expanded. Four of us sat down, Magnus, Sara, me, Saba, and we basically wrote down what we called the boundary conditions. So shes making all the decision. : The second type of role that a country or Dubai can play is a service provider. The numbers dont change immediately. [33], In Pakistan, Careem employs women drivers. Shikhar Ghosh: And this would have been your job. Fiance, Age, Net W Who is Bernice Burgos? 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. So how will we win against someone like that? The morning times, of course, are fully blocked for thinking. And now, of course, were many times that size now. Certain aspects of the brand are part of it, but for the most part, we want to empower the front line and have them drive the decisions and only support them as an advisor versus become service providers or controllers. There was probably one or two days that I was supposed to be a home where I could actually meet her before she goes to bed. MUDASSIR: So the pace of hiring . : So we have two frameworks that weve come up with. : Someone, one of our colleagues that worked with us on the OS, he asked me, do you know where Mackenzies revenue was? And if theres a super crazy important reason to do it at the other level, well do it the other way. : Yeah, for us it was we will figure it out. In an interview with Al Arabiya, Careem CEO Mudassir Sheikha says the UAE-bred ride-hailing service will expand its latest fintech venture, digital payments. Mudassir Sheikha: So this was the other mistake, per se, right? So that, you just trained the organization to be on it. 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. Mudassir Sheikha: It had some validity, it had some relevance. Why can it not be in the Middle East? Mudassir says that when the offer came up, he and Magnus looked to their original purpose for guidance. And people get exhausted and they work really hard. If youre running a business of hundreds of millions of dollars, a mistake is many millions. So the kids I generally see on the weekends. Can we help you with anything? Mudassir Sheikha - UAE Mudassir Sheikha: The biggest learning and the biggest surprise has been around people leadership, right? So it was difficult to get the caliber of people that we were hoping to get. You have to be at a certain scale to be competitive. So you always have to, so this is what we keep telling ourselves, we have to always be better than competition. : Yeah. 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. And were starting to change the KPIs that we look at as well. So it takes them longer to prioritize. They start believing lives are due to some extent. : Then you have to live the process. : The biggest learning and the biggest surprise has been around people leadership, right? [7], Sheikha is married with a family. : Well, so you have to institutionalize it, right? : And are you able to keep the weekend blocked off? And the more Ive done it, the more I realize that this is something thats missing. Copyright 2023 Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Mudassir Sheikha: I hope thats happening. And Ill see the growth, but as soon as that promo code is over, the growth will vanish, right? So amazing experiences. Saturday is my catch up day. Anything outside of it, we want it to be as local as possible. That would have saved us a lot more time and effort down the road. Empowering the front line to make the decisions to do as much as possible that they can do on their own. 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. Second is be of service which is the whole serve our customers, serve our captains. 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. And if you do it at the country level, then youre not going to get the agility that you need or the relevance that you need. They know what theyre doing and they are extremely driven and in line with the mission and vision of Careem. So it can be done at the country level. So thats the way we are approaching those things which require more scientific planning, thinking, and doing. : So the ambition initially was actually not so big. Congratulations on Careem's First Decade. And the front line for us is the cities. Shikhar Ghosh: So at what point, you know, we hear many companies go through two years of growth, right? Or were we giving just people feedback on their delivery and their performance? Ive got a company that Im working with that does annual. So we were very hands-on and theres a culture of being hands-on at Careem. If we become cheaper, they will match our prices and go even below because thats the game they can play. Mudassir Sheikha: So there was definitely a transition from doing everything to then having people who were doing things. So we tried that. Shikhar Ghosh: So what does your day look like? Be super, super ambitious. What ETA do you get? And now, of course, were many times that size now. How do you think about that? Mudassir Sheikha: So this product market fit is a continuous thing. [11] In January 2018, they became the first ride-hailing service to launch in Baghdad. Then we empower them to the right resources to do this and we support them and do this, right? Certain aspects of the brand are part of it, but for the most part, we want to empower the front line and have them drive the decisions and only support them as an advisor versus become service providers or controllers. This thing will start attracting the right people. : 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. You could almost do any of the jobs yourself. 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. The exponential growth of Careem roots from the values the company has instilled in its operations. : So at what point, you know, we hear many companies go through two years of growth, right? Personally as well, but also reinvent the way that youre doing things. : So some of these things like analytics, growth hacking, in general, the product is expanding to cover these things. These are the values that we stand for. Personally as well, but also reinvent the way that youre doing things. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. Entrepreneur and its related marks are registered trademarks of Entrepreneur Media Inc. Mudassir Sheikha is the CEO and co-founder of Careem. Learn why Sheikha believes disseminating culture by hiring the right people is one of the most important jobs the CEO of a scale-up can do. : And then we would have some weekly check ins, sometimes even daily check ins. Mudassir Sheikha: Theyre output oriented. How do we recruit people? And we started that exercise. You know, if you miss growth in one hour, then its going to be difficult to recover in the rest of the day. : Right. How do you balance these two things? : So product market fit is a constantly evolving thing because you have to be continuously better than someone else that has deeper pockets, that is able to give the same thing that you have, with some delay, at a cheaper price. This thing will start putting the right people behind the right rules. 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. But even at relatively high levels in that organization, you had no idea what a business was producing, right? : Or weeks. And once this is in place, then we will be able to take a step back and make sure that we keep evolving this thing, versus evolve the business that this thing produces. So that person can translate and say look, hes ambitious. This thing will start putting the right people behind the right rules. Youre not going to get it exactly right every time, but youre going to get If you ask the question every time, then you can start calibrating as well. The particular context that somebodys in. 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 shares how navigated leadership challenges, including balancing family needs and establishing culture, while rapidly scaling Careem. So thats when Magnus and I would have to be a lot more involved in the business. : So, I think there is some Thats a great question. The task and the challenge of getting that right was not as I was nave on that front. You know, all of that. How do you balance the tax that you place on yourself and therefore on your family, therefore on other choices that youre making. : So that part, in hindsight was we underestimated that challenge and we didnt invest enough in it. We were obsessed with weekly growth rate. So the default role that a country or Dubai plays is advisory. [8] He is known for his philanthropic work in Pakistan, particularly in the areas of education and healthcare.[9]. However, Careem captains are not part of the transaction. And they give that thing for 20% less than what youre giving. You know, pricing is a pretty complicated, sophisticated topic that has far reaching implications if its not done right. Mudassir Sheikha: Profitability then is an output, right? This is the culture that we want to build. Its not a subjective thing. And who's more known worldwide for their important work, Moza or a bank CEO? [7] It started operating in July 2012 as a website-based service for corporate car bookings, and evolved to become a ridesharing company with car hire for everyday use. You understood the business completely. So this is something that we never did. What are the things that surprised you about that transition from when you go to knowing everything thats happening and acting on each of the things that are blowing up, to knowing that Im not going to know a lot thats happening? Youve got sort of 18 working hours in a day and you have to do the practical things. But youre building a structure to do that. It would have saved us a lot more bad hiring decisions. Because as we have said multiple times, smart and very capable people, they dont want to work at startups. Mudassir Sheikha is CEO/Co-Founder at Careem Networks FZ LLC. Not, you know, head of HR or not people person. Or a formal recruiting process? Basically these are starting routes for now. : You know, we havent tracked it fully yet, right? And you know, you worked at BCG and I spent some time at Mackenzie. So if lets say, pricing as a topic.
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