And so youre going to go through similar cycles of growth. Saturday is my catch up day. So if your competition is a lot bigger than you, then youre not even providing a competitive service to the customer or the captain. Unlike various impact focused companies that focus on the end user, Careem started with its employees. And family does suffer. 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 [15] The service was discontinued in early 2020. 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 in the Careem operating system, one of the principles is invest in experience to get growth. : Yeah. 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. 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 youre basically not there when theyre awake. Friday is the day that I-. Because as we have said multiple times, smart and very capable people, they dont want to work at startups. Support quality journalism and content. Women are also employed as drivers in Egypt and Jordan. Mudassir Sheikha - UAE Mudassir Sheikha: One is like, look, youre not at home much, so youre leaving at six a.m. sometimes, many times. Then after that, we said why just, you know, passenger transport? So we would only patch things and buy us six months. [23] In December 2016, the company raised US$350 million in a Series D round, based on a US$1 billion valuation for the company. Mudassir Sheikha: Well, so you have to institutionalize it, right? Mudassir Sheikha: Yeah, because one thing you have to realize is there are some net worth effects in this business. : So this was the other mistake, per se, right? At which point, there was some resignation that it is what it is. : So the two things that I would do differently is one, more upfront. And so its interesting because you started by saying, you know, we focus on the outputs, the growth, every other thing. Interview: Mudassir Sheikha CEO & Cofounder of Careem, the $1 Billion 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? So we were very hands-on and theres a culture of being hands-on at Careem. : So this is not something that can be done right away or that can be outsourced. Thats a very unusual thing. So it was very incrementally, okay, we need to open this market now. If theres a super compelling reason for this thing to be done at the country level, then well do it at the country level otherwise well keep it at the city level. Careem - Wikipedia Empowering the front line to make the decisions to do as much as possible that they can do on their own. Second is be of service which is the whole serve our customers, serve our captains. How do you think about that challenge? So people are working really, really hard.
