The Exchanges

Q You mentioned the acquisition and the discussion internally there. I want to take a slight step back and obviously I spoke to many people. I want to start with the acquisition process and your first meeting with Dara, I heard I had to ask this. Take me to the first meeting with Dara. Where was it? How did it go down?

A First meeting was, uh, surprisingly positive. Uh, it was a meeting that happened in Riyadh on the first FII. It was both Dara and Travis, and Dara had just joined or was going to join, and Magnus and I met both of them. Uh, Dara just showed so much more respect. He mentioned his links to the region. He asked questions. Why are we doing it? What are we doing it? What is our vision? From someone that Was heading a company whose name was a four letter word at Karim. Uh, there were people at Karim that would not wear black because, uh, that color was black. So, uh, it was a very different relationship, uh, that we had with them, uh, before the deal happened.

AI assessment note: “First meeting was, uh, surprisingly positive. Uh, it was a meeting that happened in Riyadh”

Q Is it hard to retain that element of frugality when you raise a lot of money, as you did do?

A A hundred percent. It's very difficult. Uh, it's, it's very difficult. Especially when You are in a market where others are spending a lot of money. You know, we used to have this concept that every dollar that we spend Asked to match the five dollars that our competition is spending in our market because we were out funded. And if you need to compete with much less funding, your dollars just need to stretch a lot more. And, and marketing, which as a consumer platform, you need to spend and invest money in is, is an area where we felt we would never be able to spend big dollars on marketing because it's just very expensive. So what we would try and do is we would come up with Viral concepts that just spread on their own, and we did a lot of crazy things. You may have heard of this slingshot video in Dubai, where we basically threw a man from one tower in Dubai to another tower, and turned out that he misses, man, everyone thinks, including the intelligence in the city that someone has died, where this was a publicity stunt. It ended up going viral. I think Elon Musk Tweeted that as well. And, uh, we ended up creating tens of millions of dollars of publicity to a very simple video. In Pakistan, when we were launching the motorbike category, uh, we bought a small billboard that basically told women in the country that if you want to run away from your wedding, you should call a k…

AI assessment note: “A hundred percent. It's very difficult.”

Q I absolutely love that. I mean, listen, it's an advert for Eight Sleep All Calm, but, uh, that's very funny. Can I ask, on the fundraisers, when you review them, which round was the hardest to raise?

A Actually, all of them felt hard at that time. Uh, but looking back, the first two rounds were probably the toughest. Because we were too small to go to global investors and the region was a very early in their sort of appetite for local startups. So there weren't a lot of people that were investing. So the first round was Came through, through share, uh, luck, uh, all the investors that we spoke to, there were a handful of VCs in the region. They had turned us down, and then somehow one of them had a change of heart, called us back, and we were negotiating, negotiating all the valuation, and they figured out a creative way to bridge the gap. But the second round was probably the toughest, because we have some people, we have, we have put two, two and a half years into doing this, running out of money, First, Magnus and I put more of our own money into the business, but at some point we were not able to put any more money. We're still running out of money. We have a lead investor on the table, but that investor, that the documents are just taking way longer to sign. And this is really where you see the, the beauty of the region come through. So I call our lead investor for that round and I say, Abdullah, this thing is taking a lot longer to close. We're out of money. We've already put our savings into the business. And he's like, how much money do you need? I said half a million…

AI assessment note: “looking back, the first two rounds were probably the toughest.”

Q We mentioned funding there. I've got another one for you. Tell me the story of an Airbnb bunk bed, which is an interesting start, the night before raising three hundred and fifty million dollars back in 2016. How did that come to be?

A Our CFO back then, Ankur, he had this frugality DNA as well. So we were going for an investor meeting for the three fifty million dollar round in San Francisco. And, um, he had booked these, uh, two rooms on Airbnb, uh, with bunk beds, uh, which frankly was actually quite difficult for us to sleep on. So I didn't get much sleep, uh, that night. I'm not a coffee person, but I had more than my fair share of coffee just to make sure that I was able to present in that meeting and stay awake. And I think there was also one small thing there where we got to the meeting a little bit before the time of the meeting. So he said, let's catch up on sleep. So we had a small little car, I think Geo Metro or something similar. Where we were sleeping in the car and one of our investors would come to meet us just to give us advice for that meeting. Took some pictures and send them out.

AI assessment note: “he had booked these, uh, two rooms on Airbnb, uh, with bunk beds”

Q I, I, I love that, and I'm totally with you on the silver lining. I always try and do the same. I want to move to the founding of Karim. We were with McKinsey before, and then we decided to co-found Kareem. What was that aha moment? And what was that founding moment for you and Magnus with Kareem?

A Like most people who run into a problem and they have a moment where they feel that something can be done better. I don't think we had that moment, but there were two things that happened that created a desire to build something, and more important thing happened in Magnus' life where in 2011, a year before we start Korean, he had a bleeding in his brain that almost took his life, and as part of the reflection that he went through on life and what he had done in the first 30 years of his life, he promised himself that if he survives, he would call himself Magnus two point oh and build something big and meaningful, And on my side, something much less dramatic, uh, as part of McKinsey, we were trying to open the office in Pakistan, which is where I'm from, and I realized as part of that process that as a country of two hundred twenty million people then, we haven't built large and lasting institutions. At that time, in 2011, there was only one company outside of the National Gas Company and the National Oil Company that was worth more than a billion dollars. And I found that a little bit embarrassing because, of course, I spent many years in Silicon Valley before that, every hundred meters. There are companies that are way larger than that. Magnus, I joke around with, you grew up in Sweden. For a nation of nine million people, you guys have produced many large and lasting institu…

AI assessment note: “I don't think we had that moment, but there were two things that happened”

Q Did you have product market fit from day one?

A The short answer is no. And you never do because we've learned many products, uh, now in the last 12 years, 11 years, and almost nothing has worked on day one as we expected. So I remember we'd lost the service. We have many captains that are waiting, but there's no one booking arrive. So we end up calling our custom, calling our friends. Hey, these guys are waiting just for free. Try it out. But even then people were not using it because they have existing arrangements that, uh, we're taking them around. But you know, what you end up realizing is you have to be very focused early on. You have to go after as narrow opportunities as possible. So we realized that there were some use cases, for example, where people were not able to use their own transport, uh, going to the airport was one of them. So we launched an airport promise that if you're more than five minutes late, the trip would be free. So we went after that use case. We went after corporates, which was our initial business to begin with, but we made sure that they were getting the right quality of service, the right levels of reliability that ended up becoming a huge, uh, source of revenue and profits in the early days before we were able to raise money. So it took us a few months to get this thing going, but, uh, it didn't take us very long before the growth started showing up on the platform.

AI assessment note: “The short answer is no. And you never do”

Q I've got so many questions. This is going to be a great discussion. I agree with you on the lack of huge billion-dollar companies. Why do you think that is?

A There are, of course, many reasons, but it boils down to two things. Um, the first thing is what I mentioned a little bit earlier, that there's no shortage of potential. There is a lot of friction in daily life, Harry. You know, when you wake up in the morning, One of the things that you have to worry about is to make sure that there's water in the tap, which you can use to take a shower. If you're lucky after getting water, uh, in the tank that can power your shower, you may or may not have power or electricity. After that, you have to worry about how will you get to your work or, or college or school, because transportation is not as easily available as, as, as it is in many parts of the world. So there's just a lot of daily friction of life and a lot of talent in a place like Pakistan and other places like Pakistan. We just end up Living our lives, solving all of these basic things, and don't really get the opportunity to think of big things and do those big things. So that's one problem. Life is just full of friction, and hence the potential doesn't get realized. The second thing is, is also lack of The self belief and confidence because you know, not many things have happened. A lot of people don't even believe that they can build big things. So it really has become a little bit of a vicious cycle where since it's not been done, I don't think it can be done and I'm not eve…

AI assessment note: “There are, of course, many reasons, but it boils down to two things.”

Q Is it hard to retain that element of frugality when you raise a lot of money, as you did do?

A A hundred percent. It's very difficult. Uh, it's, it's very difficult. Especially when You are in a market where others are spending a lot of money. You know, we used to have this concept that every dollar that we spend Asked to match the five dollars that our competition is spending in our market because we were out funded. And if you need to compete with much less funding, your dollars just need to stretch a lot more. And, and marketing, which as a consumer platform, you need to spend and invest money in is, is an area where we felt we would never be able to spend big dollars on marketing because it's just very expensive. So what we would try and do is we would come up with Viral concepts that just spread on their own, and we did a lot of crazy things. You may have heard of this slingshot video in Dubai, where we basically threw a man from one tower in Dubai to another tower, and turned out that he misses, man, everyone thinks, including the intelligence in the city that someone has died, where this was a publicity stunt. It ended up going viral. I think Elon Musk Tweeted that as well. And, uh, we ended up creating tens of millions of dollars of publicity to a very simple video. In Pakistan, when we were launching the motorbike category, uh, we bought a small billboard that basically told women in the country that if you want to run away from your wedding, you should call a k…

AI assessment note: “A hundred percent. It's very difficult.”

Q Can I ask, what would you advise founders having been through that process where your dollars are so outcompeted by other people's dollars? They're so outweighed. What would you advise founders when they have much smaller budgets than their competitors?

A I hope that, uh, the excesses of the last 15 years are behind us. So hopefully you're not going to have many situations where those kind of decisions will have to be made. But the two or three things that I, I generally tell founders are one similar to on the marketing side. Let's just figure out how can you get a lot more from your spending than you would do doing things traditionally or doing things without a lot of creative thinking or doing things Which other people are doing. So I think that's one element that you can optimize. Second, uh, make the product very, very local. And, and, you know, a lot of times you end up competing with companies that are coming from outside that have access to capital or different market, and they're just able to spend a lot of money, which is what happened with us. So make sure that your products are able to sort of outcompete the, the funding thing. So I'll give you a basic example. Early in Saudi Saudi Arabia, which is of course the largest market in the region, Um, not many people at that time had credit cards, or even if they had credit cards, they were not able to use credit cards, and people just preferred paying in cash. So this was something that we spotted very early on, and we said, let's, uh, enable cash payments, and while Uber was spending a lot of money in that market, but we were not able to use the service because just they …

AI assessment note: “the two or three things that I, I generally tell founders are”

Q We mentioned funding there. I've got another one for you. Tell me the story of an Airbnb bunk bed, which is an interesting start, the night before raising three hundred and fifty million dollars back in 2016. How did that come to be?

A Our CFO back then, Ankur, he had this frugality DNA as well. So we were going for an investor meeting for the three fifty million dollar round in San Francisco. And, um, he had booked these, uh, two rooms on Airbnb, uh, with bunk beds, uh, which frankly was actually quite difficult for us to sleep on. So I didn't get much sleep, uh, that night. I'm not a coffee person, but I had more than my fair share of coffee just to make sure that I was able to present in that meeting and stay awake. And I think there was also one small thing there where we got to the meeting a little bit before the time of the meeting. So he said, let's catch up on sleep. So we had a small little car, I think Geo Metro or something similar. Where we were sleeping in the car and one of our investors would come to meet us just to give us advice for that meeting. Took some pictures and send them out.

AI assessment note: “he had booked these, uh, two rooms on Airbnb, uh, with bunk beds”

Q I absolutely love that. I mean, listen, it's an advert for Eight Sleep All Calm, but, uh, that's very funny. Can I ask, on the fundraisers, when you review them, which round was the hardest to raise?

A Actually, all of them felt hard at that time. Uh, but looking back, the first two rounds were probably the toughest. Because we were too small to go to global investors and the region was a very early in their sort of appetite for local startups. So there weren't a lot of people that were investing. So the first round was Came through, through share, uh, luck, uh, all the investors that we spoke to, there were a handful of VCs in the region. They had turned us down, and then somehow one of them had a change of heart, called us back, and we were negotiating, negotiating all the valuation, and they figured out a creative way to bridge the gap. But the second round was probably the toughest, because we have some people, we have, we have put two, two and a half years into doing this, running out of money, First, Magnus and I put more of our own money into the business, but at some point we were not able to put any more money. We're still running out of money. We have a lead investor on the table, but that investor, that the documents are just taking way longer to sign. And this is really where you see the, the beauty of the region come through. So I call our lead investor for that round and I say, Abdullah, this thing is taking a lot longer to close. We're out of money. We've already put our savings into the business. And he's like, how much money do you need? I said half a million…

AI assessment note: “looking back, the first two rounds were probably the toughest.”

Q Fascinating to hear the contrast. How did the deal go down? I'd love to hear behind the scenes. They reach out and say, Hey, we want to partner with you. How did that look?

A At some point they, I guess I decided that they were going to, uh, Consolidate in markets where it made sense. Uh, that's where the China thing had happened. They'd done something in Russia and, and Middle East was in that list as well. So they'd reached out to us. We had some discussions with them, but nothing made sense. And then when we were about to start our second last funding round, we were in San Francisco meeting investors. And then our CFO had this idea that maybe we should go and check on Uber as well. Uh, see what they're up to. It was just, uh, Catch-up meeting that ended up restarting the process. And of course, there are many reasons to do the deal, but there were also very crucial reasons not to do it. The thing that really made it happen at the end was Dara saying that you guys can continue, continue pushing your purpose, keep your culture, keep your org. I'm just going to replace your shareholders and become a better shareholder. And that's really what Felt to us like this was the best of all worlds. Our shareholders get an exit. Our colleagues do well. The region gets an exit, which it needs for the ecosystem to start, you know, running forward. At the same time, the purpose of Kareem, which has been so sort of special for us and for the region stays, the culture stays, and we continue to build and hopefully build a much bigger and lasting institution from th…

AI assessment note: “The thing that really made it happen at the end was Dara saying”

Q I'm sure it is. Uh, when you sell, you go through a period of reflection. When you reflect, is there anything that you would have done very differently? Do you have any regrets? I get that was one from, uh, Amir at Kota. Any regrets from the journey?

A I wish we could have done more for our captains. As a, as a part of the exit process. You know, Kareem was built by these captains, um, and, and we are close to many of them. And if I look at them today, they're still doing what they were doing 10 years ago. And that saddens me a little bit. So many people at Kareem have done quite well. They've grown, um, and they've progressed in life as a result of these last 10 years. With the captains, which were the foundations of Korea, which were the ones that taught us how to build this business, and many cases are still where they were 10 years ago. So I wish we had done something for captains that would have benefited them from the transaction as well.

AI assessment note: “I wish we could have done more for our captains. As a, as a part of the exit process.”

Q Can I ask you, we're going to get into funding. What do you tell investors who go, oh, we think you're great, great company, but we don't want to invest in a company that's going up against these behemoths. How do you explain that to investors?

A Yeah. Look, I think we, we had to, right? So in some ways we were able to prove that it can be done. And, and the case was, was very similar to what I'm describing, Harry. I think we're just local and we are closer to the market. Uh, we understand the needs of customers. We keep adapting our products to those needs and we'll be able to prioritize those needs versus a global company that's, that has thousands of other priorities. That are sitting above the priorities for the region. So that's one big case to be made. Um, second, uh, we also at that time had a very different approach in how we worked with local stakeholders. So as you may have heard, we have a joint venture with the Dubai government, uh, that dispatches taxis. It's a very unique, uh, kind of model where the government and a ride-hailing platform has, has come together in a joint venture and have allowed the dispatching of taxis in the market.

AI assessment note: “we'll be able to prioritize those needs versus a global company”

Q Fascinating to hear the contrast. How did the deal go down? I'd love to hear behind the scenes. They reach out and say, Hey, we want to partner with you. How did that look?

A At some point they, I guess I decided that they were going to, uh, Consolidate in markets where it made sense. Uh, that's where the China thing had happened. They'd done something in Russia and, and Middle East was in that list as well. So they'd reached out to us. We had some discussions with them, but nothing made sense. And then when we were about to start our second last funding round, we were in San Francisco meeting investors. And then our CFO had this idea that maybe we should go and check on Uber as well. Uh, see what they're up to. It was just, uh, Catch-up meeting that ended up restarting the process. And of course, there are many reasons to do the deal, but there were also very crucial reasons not to do it. The thing that really made it happen at the end was Dara saying that you guys can continue, continue pushing your purpose, keep your culture, keep your org. I'm just going to replace your shareholders and become a better shareholder. And that's really what Felt to us like this was the best of all worlds. Our shareholders get an exit. Our colleagues do well. The region gets an exit, which it needs for the ecosystem to start, you know, running forward. At the same time, the purpose of Kareem, which has been so sort of special for us and for the region stays, the culture stays, and we continue to build and hopefully build a much bigger and lasting institution from th…

AI assessment note: “Catch-up meeting that ended up restarting the process. And of course, there are many reasons”

Q I, I, I love that, and I'm totally with you on the silver lining. I always try and do the same. I want to move to the founding of Karim. We were with McKinsey before, and then we decided to co-found Kareem. What was that aha moment? And what was that founding moment for you and Magnus with Kareem?

A Like most people who run into a problem and they have a moment where they feel that something can be done better. I don't think we had that moment, but there were two things that happened that created a desire to build something, and more important thing happened in Magnus' life where in 2011, a year before we start Korean, he had a bleeding in his brain that almost took his life, and as part of the reflection that he went through on life and what he had done in the first 30 years of his life, he promised himself that if he survives, he would call himself Magnus two point oh and build something big and meaningful, And on my side, something much less dramatic, uh, as part of McKinsey, we were trying to open the office in Pakistan, which is where I'm from, and I realized as part of that process that as a country of two hundred twenty million people then, we haven't built large and lasting institutions. At that time, in 2011, there was only one company outside of the National Gas Company and the National Oil Company that was worth more than a billion dollars. And I found that a little bit embarrassing because, of course, I spent many years in Silicon Valley before that, every hundred meters. There are companies that are way larger than that. Magnus, I joke around with, you grew up in Sweden. For a nation of nine million people, you guys have produced many large and lasting institu…

AI assessment note: “I don't think we had that moment, but there were two things that happened”

Q That's interesting. Like, is that good? Cause that's, I always think like, how long should you stick at something? Versus realize that actually it doesn't work and you should move on.

A Look, it's, it's good, um, and it's bad at the same time, right? It's, it's, it's good in the sense that A lot of the learnings, uh, that you get in trying something, they end up taking towards that you don't expect, and they end up becoming valuable somewhere else. Yes, you keep learning, and you keep building on those learnings. A lot of times end up getting somewhere that you would not have gotten to if you would not have pursued something long enough. So that's one aspect of it. But you're right, I think that the downside of this is you just end up piling A lot of things which end up creating some weight on the organization that starts pulling you down. So this is something that of course we're trying to get better at, but, um, this is, uh, this is the current DNA.

AI assessment note: “it's good, um, and it's bad at the same time, right?”

Q I've got so many questions. This is going to be a great discussion. I agree with you on the lack of huge billion-dollar companies. Why do you think that is?

A There are, of course, many reasons, but it boils down to two things. Um, the first thing is what I mentioned a little bit earlier, that there's no shortage of potential. There is a lot of friction in daily life, Harry. You know, when you wake up in the morning, One of the things that you have to worry about is to make sure that there's water in the tap, which you can use to take a shower. If you're lucky after getting water, uh, in the tank that can power your shower, you may or may not have power or electricity. After that, you have to worry about how will you get to your work or, or college or school, because transportation is not as easily available as, as, as it is in many parts of the world. So there's just a lot of daily friction of life and a lot of talent in a place like Pakistan and other places like Pakistan. We just end up Living our lives, solving all of these basic things, and don't really get the opportunity to think of big things and do those big things. So that's one problem. Life is just full of friction, and hence the potential doesn't get realized. The second thing is, is also lack of The self belief and confidence because you know, not many things have happened. A lot of people don't even believe that they can build big things. So it really has become a little bit of a vicious cycle where since it's not been done, I don't think it can be done and I'm not eve…

AI assessment note: “it boils down to two things. Um, the first thing is”

Q Can I ask, what would you advise founders having been through that process where your dollars are so outcompeted by other people's dollars? They're so outweighed. What would you advise founders when they have much smaller budgets than their competitors?

A I hope that, uh, the excesses of the last 15 years are behind us. So hopefully you're not going to have many situations where those kind of decisions will have to be made. But the two or three things that I, I generally tell founders are one similar to on the marketing side. Let's just figure out how can you get a lot more from your spending than you would do doing things traditionally or doing things without a lot of creative thinking or doing things Which other people are doing. So I think that's one element that you can optimize. Second, uh, make the product very, very local. And, and, you know, a lot of times you end up competing with companies that are coming from outside that have access to capital or different market, and they're just able to spend a lot of money, which is what happened with us. So make sure that your products are able to sort of outcompete the, the funding thing. So I'll give you a basic example. Early in Saudi Saudi Arabia, which is of course the largest market in the region, Um, not many people at that time had credit cards, or even if they had credit cards, they were not able to use credit cards, and people just preferred paying in cash. So this was something that we spotted very early on, and we said, let's, uh, enable cash payments, and while Uber was spending a lot of money in that market, but we were not able to use the service because just they …

AI assessment note: “the two or three things that I, I generally tell founders are”

Q You mentioned the acquisition and the discussion internally there. I want to take a slight step back and obviously I spoke to many people. I want to start with the acquisition process and your first meeting with Dara, I heard I had to ask this. Take me to the first meeting with Dara. Where was it? How did it go down?

A First meeting was, uh, surprisingly positive. Uh, it was a meeting that happened in Riyadh on the first FII. It was both Dara and Travis, and Dara had just joined or was going to join, and Magnus and I met both of them. Uh, Dara just showed so much more respect. He mentioned his links to the region. He asked questions. Why are we doing it? What are we doing it? What is our vision? From someone that Was heading a company whose name was a four letter word at Karim. Uh, there were people at Karim that would not wear black because, uh, that color was black. So, uh, it was a very different relationship, uh, that we had with them, uh, before the deal happened.

AI assessment note: “First meeting was, uh, surprisingly positive. Uh, it was a meeting that happened in Riyadh”

Q How do you do that while also being a rockstar CEO? What advice would you have for me? I, I work intensely like you. I want to be a good father. How do I do both?

A You know, marry well. I think that's, uh, 80% of the problem is just finding the right person to marry. Uh, and then, uh, become intentional about parenting. Okay. What is your responsibility? What is the other person going to do? So Sabha, my wife, uh, she was very clear with me that there are two or three things that she would like me to focus on with respect to kids. Financial education was one of them. And there were a couple of other things that she delegated to me. So then over the weekend, I put some things in place for me to start coaching them on those topics. Yeah. Having a discussion on, uh, What's important, uh, what she will do, what you will do. Try your best to, to do what you need to do, and that's not easy either.

AI assessment note: “marry well. I think that's, uh, 80% of the problem”

Q Can I ask you one final one before we do a quick fire? You mentioned the super app quite a few times. Super apps have been tried and tested many times. Other than in Asia, they have always failed pretty much. Um, why have they always failed?

A Different reasons, uh, Harry, for different, uh, ones that have not done well, but I think the last few that have been attempted have been built in an environment of capital abundance, and they have been built in a way that Is, has made it difficult for them to be profitable and sustainable while they're growing. I'll give you a basic example. In many of the businesses that we operate, the monthly retention of customers tends to be in the 60 to 70% range, and that's actually been considered okay and even good in some cases. Now, if you have a monthly retention of 60 to 70%, and if you want to keep growing, what does that mean? Next month, the first thing you gotta do is you gotta acquire enough customers To fill the first 30% of the customers that have left, and then any customer that you acquire on top of it, You need to then acquire them so that you can keep on growing. And that's incredibly expensive. And to keep doing that as you grow, it becomes more and more expensive with scale means that you need to have high margins to support that acquisition spend. And when you have high margins, those high margins and that end up creating vulnerabilities. They end up creating frustration from the marketplace stakeholders. I actually feel that, uh, Many of these businesses, including our business, um, have been built and have accepted things that should not have been okay. So one of …

AI assessment note: “built in a way that Is, has made it difficult for them to be profitable”

Q I'm sure it is. Uh, when you sell, you go through a period of reflection. When you reflect, is there anything that you would have done very differently? Do you have any regrets? I get that was one from, uh, Amir at Kota. Any regrets from the journey?

A I wish we could have done more for our captains. As a, as a part of the exit process. You know, Kareem was built by these captains, um, and, and we are close to many of them. And if I look at them today, they're still doing what they were doing 10 years ago. And that saddens me a little bit. So many people at Kareem have done quite well. They've grown, um, and they've progressed in life as a result of these last 10 years. With the captains, which were the foundations of Korea, which were the ones that taught us how to build this business, and many cases are still where they were 10 years ago. So I wish we had done something for captains that would have benefited them from the transaction as well.

AI assessment note: “I wish we could have done more for our captains. As a, as a part”

Q Can I ask you, we're going to get into funding. What do you tell investors who go, oh, we think you're great, great company, but we don't want to invest in a company that's going up against these behemoths. How do you explain that to investors?

A Yeah. Look, I think we, we had to, right? So in some ways we were able to prove that it can be done. And, and the case was, was very similar to what I'm describing, Harry. I think we're just local and we are closer to the market. Uh, we understand the needs of customers. We keep adapting our products to those needs and we'll be able to prioritize those needs versus a global company that's, that has thousands of other priorities. That are sitting above the priorities for the region. So that's one big case to be made. Um, second, uh, we also at that time had a very different approach in how we worked with local stakeholders. So as you may have heard, we have a joint venture with the Dubai government, uh, that dispatches taxis. It's a very unique, uh, kind of model where the government and a ride-hailing platform has, has come together in a joint venture and have allowed the dispatching of taxis in the market.

AI assessment note: “we are closer to the market. Uh, we understand the needs of customers.”

Q Does it get easier over time? Everyone says, oh, it doesn't get easier. Does it get easier?

A For me and for us, it's not gotten easier, but the problems that you're solving are, are different. You're not on the street driving as a captain or speaking to captains and recruiting captains and supporting captains, but, uh, you try to figure out what are the structural things that we need to do to build a lasting institution, right? What kind of performance management system makes sense for Kareem and its ambition? Uh, what kind of capital allocation process, uh, makes sense? Uh, what market should we go after? How should we go after those markets? What should, should we do organically, inorganically, And many of these things are not straightforward, at least for many of us in the region. We haven't had those kind of big successes that have happened in other parts of the world. We're still learning and evolving, uh, uh, in this, in this new phase of being.

AI assessment note: “For me and for us, it's not gotten easier, but the problems that you're solving are”

Q Can I ask you one final one before we do a quick fire? You mentioned the super app quite a few times. Super apps have been tried and tested many times. Other than in Asia, they have always failed pretty much. Um, why have they always failed?

A Different reasons, uh, Harry, for different, uh, ones that have not done well, but I think the last few that have been attempted have been built in an environment of capital abundance, and they have been built in a way that Is, has made it difficult for them to be profitable and sustainable while they're growing. I'll give you a basic example. In many of the businesses that we operate, the monthly retention of customers tends to be in the 60 to 70% range, and that's actually been considered okay and even good in some cases. Now, if you have a monthly retention of 60 to 70%, and if you want to keep growing, what does that mean? Next month, the first thing you gotta do is you gotta acquire enough customers To fill the first 30% of the customers that have left, and then any customer that you acquire on top of it, You need to then acquire them so that you can keep on growing. And that's incredibly expensive. And to keep doing that as you grow, it becomes more and more expensive with scale means that you need to have high margins to support that acquisition spend. And when you have high margins, those high margins and that end up creating vulnerabilities. They end up creating frustration from the marketplace stakeholders. I actually feel that, uh, Many of these businesses, including our business, um, have been built and have accepted things that should not have been okay. So one of …

AI assessment note: “built in an environment of capital abundance, and they have been built in a way”

Q have currency risk. You have economic risk. Why on earth would anyone invest in that country when a business is hard enough to build, and then you throw in that? Combined. And I'm like, one, if no one wants anyone to succeed, it's never going to work. And two, if you don't have the money to invest, it's never going to work. And those are the two reasons for me.

A Look, as we discussed, every problem is an opportunity. So, uh, the fact that, uh, not many people are trying and not many people are investing has created a bit of a void, right? Where there are two hundred twenty million people, actually two 50 now, based on the recent count, And they still need to lead their lives. They still need to solve the same problems that people in other parts of the world need to solve. Since there are not many companies globally and many companies locally solving those problems, the companies that end up solving those problems and making the effort, they just have a more open playing field to do well. So if you look at a lot of local businesses, uh, even in the traditional sector versus the digital economy that we spend a lot of our time Man, local businesses have done really, really well, uh, historically, uh, because they don't get a lot of competition outside, and even inside, you know, the competition that you get is generally not as formidable. So, there is an opportunity. Now, of course, to your question on why are the problems there in the first place, we've built companies, and we know that as leaders of companies, we can create a horrible culture, uh, in a company that is going to create all the kind of things that you were describing. But like I said, there is opportunity in this madness, which is why I personally am an investor, um, in th…

AI assessment note: “the fact that, uh, not many people are investing has created a bit of a void”

Q You said barely anything works on day one. Can I ask a hard one? What did you do that just flopped that did not work?

A Well, where do I start? Look, there was a, there was an idea that we had back in the day that, uh, a lot of the Companies, because there are a lot of limo companies that we were onboarding. In addition to, in some markets, you could not onboard individual drivers or individual captains. We were working with companies and they would bring all of their captains to work with us. So we figured they have their own business. They're working with us as well. What if we could give them our technology as a cloud offering, which would then allow them to do their business on our technology stack and also do our business. So this would be a way for us to Get them to adopt our technology and would make the acquisition a lot more seamless. We spent a lot of time building it. We spent a lot of time trying to sell it. We, in fact, even had one large demo company to buy sign up, but that was a miserable flock because we were just not designed to be a SaaS company. They kept asking for disimprovement there, that feature there, and we just had a priority and we were just solving for our customers and those needs were very, very different. Then the needs of an enterprise that is using as a, as a technology provider. So that was a big one. And like I said, there's a long, long list of such things.

AI assessment note: “that was a miserable flock because we were just not designed to be a SaaS company”

Q That's really, really hard. How do you manage a board effectively, and what do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started, Kareem, on board and investor management?

A One of the things that I, of course, after the whole thing got done, I reflected on what we could have done differently, and board management was one where I felt we could have done a much better job. We were just so busy running the business, Harry, that we didn't spend a lot of time with our board, other than maybe a few people here and there. We could have been More proactive in building relationships, building trust. That would have then created currency, uh, that could have helped us at those, uh, moments. But then one concrete learning for me was, uh, let's have a chairman of the board that can help us manage the rest of the board. Because it takes time, as you know, and if we can get someone that is well respected by everyone, that has got the, the time and the ability to manage the, help us manage the board. Getting someone like that in place and then making sure that we spend a lot of time with that person and with that person manage the board could have been, could be, could have been quite helpful. We tried doing that towards the very end after we reflected on it, but by that it was a bit too late and it wasn't necessary.

AI assessment note: “one concrete learning for me was, uh, let's have a chairman of the board”

Q Can I ask you, what were the reasons not to do the deal?

A Kareem is quite special, uh, Harry. And I don't say it because I, I, I was one of the people who started Kareem, but I've been at startups before. Uh, Been a part of founding team before, and these things generally start for relatively material things, right? People want to become rich. People want to do something that really people will look up to and inspire others, but Kareem got lucky in the sense that Kareem's start was the result of madness's Near like death experience and the desire to build something big and more importantly, build something meaningful. That's a gift that keeps giving. Um, and as a result of which the purpose of Kareem came about, uh, the passion for that purpose came about. We felt that it would be a shame to lose such a unique and special start to, to a competitor who's most likely going to merge it Eventually, and the Korean brand, and the Korean purpose, and the Korean culture will disappear. It felt like a huge loss, and I remember when I was Talking to the night before the deal, of course, I have to tell some of our leaders that this deal is happening. And one of the leaders I spoke to about the deal, his exact words to me was, this is the worst amount of money that I'm going to make. How can you do it? And there were many people at Green who were not happy that we did this thing, even though so many of them, they really, really well financially, …

AI assessment note: “We felt that it would be a shame to lose such a unique and special start”