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Sheikha Regrets $3.1B Uber Deal Didn't Financially Benefit Careem's Drivers
“I wish we could have done more for our captains. As a part of the exit process. You know, Kareem was built by these captains 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 …”
Sheikha: Careem's Board Was Deeply Divided Over the $3.1B Uber Acquisition
“And it was a contentious process where there were some investors that wanted to sell and there were others that didn't want to sell. And it ended up creating a big divide in the port that made things quite challenging.”
Dara Khosrowshahi Promised Careem Autonomy to Finalize $3.1B Uber Acquisition
“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.”
Careem Outcompeted Uber in Saudi Arabia by Enabling Cash Payments
“Early in Saudi Saudi Arabia, which is of course the largest market in the region 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 some…”
Sheikha: Low-margin platforms must stay frugal to avoid overtaxing drivers
“We're in a very low margin business. And since we're low margin, we don't want to tax our captains with very high margins. We just need to be super, super frugal as a platform so that we can be as efficient as possible.”
Careem Investor Wired $1M From Personal Account Before Signing Paperwork
“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 dollars. He's like…”
Careem's business dropped 90% during early COVID pandemic
“I think a few months after we closed the deal, COVID happened, and as you expected our business was down 90%.”
Sheikha: Careem founders feared Uber acquisition would erase company culture
“We felt that it would be a shame to lose such a unique and special start 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.”
Careem reports monthly customer retention typically ranges between 60% and 70%
“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.”
Careem's $3.1B Uber Acquisition Created 75 USD Millionaires Among Employees
“I think in dollar terms, there were 75 millionaires. In that term, there were, I think, 300 plus.”
Sheikha: Careem's Fake Slingshot Video Generated Tens of Millions in Publicity
“And we ended up creating tens of millions of dollars of publicity to a very simple video.”
Careem generated profits from corporate clients before raising VC
“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 source of revenue and profits in the early days before w…”
Sheikha: Careem originally launched as a corporate car service
“It was started as a corporate car service before it became a ride-hailing service and before it became a lot more than ride-hailing.”
Careem is building a Super App abstraction layer for regional startups
“And through the super app, we're trying to create an abstraction layer where people can build their business, all our super app, and the super app since operates in all the different markets, we have built the underlying infrastructure. They can benefit from t…”
Careem established a joint venture with the Dubai government for taxi dispatching
“We have a joint venture with the Dubai government that dispatches taxis.”
Sheikha: Careem's B2B SaaS offering flopped because Careem wasn't built for SaaS
“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.”
Careem offers over 20 services in Dubai
“And today, if you come to Dubai, we have 20 plus services all the way from ride healing to food delivery, to grocery delivery, to home cleaning, to laundry, to payments.”
Careem completed a corporate spin-out with regional investors and Uber
“We have done a spin out thanks to their help with some regional investors on board now.”
Sheikha: Elon Musk tweeted Careem's viral Dubai slingshot video
“I think Elon Musk Tweeted that as well.”
Sheikha: Lifestyle hasn't changed after $3.1B Careem exit
“My lifestyle hasn't changed too much. I'm still living in the same house that we lived before, largely driving similar cars, travel similarly, and so on and so forth. So we haven't done Too many changes in our life.”
Sheikha: Proactive board relationship building would have helped during Careem deal
“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 currenc…”