Careem, the first 5 years!

Today, this July 22, 2017, Careem officially turned 5. And on this momentous occasion, it’s hard not to be immensely grateful for all the blessings and support we have received from our captains, our customers, our colleagues, and the broader ecosystem. It’s also hard not to feel proud of the visible and invisible impact we have made on the lives and aspirations of people in our region. But the emotion that is most resounding today is one of responsibility. We feel responsible for our captains and their families, responsible for the trust of our customers, responsible for the ambitions of our colleagues, and responsible for the betterment of the region that has given us this opportunity.

Careem is a trust

While we may have started Careem, the region has made it. Yes, we gave our blood, sweat and tears in the last five years to get the company up-and-running, and yes, we may have made some great decisions, but if it were not for the support of the people in the region, we would not have come this far.

We are here today – as a rare unicorn from the Middle East – because of the captains who trusted us and remained with us despite aggressive approaches from competition. We are here today because of customers who trusted us with their lives and stuck with us despite challenges from time to time. We are here today because of our colleagues that subscribed to our mission and joined despite our inability to pay them market wages. We are here today because of the investors that put their hard-earned dollars in our trust despite the dark competitive and regulatory clouds. And we are here today because of the many blessings from higher powers that have been a consistent part of the Careem journey. For all of these reasons, Careem is a trust onto us, and we are the proud custodians of it. 

With this trust comes immense responsibility

One of our first responsibilities is toward our 250,000+ captains. They and their families depend on Careem for their livelihood. One Pakistani captain in Dubai reminded me of this responsibility when he said “Brother, you guys are supporting thousands of families in Pakistan, may Allah reward you for it.” This is no small responsibility, and we cannot help but feel some pressure from it. To fulfill it, we need to make sure our systems are always available and optimized to dispatch work to them, our prices are set to levels that net them enough to comfortably look after their families, our support systems best serve them when they need help, and we have programs in place for them to grow professionally with us. They have trusted us, and we have a responsibility to keep providing for them.

Our second responsibility is toward our customers and the broader community. Our responsibility here has grown significantly over time. When we were a corporate booking service, our main responsibility toward our customers was safety and reliability. As we expanded to consumers and launched services like Careem Kids, our responsibility expanded to looking after our society’s most vulnerable assets. In less developed markets like Egypt and Pakistan, we are being used for emergency support: we have transported women in labor to the hospital, we have rushed people out of bombing zones in Lahore and Cairo, and we have rallied blood donation drives.

Today, we feel that Careem has the unique regional reach and distribution to tackle some of our region’s biggest challenges. We are in 13 countries and 80 cities, our app is installed on at least 12 million smartphones, and we have a physical distribution of 250,000 captains on wheels. While we still have a long way to go, our reach is already powerful, and we feel it is our responsibility to own up to our region’s biggest challenges and take a stab at them. Our first attempt involved the refugee crisis. Our region is unfortunately the largest contributor and host of refugees globally. We ran a campaign over Ramadan that saw 8x more people donating for refugee causes than did all of 2016. This is validation of our significant reach, and we owe it to our communities to put it to work responsibly.

Our third responsibility is to our colleagues and their aspirations. This diverse group of 2,000 men and women from 50 countries have passionately signed up to Careem’s mission of simplifying lives and building a lasting institution from the region. They are the ones who have brought us this far against all odds and are tirelessly making magic happen every single day. Many of them may look exhausted from months of intense work but the fire inside of them keeps them pushing forward. Their passion and their conviction is inspiring. They have given us their lives, and we naturally feel responsible for their personal, professional and financial well-being.

Our fourth and last responsibility is to our region, which has given us this opportunity and trust. We owe it to our region to take it all the way, to build a corporate institution that will impact the lives of every single person in the region, that will leap-frog the region into a simpler future, that will become the organizational platform for people to make an impact, and that is built on culture foundations that can last hundreds of years. We also owe it to our region to fuel the tech and entrepreneurship ecosystem, give it its next generation of entrepreneurs, make top-talent prioritize startups over multinationals, create wealth that can fund these startups, and help the entire society realize the potential of technology and entrepreneurship. It will not be easy; many competitors will come and go, and we may have our internal challenges too. But we must deliver on this trust, we must succeed, we must remain hungry, not just for ourselves and for our customers and captains, but for the future of the region!

Feeling all grown up

Careem, which started out like any ambitious and care-free adolescent on July 22, 2012, feels like a young adult on its 5th birthday. We have a great responsibility towards our captains, our customers, our people and our region, and we look forward to imparting this responsibility with the highest levels of passion, professionalism and sincerity. This journey is just getting started. Happy Birthday, Careem!