Turning your purpose into a superpower for growth

An adapted version of this newsletter first appeared on?Inc.com

For the ride-sharing and consumer app Careem, a strong sense of purpose is a “superpower” that guides the company’s decisions. So says its co-founder Mudassir Sheikha , who left a consulting job at McKinsey 10 years ago to venture into uncharted business territory in the Middle East.

Sheikha comes from a humble background in Pakistan, where electricity and hot water were never a sure thing, and where public transportation could be crowded and unreliable. As he told me on my podcast, he can identify with people in the Middle East and North Africa who experience “a lot of friction in daily life.” Careem’s purpose is to “simplify and improve the lives of people and build a lasting organization that inspires.”

Careem means “generosity” in Arabic, and it informs the way the company aims to treat its?“four C’s”: customers, captains (what the company calls its drivers), communities and colleagues.

Here are some highlights from Sheikha’s entrepreneurial story:

He and his co-founder have sought to leaving a lasting legacy. Careem’s co-founder Magnus Olsson, also from McKinsey, suffered a life-threatening medical condition that caused him to re-evaluate his purpose in life. A goal of building something larger than themselves enabled the two men to create location-mapping and payment technology from scratch to get Careem off the ground. Careem eventually grew from being a ride sharing service into what’s called a super app, where a mobile device user can do a variety of consumer-related things in one place, like food delivery and electronic payments.

Challenging Middle East traditions has been rewarding – and difficult. Careem has been life-changing for women in several countries in the Middle East who previously had to rely on relatives or a family driver to go from place to place. In Saudi Arabia, when it became legal for women to drive, Careem made a push to hire women captains. Traditions die hard, and only 5 percent of the captains there are women, but the effort continues. “It’s been an incredible journey, and women empowerment, in the broader sense, is one of the things that makes us very proud,” Sheikha said.

He has found that a well-defined purpose helps attract stellar employees. At the start, the company’s salaries were lower than the norm and company equity was only on paper. The people who joined Careem felt ignited by the company’s mission of improving people’s lives, and didn’t let only financial considerations guide their decision to apply, Sheikha said: “The true believers where the flame was the sharpest, was the loudest, sort of came on board really on a leap of faith. So that really worked out well for?us.”

He knows that in serving multiple stakeholders, trade-offs are inevitable. For example, there may be times when the captains’ pay isn’t what it should be because the needs of another stakeholder are more urgent in the short term. Or, perhaps the company’s stock price falls short temporarily because of an essential investment in a long-term priority. These trade-offs are sometimes necessary for a company to survive.

Holding true to purpose involves setting up “guardrails” that prevent the company from pursuing ideas that may help profits but hurt society, Sheikha said. A case in point: The company decided a “buy now, pay later” payment option on the app would encourage too many people to live beyond their means.

As Sheikha put it: “If we focus on delivering something that makes a positive impact, everything else will follow.”

He believes that a commitment to purpose leads to superior financial results. Careem’s performance supports that belief. In less than six years the company reached coveted “unicorn” status, reaching a valuation of $1 billion. Then, a few years later, Uber came calling with an offer to buy Careem.

Sheikha said he and Olsson looked to their original purpose when deciding whether to accept the offer. They determined that accepting the deal would move Careem forward. In 2020, Uber acquired Careem for $3.1 billion. Sheikha and Olsson remain as co-leaders of the company.

Sheikha’s goal is “is take Careem to the next level and hopefully realize its purpose over the next decade or two.” He believes his company has the ability to “fundamentally change the course of the region.”