rapid scaling Archives • ROCK CENTER STARTUP GUIDE

Two people seated in chairs, discussing the challenges CEOs of rapidly scaling startups face

Careem’s Mudassir Sheikha on Co-Founders, Establishing Culture & Balancing Family at a Rapidly Scaling Startup

Mudassir Sheikha, co-founder and CEO at Careem, reflects on leadership lessons he learned while scaling Careem into a unicorn almost overnight. Learn how having a company-wide culture helped Careem thrive during the chaos of meteoric growth and why Sheikha believes that disseminating culture and hiring the right people is one of the most important jobs the CEO can do while scaling.

Three men (Careem's co-founders) standing in a line with arms on one another's shoulders, smiling, as they managed the pressures of rapid scaling

Managing the Pressures of Rapid Scaling

As you scale, the strengths and habits that enabled you to launch—visionary thinking, working nonstop, or making decisions based on experiential knowledge—can become liabilities that damage your startup’s capacity for long-term growth and have serious negative consequences. In an interview with Shikhar Ghosh, Careem’s co-founders Mudassir Sheikha, Magnus Olsson, and Abdulla Elyas reflect on their meteoric growth from 2012-2014. Candidly sharing the mistakes they made, they identify the consequences of rapid scaling and share practical advice for other founders.

Common Funding Mistakes when Scaling

Many founders conflate raising a significant amount of venture capital or getting a high valuation as validation of their current business model. But as you scale, past behaviors stop working effectively and often processes are strained and break. How do you avoid the most common scaling mistakes?

4 Scaling Myths That Could Impact Your Startup

During scaling, the role of CEO differs dramatically from that of an early-stage startup. Your focus will shift from proving your idea works, building your product, and getting others on board, to hiring a competent leadership team, creating processes, and being the face of your startup’s mission and culture.