E-Paper
Sign In
KT+150 judge Mudassir Sheikha: Want to build big? Find a big problem
Building or transforming e-commerce in the UAE? Nominate yourself or someone aged 35 or younger for KT+150, as Careem’s Mudassir Sheikha reveals what will make an entry stand out
- PUBLISHED: Thu 20 Aug 2026, 8:00 AM
For Careem CEO and Co-Founder Mudassir Sheikha, the best opportunities for entrepreneurs are often hiding inside the hardest problems.
“My advice to any founder building in our region is simple: if you want to do something, do something big. To do something big, find a big problem,” he said. “Every problem is an opportunity, and the bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity.”
Recommended For You
It is a philosophy Sheikha will bring to the second edition of KT+150 as judge for the E-commerce category. The list will recognise 150 of the UAE’s most dynamic residents aged 35 or younger across 15 categories, with 10 honourees selected in each.
Nominations for all categories, including E-commerce, are now open, and members of the public can nominate themselves or someone else here: https://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-150
What will make an E-commerce nominee stand out?
For Sheikha, a polished pitch or rapid growth alone will not be enough.
“Every factor matters, but I will weigh two things above all: genuine customer dependence and the conviction to solve hard problems,” he said. “Real impact shows up in customer habits, not loud announcements or heavy discounting. Are people quietly weaving your product into their weekly routines because it authentically simplifies things for them?”
Sheikha said he would be particularly interested in founders tackling some of the underlying challenges facing the region’s digital economy: navigating unstructured address systems, removing payment friction, and earning trust among first-time online shoppers.
His advice is to start with an important problem but resist the temptation to tackle everything at once.
“Find a problem big enough to matter, but start small, stay disciplined, and convert conviction into fast action.”
That emphasis on solving local problems has been central to Careem’s own journey.
'The region was always ready'
Before Careem was built, Sheikha said the prevailing assumption was that major technology companies would emerge from places such as Silicon Valley, while this region would remain largely a consumer of products created elsewhere.
He saw it differently.
“The region was always ready; what was missing was the supply of people willing to build for it with the right intent,” he said.
Back in 2012, he saw strong local talent whose potential, in his view, was constrained by everyday friction and a lack of self-belief. The opportunity was not simply to build a technology company, but to prove that globally competitive businesses could be created from the region.
“We realized that if we could simplify daily lives, we could unlock that human potential and inspire an ecosystem of entrepreneurs to build big things from here.”
The early days of Careem
“In the early days, everything was an uphill battle,” Sheikha said.
There was no established regional playbook. Recruiting meant convincing talented people to walk away from secure careers for an unproven idea, while every new market presented its own regulatory and logistical challenges.
“For a long stretch, we were doing everything ourselves: operations, customer care, and dispatching rides late into the night. It took immense hustle and sacrifice from our earliest colleagues.”
The moment Sheikha began to see Careem’s larger potential did not come through a funding round or sudden surge in numbers. It came from watching customers repeatedly return to the service.
That trust, he said, opened up a much bigger question: "What other daily burdens can we take off their plate?”
From mobility to the Everything App
That question ultimately helped expand Careem beyond mobility into payments, food delivery and other everyday services.
Sheikha said the company was never conceived simply around one line of business. Mobility was its first entry point, rather than the limit of its ambition.
“The Everything App is not a pivot from a strategy deck; it is the natural evolution of listening to our customers, Captains, and merchant partners to see where daily friction sits next.”
Careem Pay, for example, emerged after the company saw Captains queuing at exchange houses to send earnings home to their families. As the platform expanded, Careem also concluded that it did not need to build every service itself.
“Instead, the Everything App has become an open digital ecosystem where we collaborate with the region’s best category champions.”
Sheikha cited Careem’s partnership with Justlife for home services and its strategic partners e& and Uber as examples of that approach.
As Associate Editor, Sahim Salim helps tell the UAE story like no one else does — and leads a team of reporters that asks the questions to get news and headlines that matter.