MAGAZINE

RITESH AGARWAL, FOUNDER OYO ROOMS
We are all aware of OYO Rooms which is
a very successful start-up. OYO rooms are
the country’s largest budget hotel chain
with about 50000 rooms in 500 hotels all
over India. OYO does not own hotels;
instead, it ties up with certain hotels and
acquires certain rooms to be given out to
people who want to avail OYO services. It
focuses on standardizing the hotels in the
non-branded hospitality sector. OYO
rooms are a very successful venture as it
has managed to solve the issue of
affordability, cleanliness and availability
of budget hotels across all Tier-1 and Tier-
2 cities in the country.
Ritesh Agarwal, a successful entrepreneur
is only 23 years old and has several
accolades to his credit. He was born in
Cuttack. To pursue his passion he enrolled
into a Indian School of business and
Finance, but left it mid-way to start his
own company. He was very clear about
what he wanted to do.
At the age of 17, he launched Oravel
travels, modelled after Airbnb, which later
branched out to become OYO rooms. Soon
he discovered that problem with budget
hotels was bigger than just availability, so,
to counter other issues he launched OYO.
The very year he launched Oravel travels,
he was nominated of the Thiel fellowship.
The fellowship is designed by Peter Thiel,
the founder of PayPal and provided a
college drop-out a sum of $100,000 to
pursue a start-up dream. He is the only
Indian to receive it. He has certain awards
and credentials to his name. Some of
which are
Forbes “30 under 30” in consumer
tech sector
Top 50 entrepreneurs in 2013 by
TATA First Dot powered by NEN
awards
TiE-Lumis entrepreneurial
Excellence awards 2014
Business World young
entrepreneur award.
Apart from an entrepreneur, he is an
author, coder and a great orator.
Contributed:
PALAK (MBA-II)