Table of Contents
OYO-success-story- Bio, facts, Net worth, Owner Information, Income, How they start-up, Rating, Reviews, Journey, Growth.
It's inspiring to see how Ritesh Agarwal went from being a dropout to becoming a billionaire. OYO, the world's most inexpensive hotel brand, was founded and is led by 25-year-old Indian billionaire Ritesh Agarwal. He set out to create a solution for travelers seeking reasonably priced hotels worldwide when he was just 20 years old, and he is well on his way to realizing this dream.
Some highlights of his life:
- Birth: Ritesh's life hasn't always been simple; he was born on November 16, 1993, in the small Indian town of Rayagada, in the Orissa region. He was raised in poverty and said that his first eighteen years were the hardest he had ever experienced.
- Qualification: He moved to Delhi for college after graduating from St. John's Senior Secondary School, but left shortly after to start OYO. In 2013, he became the first Indian to be chosen for the Thiel Fellowship.
- Marriage Life: On March 7, 2023, Agarwal wed Lucknow-native Geetansha Sood.
About his successful life:
Ritesh was busy solving actual problems, while we were busy being fussy about unimportant things when we were 19. He declares, "I've never cared about money." For me, the goal has always been to find real-world solutions. While traveling, he happened upon a rather abandoned hotel and saw that its owner was not making any money from it. Ritesh promised the hotel's owner that he would make it a place worth living, taking the largest risk of his life in the process.
By replacing the mattresses, lightbulbs, and other fixtures, as well as introducing room service and lovely picture frames, Ritesh greatly raised the standard of the hotel. He then uploaded a picture of the freshly designed rooms to the internet. The hotel's occupancy rate, which was previously less than 20%, increased to more than 90%, and business surged like never before. He started his transformation of this hotel in Gurgaon in 2013, and he hasn't stopped since.
He claims, "I was pretty sure I could change hundreds of hotels once I was able to change one."
OYO no longer only operates inside the boundaries of India. In more than 80 countries, including China, Malaysia, the USA, the UK, the UAE, Indonesia, and many more, OYO is present in more than 1,40,000 rooms and hotels.
Ritesh is the first Asian recipient of the $100,000 Thiel Fellowship, which is awarded to young innovators. He had no expectations when he applied for this fellowship, yet he was chosen for further consideration along with 40 other applicants, and they were all offered the opportunity to visit the US to present their original ideas.
He was astonished to no end when he was awarded the scholarship. With a $1.1 billion net worth, he was listed on the Hurun Rich List 2020. In 2016, Forbes published a list of the 30 Under 30 in consumer technology. In addition, he received the Young Entrepreneur Award from Business World.
He firmly feels that your background has no bearing whatsoever on who you are. According to him, the only things that count are your openness to learning new things and your fearlessness in showcasing your limitless potential. He goes on to say that regardless of how insignificant your effort may seem; you should be proud of it. He continues by saying that since every job is important, one shouldn’t feel bad about the type of work they do.
Ritesh has built an incredible life for himself thanks to his extraordinary vision and aspirations. He is a real example of the idea that you can still do great things in life even if you didn’t go to college.
When a hotel owner or OYO Rooms made contact with potential hotel partners, their team would visit the site, audit the establishment to determine what upgrades would be necessary to bring the facility up to OYO standards, and then provide the hoteliers with the information. After the launch, the team was joined by Bhawna Agarwal, the former CEO of SeventyMM, a major e-commerce company, who offered valuable business advice. VentureNursery, a business accelerator that brought together a group of investors to nurture startups, awarded Ritesh a fund of thirty lakhs. Later in 2014, OYO Rooms raised four crores from LightSpeed Venture and fourteen crores from DSG Consumer.
A member of the OYO Rooms’ team would visit the site, conduct an audit of the hotel, and provide the results to the hotels. Alternatively, a hotel owner may initiate contact with OYO Rooms. Returning to the team to offer guidance on business was Bhawna Agarwal, the former CEO of SeventyMM, a massive e-commerce company. VentureNursery, a startup accelerator that puts together a group of investors to support entrepreneurs’ growth, awarded Ritesh a fund of thirty lakhs. Later that year, OYO Rooms secured $4 million from Lightspeed Venture and $14 million from DSG Consumer.
Apart from being an entrepreneur, Ritesh is also a developer, an author, and an excellent speaker. He started learning to code when he was eight years old, and at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, he was one of the 240 students who attended an Asian camp when he was sixteen. In 2014, he was the panelist from Think EDU who was the youngest. He has consistently attended the VCCircle events. In the same year that he started Oravel Travels, he received a nomination for the Thiel fellowship. PayPal founder Peter Thiel established the fellowship, which gives a college dropout under 22 years old a $100,000 grant to work on a start-up idea.
Since its inception, OYO has expanded fast. The company has over 1.7 million rooms in operation in 2019 and was valued at more than $10 billion. However, OYO has had several difficulties in recent years. Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the corporation was forced to lay off thousands of employees in 2020.
