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The 21-year-old Building India's Largest Hotel Network by riloxy(m): 5:51pm On Sep 08, 2015 |
One night, 18-year-old Ritesh Agarwal was
locked out of his apartment in Delhi. It was
an unfortunate minor incident that was to
change his life.
Forced to check into a hotel he found
himself in a situation he had already
experienced several times while travelling
in India.
"The receptionist was sleeping," he says.
"Sockets did not work in the room,
mattresses were torn apart, the bathroom
was leaking, and at the end they wouldn't
let me pay by card."
"I felt if this was my problem, this had to
be a problem for many travellers. Why can't
India have a good standard of hotel rooms
at a reasonable price?''
Four years later, at the age of 21, Mr
Agarwal is now the founder and chief
executive of Oyo Rooms - a network of
2,200 hotels operating in 100 cities across
India - with monthly revenues of $3.5m
(£2.3m) and 1,500 employees.
The firm works with unbranded hotels to
improve their facilities and train staff,
rebrands them with its own name, and from
then on takes a percentage of the hotel's
revenues.
The owner of the hotel benefits from a
higher occupancy rate, thanks to Oyo's
branding.
And as part of the business, Mr Agarwal
has also developed an app, which guests
can use to book rooms, get directions to
the hotel, and once they have arrived, to
use the hotels amenities, for example to
order room service.
Tough journey
Despite such rapid growth, he says the
early days were "extremely difficult".
"No one would believe that this could be a
technology business in the future," he says.
But some people did believe in him. A
similar idea - which eventually evolved into
Oyo Rooms - won him a coveted Thiel
Fellowship - a programme sponsored by
PayPal co-creator and early Facebook
investor Peter Thiel - which pays for 20
teenagers each year to stop studying and
try to set up a business instead.
He used the funding from the fellowship to
start the business.
The firm launched in June 2013 with just
$900 (£586; €799) a month, working with
one hotel in Gurgaon near Delhi.
"I used to be the manager, engineer,
receptionist for this one hotel and also
deliver stuff in hotel rooms," says Mr
Agarwal. "At night I would write codes to
develop our app and improve our website.
But alongside this I was also building
strong teams because I knew I wanted to
scale this up. ''
But the only way he could persuade
investors that it was a worthwhile idea was
to show them just how bad some budget
hotels in India were.
"I took our first investor to the hotel we
had developed and the other hotels where
there were many problems. He saw the
conviction in us and felt good about
investing in something which he saw could
make a difference.'' recalls Mr Agarwal.
Now the business has grown, it has become
much easier to attract investors, and the
firm recently secured $100m from Japan's
Softbank.
Nonetheless when Mr Agarwal started the
company, lots of people told him he was
crazy.
"But because it was crazy, it was doable.
It's true: if you think crazy stuff that is
when it becomes a lot more doable."
The journey from college dropout to
business owner may appear smooth, but he
says starting a business at 17 was not
easy. Mr Agarwal says normal things like
getting a bank account or hiring staff were
more challenging. Plus some people saw his
age as a chance to take advantage.
'"There were some people who took me for a
ride to achieve their short term goals. But I
also met some very good people and
experiences with them far superseded all
the other problems," he says.
Starting young
Mr Agarwal was always ambitious, even from
a young age.
He grew up in Rayagada a small town in
the eastern Indian state of Orissa, and
started writing computer code at the age of
eight.
"I used my brother's books, and it was the
first time I saw stuff happening on the
computer, because of the things I had
done. That is when I first felt the
excitement of creating stuff from scratch
and it never stopped."
By the time Mr Agarwal was 13 he started
helping people in his town design websites.
He also wrote a book on engineering
colleges in India when he was 17 years old,
aimed at helping students choose the right
course and college in India.
Looking ahead
Now his ambition shows in his plans for the
firm, which Mr Agarwal wants to expand
overseas. He hopes to create the world's
largest network of hotel rooms.
But he admits it won't be easy, saying
recruiting the right people when it is
growing so rapidly is tough.
Currently, his focus is on making
improvements based on customer feedback,
and he remains optimistic about expanding
the company at home, saying India's
increasing smartphone and internet
penetration offers "huge potential".
For those keen to emulate his success, his
advice - perhaps unsurprisingly - is to
"start early".
"Start really fast and, if you fail, you will
learn and the chances of success in the
next venture will increase," he says. |
Re: The 21-year-old Building India's Largest Hotel Network by kossyablaze(m): 5:56pm On Sep 08, 2015 |
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Re: The 21-year-old Building India's Largest Hotel Network by riloxy(m): 6:12pm On Sep 08, 2015 |
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