SUCCESS STORY OF AN

ENTREPRENEUR
INTRODUCTION
Ritesh Agarwal is an Indian
entrepreneur,the founder and CEO of
OYO Rooms - the fastest growing
Branded network of hotels offline &
online.

He started his entrepreneurial journey

at the age of 17 and is considered to
be one of the youngest CEOs in India.
HOW DID HIS JOURNEYBEGIN ?
Born on November 16, 1993, in
Bissam Cuttack in Orissa and belong
to a business class family.

Interestingly, he had started coding

when he was just eight years old
and by the time he reached his 10th
grade, he had a keen interest in
software and made up his mind that
he wanted to take up coding for a
living.
In 2009, during his coaching for IIT,
started writing a book– ‘Indian
Engineering Colleges: A Complete
Encyclopedia of Top 100
Engineering Colleges’. This book
turned out to become huge on Flipkart
and was sold out in a while too.

When he turned 16 , Ritesh was chosen

among the 240 children to be a part of
the Asian Science Camp held at the Tata
Institute of Fundamental Research
(TIFR) in Mumbai.
PROFESSION
AL LIFE
In 2011, Ritesh moved to Delhi with intentions
of starting up something of his own and at
the same time to prepare for SAT to move to
the US for further studies.

He had joined the University of London’s

indian campus, but just after three days of
joining he felt that he couldn’t continue.

Soon, he started travelling extensively across

india at the age of 17 and stayed in PG’s ,
budget hotel due to his stay experiences he
felt to launch Oravel stays in 2012.
ORAVEL TO
OYO ROOMS
Oravel Stays Pvt. Ltd was his first
startup in the year 2012. Oravel was
designed as a platform to enable
listing and booking of budget and
premium accommodations.

In simpler terms, it was meant to be

destination for short and midterm
rentals for bed and breakfast joints,
private rooms and serviced
apartments.
Soon, Agrawal realised that just a
combination of bed and dinner would
not fulfill the expectations of budget
travelers in India so he transformed
Oravel stays to OYO ROOMS, 2013
with the key proposition of offering
affordable and standardized
accommodation.
Contd…

OYO Rooms is India's largest branded

network of budget hotel chain .It
currently operates in more than 160
Indian cities including major metros,
regional hubs, leisure destinations and
pilgrimage towns ,with a current
valuation of nearly 360Cr.
OYO Rooms mobile app has been
launched downloaded more than
160,000 times and more than 20,000
bookings have been made so far.

The app ranks amongst the best-rated

apps on Google Play Store and has
also been listed as one of the top
three apps in the ‘Travel &
Local’ category.
AWARDS AND
RECOGNITION
First resident Asian to win Thiel Fellowship, 2013.

Top 50 Entrepreneurs in 2013 by TATA First Dot

powered by NEN Awards.

Named as one of the '8 Hottest Teenage Start Up

Founders in the World' in 2013 by Business
Insider.

TiE-Lumis Entrepreneurial Excellence Award in

2014 & Business World Young Entrepreneur
Award in 2015.
Presented by : Darius Chirag
SRN : R17ME063