NAME: RIJA ASHFAQ

ROLL NO: 24971

2ND HOURLY EXAM

OYO ROOMS SUCCESS STORY

OVERVIEW
Ritesh Agarwal started his Ted talk by telling about his early age when he first heard the word
Entrepreneur and instantly decided it to become. Of course, it was bit surprising for everyone to
hear from an 8 year old child to become an Entrepreneur, but this was the level of clarity he had
which made him work hard for where he stands today.
He continued by sharing how he was different from other kids, where everyone around him were
going to college in the same State whereas, he wanted to do something different so he took
admission in some collage and started traveling in different cities of India in northern side. And
on the other, he also used to write emails to different hotels to allow him to stay for free in their
hotels for his search work. Few of them would allow, few of them give him discounts and many
of them want him to pay the whole amount. During this whole phase, he got an opportunity to
stay over 100 places in his country in more than 200 properties.
Over this period, he also discovered many new places which were very cheap and affordable to
increase his hungry to do something which solves the problems of this society and he decided to
start with Oravel Stays which was India’s first venture in they used to give villas, hotels, and
service apartments Etc. on rents. He did it for 6 months and continued to travel which didn’t turn
the way it was supposed to. He failed in 2 companies before OYO came. The issued he faced
was that everyone who stayed in these hotels use to say that they the service was not good, hotels
were not proper, management was not good, rooms were terrible, no sign boards, water problem
which made him feel terrible and thought why not to solve these problems. But whoever use to
hear, use to say that it is not something scalable. But he was so motivated that he used to say that
leaders are those who do different not the ones who follow and decided to operate only 2 hotels
but with best services and consumer experience.
On the other hand, he applied for PayPal which was for under age of 20 in which students were
motivated that they don’t need to go to collages if they have good ideas, despite students will be
given entrepreneurial guidance to enhance their skills. And luckily, he got an opportunity to be
the first winner to get Thiel Fellowship. This was the time his real hard work paid him off by
starting OYO rooms which turned into great success in all over the country and as they grew,
they aim to be world’s largest hotel room network.
Q: What have you learned from this success story?

I learnt from this success story is that never ever give up on your dreams, no matter whatever
happens. Thing will take their way and you’ll be what you want to be in couple of years but all
you need to do is to trust in your trust and in your plans without caring about others that how
they feel about it or how they want it to see.
Second thing which I learnt from this success story is that you don’t need education or a degree
to pitch your idea and what you think to change the world. If you have good idea which can
solve society’s problem or something which is completely out of box then you need to trust in
your instincts and inner saying without caring about others.
Third think which I learnt is that before doing anything, one need to do strong research so if he
fails he would know exactly where he is lacking. He should go through every possible way to
make things work and experience before starting something.

Q: Share your any two valuable suggestions/ recommendations which help this venture to
grow more?

1. The first suggestion I would like to give is that, they should make a feedback corner for
their customers. So that they can analyse where they are still lacking and how they can
make improvements, as it’s a great saying that there’s always a room of improvement in
everything.

2. Second suggestion I would like to give is that to do lot promotions and target vlogers and
bloggers so that word of mouth can be spread all around and they can target every level
of its customers to experience OYO Rooms.