“We are offering 65,000 rooms through our partners and plan to grow deeper in all key business and leisure cities, tripling our inventory by December 2016,” says Ritesh Agarwal, 22-year-old boy whose face is a curious combination of boyish and grave.
He is the Founder & CEO of OYO (on your own) Rooms, which is the India’s fastest growing Branded network of hotels offline and online.
The man who has visited various budget lodgings himself – and juggled parts as maid, call focus fellow, and startup organizer – needs you to think about OYO every time you venture out of home.
Three years prior, he began off with a solitary Gurgaon inn. It had 14 rooms, and OYO assumed control of 11. It is India’s biggest branded network of spending inns – the startup calls it biggest “across all categories” – with 5,500 properties in more than 170 urban areas. It resembles Uber for spending lodging rooms.
At 17 he was a college dropout. But he’s now a 22-year-old startup millionaire. Perhaps his parents should have seen it coming when he sold SIM cards at 13.
“Going to college opens doors for learning in a structured fashion,” he says. And it was not his cup of tea.
“I could see why travelers would not trust reviews and listings on a website to book in some other part of the country,” The genuine issue was not discoverability, but rather the absence of consistency and institutionalisation.
This is the thing that he chose to change with OYO by branding together with these shoddy lodgings and noticeably changing the rooms at the age of 19.
To the Indian spending voyager, used to grimy washrooms, broken taps, ruined bed cloth, and no air conditioner, the conveniences OYO brings are a blessing from the heaven.
The startup, which now offers premium rooms too, would rather focus on leisure stays and pilgrimages.
He brought revolution in Hotel industry. The hotels till date refuse to provide rooms for unmarried couples. However, on the other side, OYO rooms not only provides hotel rooms at cheap prices across various cities, but also provides special discounts to them. They brought into light that anyone above the age of 18 holding a valid ID card is eligible to get a room.
Many hotels mention in their terms and conditions that local residents aren’t allowed to book rooms. Guess what? OYO rooms allowed that too.
Things don’t end here. Hotels allow check-in at 12 pm and check-out at 11 am. But OYO provides flexible check-in time.
Rooms starting at just RS 999- and to specifically mention- AC Rooms, wifi, and many other complimentary facilities are provided by them. Where else a customer would find it?
Venture Nursery and Lightspeed were among the first investors to see the spark in Ritesh. OYO has since picked up big bucks from Sequoia and Softbank, among others, notching up US$130.6 million in total funding.
Many say he has the potential to be the next Indian unicorn. Ritesh’s story is truly inspiring one!
