OYO’s One Change Made Billions

Ritesh Agarwal, OYO, Indian Founders, International Founders, Marketplace

Ritesh Agarwal was an entrepreneurial teen in India who loved to travel. So he created a travel search engine.

One obstacle to growth was the subpar customer service provided by the local hotels.

So he tried something novel: he helped hotels improve. He modernized their lightbulbs. Rewarded staff when customers gave high reviews. Etc.

It worked. Hotel owners loved the new, higher occupancy. When Ritesh created a franchise option for them, they signed up.

Today you can see his company’s name – OYO – on hotels all over the world, which led OYO to a multi-billion dollar valuation.

Ritesh Agarwal

OYO

Ritesh Agarwal is the founder of OYO, the multinational hospitality platform

Andrew Warner [00:00:00]:

Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy, where I interview entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses. I’m really excited to have today’s guest on because I have been following him in the news, actually, not him specifically. I don’t know jack about him. I know about his company. Oh, yo O-Y-O how this entrepreneur, who to me was largely a mystery, even though I’m studying entrepreneurs. Ritesh Argual has realized that there are all these different hotels that if they could just group together, they would have a bigger footprint. They would be a little bit more enticing for a traveler who wants to go and book a hotel and doesn’t know a no name mom and pop and doesn’t feel comfortable going in there. And he realized, you know what? What if we can somehow aggregate them? And then what if we could also go beyond hotels? And he built this whole thing at a...

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