KACHARAGADLA

Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, OYO Rooms, on how to be a successful entrepreneur and do it right. RITESH AGARWAL, 22, IS THE FACE OF A NEW INDIA that is teeming with young, innovative entrepreneurs who are not afraid to dream big. His highly successful OYO Rooms allows users to log on and book rooms at budget hotels and guesthouses around the country that have been standardised under the OYO brand. It has a franchise model and has been hugely successful since its inception in 2013. With an enviable inventory of over 4,000 plus hotels, 40,000 plus rooms across 160 plus cities, it came as no surprise when OYO received $100 million in funding from SoftBank earlier this year. Ritesh is a youth icon and interestingly dropped out of college to fulfil his entrepreneurial dreams. He was also the first Asian to graduate as a Thiel Fellow (the Thiel Fellowship backed by PayPal founder Peter Thiel). Here he shares useful tips on how to be a successful entrepreneur and start young. IMP