CHAROTAR UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (CHARUSAT)

FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES (FMS)

INDUKAKA IPCOWALA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT (I2IM)
B BA P RO G R A M M E ( BATC H : 2 0 2 0 - 2 3 ) , S E M E ST E R- I I I
B U S I N E S S L EG E N D S

Ritesh Agarwal
OYO RO O M S
( OYO H OT E L S & H O M E S )

PATEL PRATHAM
(20BBA123)
Semester 3 –
BBA- I2IM-CHARUSAT
Flow of Content
 Introduction to Business Legend– Profile
Lessons that Ritesh Agarwal learnt from Thiel fellowship
The Timeline of a Growth Journey / Series of Events
The Success Story of OYO:-
The Journey Of Ritesh Agarwal
About OYO’S Success
OYO Growth
OYO Crisis
Impact Of COVID On OYO
OYO Funding
OYO Meeting Consumer Needs Across Segments
OYO Business And Revenue Model
Flow of Content
Achievements
Challenges Faced and Overcome
Commitment and Challenges Involved in Starting a Business
Challenges faced during development of a business and its solutions
Steps they are taking to protect the business secret
The secret for serving continuous quality product services
 Orientation
Ritesh Agarwal is an Indian Entrepreneur and the Founder and
CEO of OYO Rooms(OYO Hotels & Homes).
He is known as the second youngest billionaire in 2021 in India.
Date Of Birth -16 November 1993 (age 28)
Birth Place -Bissam,Cuttack,Odisha,India
School/College - St. Johns Senior Secondary School Photo of a Business Legend
Indian School of Business and Finance
Occupation -CEO And Founder Of OYO
Nationality -Indian
Net Worth -$ 1.1 Billion (₹7253 Crore)
(As Of February 2020)
(According to Hurun Rich List 2020)
Introduction
Ritesh Agarwal was born to a business family on16 November 1993 in Bissam, Cuttack, in Odisha
state, India and brought up in Titilagarh.
Ritesh Agarwal is the CEO and founder of OYO Rooms. Ritesh attended the Sacred Heart School in
Raygada, Odisha.
Ritesh completed his school from St. Johns Senior Secondary School.
He moved to Delhi for college in 2011 and with strong intentions of starting up something of his
own.
 He dropped out of college to pursue his dream of becoming an entrepreneur.
Agarwal joined the University of London’s course at Indian Business School.
At the age of 13, Agarwal started selling SIM cards.
Ritesh was the winners of the Thiel Fellowship program 2013, a 2-year program initiated by Peter
Theil, PayPal Founder and an early investor in Facebook.
Cont….
Ritesh received a grant of $100,000.
Agarwal was the first Asian to have obtained Thiel Fellowship.
Agarwal started his entrepreneurial journey when he was 17 years old.
Ritesh started Oravel Stays, a budget accommodation portal for booking budget hotels.
Oravel Stays was an aggregator of break and bed for stays across India.
Then he launched as OYO Rooms in May 2013.
OYO Rooms is an Indian hotel brand that aggregates hotel rooms.
OYO also operates in Malaysia and Nepal.
Ritesh received a fund of 30 lakhs from an accelerator firm, Venture Nursery, which brought
together a bunch of investors to nurture startups.
Later in 2014, OYO Rooms raised 14Cr from DSG Consumer and 4Cr from Light Speed Venture.
Cont….
OYO Rooms is backed by investors like the Greenoaks Capital, Softbank Group, Lightspeed India, and
Sequoia Capital.
The company raised $1 billion in September 2018.
The name OYO means “On Your Own”.
The company has more than 72,000 rooms in 8000 hotels across 250 towns in India.
The current evaluation of OYO Rooms is over $600 million.
The company provides travellers the coolest yet cheapest budget hotels.
His estimated net worth to be approximately INR 7253 crore according to Hurun Rich List 2020.
Ritesh is an Indian entrepreneur, and also the youngest billionaire after Kylie Jenner, an American
media personality.
Lessons that Ritesh Agarwal learnt from Thiel fellowship
The CEO of OYO rooms, Ritesh Agarwal was selected for the final round of “20 under 20” Thiel
Fellowship, a two-year program which gives $100,000 to young people who aim to make new things
to bring a change to the world instead of sitting in the classroom and studying.
Ritesh decided to turn on the model of OYO Rooms where he put most of the Thiel Grant into
business.
And that is how this college dropout started off with his venture despite meeting the failure in the
first one i.e. Oravel Stays Pvt Ltd.
Like every successful entrepreneur, he had taken the risk and managed to succeed and his success is
quite patent.
Cont…
The experience that Ritesh Agarwal gained from Thiel Fellowship and the making of OYO Rooms
taught him manifold lessons:-
1. Have a good Working Environment:-
The best entrepreneurial qualities which Ritesh Agarwal learnt from Thiel Fellowship is to
create a good working environment for your employees because good environment increases
productivity of startups.
Successful entrepreneurs focus on keeping the good organisation’s culture.
To have a great culture at the workplace is something that Ritesh Agarwal learnt at his Thiel
Fellowship and also during his journey of OYO Rooms.
Ritesh says, “As companies scale up, the only way employees can collectively work towards
achieving a common goal is to have a great culture.
Teams that share a strong camaraderie and are bound together by the same vision will
enable a start-up to grow and sustain.
I could understand this all the more as I was mentored by someone like Peter Thiel, who has,
in turn, helped shape the organisational culture at many highly successful ventures.”
Cont…
2. Hire the Best People:-
 Without any dubitation, it has been manifest that a successful organisation is not the
hard work of one person, rather it is the hard work of the entire team.
 So it is really important for the entrepreneurs to hire a good and productive team that
contributes to the success of the company.
 Ritesh Agarwal learnt this lesson and got it in the application in his journey of success.
 Ritesh Agarwal says, “A really important lesson I learnt was that it is important to have
the smartest people around you.
 Those who can be great leaders too. Bringing people on board who consider themselves
to be the CEO of whatever work they do is the foundation of building a brilliant
company.”
Cont…
3. Go Slow, but Produce Good, Effective and Useful:-
 Successful people don’t rush after completing the things just for the heck of it as they
meticulously understand the horrid repercussions their company can come across if they
don’t bring the productive things in the competitive market.
 The CEO of OYO Rooms abides by the same structure where he believes in bringing out
the perfect product in the market. The lesson of “perfection ” with the work got instilled
in him during  Ritesh’s Thiel fellowship.
 He says, “Just building things fast and at the same time setting up processes which would
help in building those things again must faster in the future are two completely different
things.
 At OYO, we have invested a lot our time in designing, building and perfecting our
processes and systems. We like to call it “creating the science out of art.”
Cont…
4. Work with Investors you Admire:-
 Successful people have always invested their time in working with investors they revere.
 Every entrepreneur requires the investors to run his company but working environment
and people play an important role in running a business, board those so it is advisable as
well as commendable to get along with investors whom you admire.
 This is one of the important lessons that the CEO of OYO Rooms Ritesh Agarwal learnt at
“Thiel Fellowship”.
 He says, “All start-ups require capital to seed, run or scale.
 While it is critically important to find and secure the necessary capital to run your
organisation, it is absolutely vital board those investors who you admire, trust and would
like to work with.
 This creates a great foundation for any start-up and has been a major factor for OYO’s
success thus far.”
Cont…
5. Make a Product that Brings Change:-
 If noticed with scrutiny, all successful people are prone to develop products that are just
not great but even become so adorable to people that the products affect their lives.
 The CEO of OYO Rooms learnt this conspicuous lesson from Thiel Fellowship and journey
of “OYO success”.
 Ritesh says,
 “It is extremely important to build something that a 100 people absolutely love using
rather than make something that a 1000 people would just, kind of, like.”
Cont…
6. Take Challenges:-
 During Ritesh Agarwal’s Thiel fellowship and initial years of OYO rooms, he learnt the
principle of challenging the status quo and his success which is remarkable through OYO
Rooms shows how challenging Ritesh has been.
 Despite meeting failure at his first venture he didn’t give up and persevere and proved
how facing challenges dauntlessly leads to success.
 He says, “Companies naturally build or accumulate some kind of inertia over time.
 They get satisfied with the profits they are making and incremental innovations they are
doing.
 Every once in a while, it is important for business managers to challenge the status quo
and dare to something new.
 It also helps to keep the enthusiasm flowing through the company.”
The Timeline of a Growth Journey / Series of Events
The Success Story of OYO:-
You can hardly find a person in today's world who does not know about OYO.
Such has been the expansion and influence of this hospitality company. 
The growth of OYO Hotels & Homes has been phenomenal.
From starting out in April 2013 to becoming the world’s third-largest and fastest-growing chain of
leased and franchised hotels, homes & living spaces, OYO has come a long way. 
For those who don’t know, OYO stands for ‘On Your Own’.
 The platform has now become a synonym for budget-friendly rooms.
People know it for its affordable accommodation services.
The company has kept on adding feathers to its cap ever since it came into the market.
Cont…
Its founder Ritesh Agarwal has achieved the feat of being the World’s Youngest Self-made Billionaire
after Kylie Jenner in February 2020.
Amid all this success, the company had to face many challenges as well.
Cont…
The Journey Of Ritesh Agarwal:-
 Ritesh Agarwal was born in Rayagada, Odisha.
 He went to the Sacred Heart School in Rayagada.
 Right from his school days, Ritesh was inclined towards computers, software and coding.
 In 2009, Ritesh left for Kota with an intention to get an entry in top IIT colleges.
 Later, he realized Kota wasn’t a place to learn coding and hence gave up on his coding dream.
 He was left with a lot of spare time, so he started working on a book: ‘Indian Engineering Colleges:
A Complete Encyclopaedia of Top 100 Engineering Colleges’.
 This was a hit. 
 At the age of 16, he was among the 240 students who were selected for the Asian Science Camp
held at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai.
 
Cont…
Ritesh Agarwal was among 20 students under the age of 20 years who received the Thiel
Fellowship. 
He received a sum of $100,000 over two years as well as guidance and resources to drop out of
college and create a start-up. 
Since Ritesh used to travel a lot, amid his trips, he stayed in different hotels.
This gave him a realization about the poor hospitality facilities he got at different places. 
This motivated him to create an accommodation system where people can get the best rooms, food,
staff, and other services in a given budget.
 He created Oravel Stays in 2011, an aggregator of breakfast and bed stays, inspired by Airbnb’s
model. 
Cont…
“Leaders shouldn’t just build and accumulate wealth but give back to society.”
-Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, OYO Hotels & Homes
In 2013, Oravel Stays was re-launched as OYO Hotels & Homes to create India’s largest chain of
affordable, standardized hotels. 
 
Cont…
About OYO’S Success:-
OYO did not become a success overnight.
It also had to go through some sequence of events and rough phases.
The company’s business was also impacted by the COVID outbreak. 
After starting in 2013, OYO went on to acquire rooms in hotels across the country and
transformed them into OYO.
The company’s sole aim was to make accommodation good and affordable for its people. 
 
 Cont…
OYO Growth:-
OYO has continuously grown after 2013.
 It first started its services in India, and today, after 8 years of establishment, it operates in 800
cities in more than 80 countries of the world. 
The company started its international operations in 2018 starting with Malaysia.
It then entered into the markets of the UK, UAE, Dubai, China, Singapore, Indonesia, and others.
In 2018, the company became a 100% leased & franchised hotel chain.
It recorded global stayed room nights of 75 million in 2018, almost six times more than in 2017, and
collected a revenue of $211 million.
In 2017, 2016, and 2015 it recorded global stayed room nights of 13m, 6m, and 4m respectively. 
Cont…
The company has not yet released its annual report of 2020.
But In 2019,OYO generated a revenue of $951 million and witnessed an increase of 740 million
dollars, 4.5 times more than 2018. 
As of now, it has acquired more than one million rooms in over 43 thousand hotels.
Through its vacation homes business, the company offers travellers and city dwellers access to
over 130,000 homes around the world. 
OYO now operates under the name ‘OYO Hotels & Homes’.
Timeline Of OYO’S Journey
Cont…
OYO Crisis:-
OYO was also surrounded by some crises and controversies that made headlines.
The company was accused of cheating and fraud. Some suspect incidents also took place in some of the
OYO. 
In 2019, a Bengaluru hotelier filed a cheating case against Ritesh Agarwal and six others claiming that they
had not paid him his dues.
 According to the complaint, he claimed that OYO was supposed to pay him ₹7 lakh a month but they have
failed to do so.
However, OYO rejected any such allegations.  
The hospitality company was also alleged for fraud.
Hotel owners had raised a point that the company charges a franchise fee of 20% on room revenues, it
ultimately takes more money through different sources that aren’t disclosed initially.
Cont…
In the same year, a national-level shooter was found dead in an OYO hotel reportedly due to
electrocution.
In 2018, an OYO hotel employee in Gurgaon was accused of raping a woman when her
husband was away.
 In both cases, OYO said it was coping with authorities and helping in the investigations.
Cont…
Impact Of COVID On OYO:-
Like all the businesses, OYO being a hospitality company was also hit severely by the outbreak of
coronavirus.
Ritesh Agarwal in his address to OYOpreneurs said that the revenue and occupancy went down by
over 50-60% in April 2020.
He also pointed out in the video that its global partners incurred a loss and the revenue went down
by 75%.
 As a result, its employees had to go through a pay cut by 25%.  
Cont…
OYO Funding:-
Since OYO was started by a young boy, merely seventeen years of age, it required funds to grow its
business.
Ritesh’s idea made a great impact on investors and has attracted so many of them over the years.
After receiving a grant of $100,000 under the Thiel Fellowship, OYO in 2014 raised Rs.4 Crore
from Light Speed Venture Partners (LSVP) and DSG Consumer Partners at a pre-money valuation. 
 In March 2015, OYO received funding of  $25 million from its investors namely Light speed India,
Sequoia, and others.
 The same year in July, OYO received a whopping amount of  $100 million in a Series C round of
funding from the most prominent and powerful investor in the world, Japanese investor Softbank. 
 In September 2018 OYO got itself listed in the list of unicorn companies after it raised $800
million from Softbank.
Cont…
In 2019, OYO raised a total of $807 million from Ritesh Agarwal-led RA Hospitality
Holdings and Softbank in series F funding.
 Apart from this, OYO bagged funds from Airbnb and Didi. 
OYO’s latest funding has come from Hindustan Media Ventures in Jan 2021.
The firm invested Rs.540 million In OYO.
Cont…
OYO Meeting Consumer Needs Across Segments:-
1. HOSPITALITY:-
After victoriously conquering the budget hospitality space through their first brand OYO Rooms,
OYO Hotels & Homes presently holds a multi-brand approach, through well defined offerings
addressed towards the varying requirements of the travellers in today’s world. 
The platform combined its hotel brands (OYO’s Townhouse, Collection O, SilverKey), OYO LIFE
(student housing and co-living), OYO Workspaces as well as OYO Home businesses into Frontier
businesses.
Cont…
2. OYO Townhouse:-
The category of OYO Townhouse has been positioned by the platform as a friendly
neighbourhood hotel aimed at millennial travellers aspiring premium economy
accommodations.
3. Silvery Key:-
Launched in April 2018, Silvery Key is OYO’s executive stay offering and the primary destination
for all business travellers in India providing high-class services. 
It attends to the requirements of the corporate travellers heading on business trips for a short
or long duration.
SilverKey provides furnished accommodation to corporates for their personnel stay.
Established at the core of business hubs and accompanied by spacious rooms, upscale
interiors, meals, and dining areas, it attends to all the needs of business travellers. 
Cont…
4. Collection O:-
Being OYO’s mid-scale business hotel, Collection O attends to new-age corporate travellers
who are on the lookout for affordable and quality accommodations while keeping pace with
their personal and professional needs. 
Collection O provides larger and spacious rooms having facilities like premium furnishing and
linen, on-request laundry, unlimited breakfast, 24X7 in-room dining, high-speed Wi-Fi,
workstations for each room, and OYO-trained customer services. 

5. Capital O:-
 Capital O proves to be the best suitable offering for new-age travellers having the facilities
which they search for in terms of business & leisure accommodation.
 Located in key locations, these premium hotels are specially developed to offer OYO’s
quality-assured experience at affordable prices.
Cont…
6. OYO Home:-
OYO Homes is one of the top rental vacation homes business in India.

7. OYO Weddingz.in:-
India’s Largest Wedding Company, Weddingz.in, provides a hassle-free Wedding experience.
Weddingz.in offers customers a fully managed, one-stop platform for all their needs to
organize a superlative wedding experience including providing beautiful and spacious venues,
managing themed decor, end to end catering, in-house photographers and makeup artists
guided by a dedicated wedding planner, all at guaranteed best prices.
Keeping the satisfaction of the consumers at the heart of their operations, Weddingz.in is on a
mission of providing an exceptional event having 100% customer satisfaction and quality
services.
With a combined organic following of over 2 million on social media, Weddingz.in enjoys the
highest engagement for wedding-related content in the industry.
Cont…
8. OYO LIFE:-
OYO LIFE provides long-term rented accommodation furnished with amenities at affordable
prices. OYO Life is targeted at millennial and young professionals who need managed homes on
long-term rent.
Under this category, OYO offers tech first, comfortably furnished stays with amenities such as
Wi-Fi, housekeeping, power backup, and community kitchens with a strong assurance of safety
and hygiene.

9. OYO WORKSPACES:-
Established in July 2019, OYO Workspaces debuted its multi-brand approach to the managed
workspaces opportunity in India (a first for the market) with two organic co-working brands-
PowerStation and Workflo, alongside acquiring Innov8 and providing ergonomically designed
workspaces befitting for every pocket. 
 
Cont…
OYO Business And Revenue Model:-
Stepping out into the world in 2013, the young hotel start-up, OYO Hotels & Homes, is now the
world’s leading chain of Hotels & Homes, having a presence across 800 cities and 80 countries across
the world.
 The company operates an asset-light chain of predictable, easy to book, low-cost accommodations
globally and also allows its 43,000+ hotels and 150,000 vacation homes to gain from the rise in
occupancy, and hence revenue.
On a global scale, OYO has started out as a leading vacation home rental platform, offering beautiful
homes across Europe through its brands Belvilla, Dancenter, and Traum Feirenwohnugen.
The company recently acquired TUI Ferienhaus from e-domizil GmbH that has helped OYO in
becoming the second-largest global vacation home business by the number of homes.
The focus of the platform is serving its customers with dependable, sanitised, value-oriented stay
experiences, which is done by simplifying booking and offering a large range of hotel options for their
customers to select from in the same neighbourhood, at a price that is in pace with their budget. 
Cont…
In the case of asset partners, OYO offers its proprietary technology and tech-driven solutions to
guarantee hassle-free operations on the ground.
It provides end-to-end revenue ownership, that includes pricing, third-party distribution, and higher
revenue for partners via its direct channels while also eliminating day-to-day operational hassles. 
When it comes from the perspective of the company’s employees, OYO is a workplace that allows
thousands of talented professionals the opportunity for achieving their full potential.
There’s never a dull day for OYOpreneurs.
From solving complex issues and enjoying the opportunity of collaborating with the best global
talent, they can in turn seek to make their own mark. 
The platform is backed by key investors, who include Softbank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital, Light
speed Ventures, Hero Enterprise, and China Lodging Group, and some others.
Cont…
Achievements:-
Ritesh Agarwal has several titles assigned to him such as the following:-
1. CEO and founder of OYO
2. Winner of 2013 Thiel fellowship
3. Second youngest self-made billionaire
4. Recipient of the Business World Young Entrepreneur Award
5. Forbes 30 under 30 lists for Asia
6. The net worth of  ₹7253 crores
Commitment and Challenges Involved in Starting a Business
From college dropout to CEO at 20: The incredible story of OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal:-
A friend’s destination wedding in Jodhpur had just wrapped up.
 As guests began to leave, Ritesh’s friends hung around our hotel terrace, enjoying the beautiful view
from the top and sipped onto steaming masala chai.
Another friend brought out what looked like a bottle of moisturizer with OYO printed on it in bold
orange letters and began dabbing the sweet-smelling liquid onto herself in the pleasant winter sun.
 “I love these complimentary cosmetics, man. Dibs on the pouch.”
Our host had booked OYO rooms for us and with its well-kept rooms and prompt service, it was just
about perfect.
The knowledge that our generous host did not have to lose a limb to afford the rooms let us enjoy
the wedding guilt-free. Perhaps this is how Ritesh Agarwal, the founder of OYO, has called dibs on a
huge section of tourists in the country.
Cont…
High quality rooms, good service and affordable prices – just the perfect mix to win over a tourist.
You’d think that for a company to cater so well to its customers, it must have been an old market
player with a legacy of family-run businesses. It’s not.
The brain behind the company is 24-year-old  Ritesh Agarwal  who founded the company back in
2013 when he was only 19.
From a regular 17-year-old to the owner of a million-dollar company at the age of 22, Ritesh
Agarwal’s story is what fantasies are made of.
Ritesh was born in a Marwari family in Bissam,cuttack, a small town in Odisha.
 Even as a kid, he yearned to do his own thing.
 It was this love for entrepreneurial living that led to a 13-year-old Ritesh selling SIM cards.
Cont…
“As a young kid (growing up in Rayagada in Odisha), I had the aspiration of doing something
exceptionally different.
A lot of people say if you have limited exposure, you’re handicapped.
But Ritesh got more opportunities when He grew up in that place because as a young kid, more
often than not, people would compare you on the basis of age rather than skills,” he said at the
Odisha Investor Meet in Bengaluru.
Studying for his engineering entrance exams in Kota, Ritesh knew from the start that the
conventional was not for him.
More than his books, he was excited by the young and enterprising world around him.
 He would sneak out to Delhi from Kota every weekend to meet entrepreneurs.
At an age when most of us were busy securing admissions into colleges, some of us still confused
about the career choices we were making, Ritesh Agarwal decided to listen to his heart. It was now or
never. A good idea should never be made to wait.
Cont…
Much has been talked about the fact that he did not complete his graduation and dropped out of
college.
 Not many know that it was this very fact that made him eligible for the Peter Thiel fellowship,
something that, in Ritesh’s own admission, proved to be crucial in his journey as an entrepreneur.
“The-acceptance rate is lower than the Ivy's, but the catch is that you have to drop out of college,”
he reminisced while speaking at the Techcircle Start-up 2015 convention.
 Ritesh was the first Asian resident to have won the fellowship.
In an interview with Economic Times he talks about how the month-long fellowship at Stanford
taught him to ‘think big’.
As part of the fellowship, he also received a grant of $100,000.
In 2011, at the age of 18, he founded Oravel, a platform for booking budget hotels, that later
became OYO. 
Cont…
 How much experience and skill could an 18-year-old have? What he lacked in years, he
compensated in experience and research.
For months, Ritesh travelled across the northern part of the country, staying in budget hotels
himself, doing first-hand research, talking to customers every single day to learn the problems and
expectations of his customer base.
Those who know him well know of his trademark backpack that he carried everywhere he went,
even to investor meetings – it was his home in a bag; he wouldn’t know where he would be spending
the night each day.
He was spending his savings on room rent staying at bed n breakfast apartments.
Not everybody let a young entrepreneur stay for free as part of market research for his venture.
Speaking at the Techcircle Start-up 2015 convention, Ritesh talked about how that was a huge
learning experience for him and he knew he had to stay put despite his diminishing bank balance at
that moment.
Cont…
“Ritesh family was well-off and it’s not like they couldn’t have helped me, but the problem is if I had
picked up the phone, being 18 years old, and told my family ‘Guys I’m broke’, the first thing they
would’ve told me is to come back home.”
 It was a choice he had to make – it was now or never.
The young man left no stone unturned in understanding the budget hotel industry and it finally,
showed results. Oravel Stays Pvt. Ltd. was scaled to OYO in 2013.
OYO, which is an acronym for ‘On your Own’, started with one hotel in Gurgaon in 2013.
 Today, the company has 8500 hotels in 230 cities across India and has even launched in Malaysia. In
just 3 years, OYO has been named as India’s largest budget hotel network.
Ritesh’s incredible journey can be best understood in his own words: “At the age of 19, I was clear
about one thing – I did not want to build something that was another business. I wanted to create
something that created a real impact. And if I lost, out, I would have great learning […] I will not
build something that one thousand people kinda like, I will build something that 5 people will fall in
love with.”
Challenges faced during development
of a business and its solutions
Challenges faced by OYO rooms:-
Despite the shiny, successful exterior, OYO’s reputation has been dubious soon after its founding.
OYO’s work culture raises questions about the proficiency of its business, according to financial
filings, court documents and interviews with 20 current and former employees along with the others
familiar with the start-up's operations.
1. Unethical growth strategies:-
OYO offers rooms from unavailable hotels, those that have halted its service, according to the
company’s chief executive and nine of the current and former employees.
 This boosts the number of rooms listed on OYO’s site.
Thousands of rooms are from unlicensed hotels and guesthouses, its executives have
acknowledged.
To save the trouble from the authorities over the illegal rooms, OYO sometimes provides free
stays to the police and other officials, according to nine of the current and former employees
and internal WhatsApp messages, as viewed by The New York Times."
Cont…
Having a huge base of unmarried couples, a scheme involved workers at properties run directly
by OYO conspiring to keep the guests checked in after they left.
The workers then cleaned and resold the rooms for cash to other guests and nabbed the
money, says an ex-worker.
2. Complaint of unpaid dues:-
OYO charges extra on hotels while refusing to pay the amounts to the hotels, which they
claimed they were owed, according to the interviews with several hotel owners and
employees, legal complaints, and emails viewed by The New York Times.
Some hotel operators have filed criminal complaints against OYO, which said it retained
payments.
Aditya Ghosh, OYO’s head of India operations, dismissed the argument as “noise,” he
said, “the disagreement is about the penalties we charge on customer service failure”.
Cont…
3. Protests by hotel owners:-
Independent protests by small-scale hotel owners are surfacing up in mid-tier towns like Pune,
Kota, Manali, Ahmedabad and Jaipur as well as Delhi and Bengaluru.
They claim that OYO has been eluding them of their promised returns and minimum
guarantees by imposing a ream of charges, often without informing them.
Many of these charges are not specified in the contract between the owner and OYO.
The protestors state that OYO’s accounting and auditing process, and the penalties associated
with petty faults and errors, are so heavy that they sometimes find themselves owing money to
OYO at the end of the month.
Cont…
What Are The Major Challenges For OYO In India? 
1. Complaints of unpaid dues by Indian hotel partners
2. Police complaints by hotel groups and hoteliers
3. Protests by US hotel owners over OYO’s entry
4. Lack of profitability
5. Scrutiny by Competition Commission of India
6. Questions about asset-heavy model
Steps they are taking to protect the business
secret
OYO reveals the secret sauce that makes employees stick to the start-up:-
OYO Hotels & Homes; the fastest-growing chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes and spaces;
secured a place on the list of LinkedIn's top 10 companies to work for in India. 
OYO Hotels & Homes; the fastest-growing chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes and spaces;
secured a place on the list of LinkedIn's top 10 companies to work for in India.
In today's time, it is extremely challenging to retain talented employees for long, provided they have
a lot of options before them.
Perhaps, there is something interesting that makes employees stick to the brand.
This year, OYO ranked third on the LinkedIn’s top companies where Indians want to work.
 The start-up, founded by Ritesh Agarwal, has revealed the secret behind why professionals are
inclined towards joining the company and staying longer.
 
Cont…
First of all, OYO gives employees vast exposure and allow them to be their own boss, offering them
the opportunity to grow, the company said.
 It does not promote a 9-5 work culture and there is no grumpy machines keeping an eye on
employees walk-in and walk-out timings. 
Individuals here take ownership of every single task in their hands.
The passion their leaders inculcate is the driving force for the every-level employees to excel in their
profession.
Employees not just stick to the brand but inherit the passion to take OYO to greater heights every
day.
The secret for serving continuous quality product services
Products and services:-
OYO Rooms has a multi-brand approach. These include:-
1. OYO Townhouse:- which is promoted as the neighbourhood hotel is in the midscale segment
targeted at millennial travellers.
2. OYO Home:- which OYO claims is India's maiden home management system that offers private
homes in different locations and are fully managed by OYO.
3. OYO Vacation Homes:- which identifies itself as the world's 3rd largest vacation home brand
with vacation rental management brands Belvilla, Danland, and DanCenter, along with
Germany-based Traum-Ferienwohungen.
4. SilverKey:-caters to the needs of the corporate travellers undertaking business trips for a short
or long duration.
5. Capital O:-offers hotel booking services.
6. Palette:-offers the perfectly curated staycation for those in search of an intuitive experience at
competitive prices, an upper-end leisure resorts category.
Cont…
7. Collection O:-offers booking and renting services to business travellers.
8. OYO LIFE:- is targeted at millennials and young professionals in search of fully managed homes on
long-term rentals, at affordable prices.
9. YO! HELP:- is a self-help tool that offers support for check-ins, check-outs, and payments 
 The Learning from Ritesh Agarwal Business
Journey
1.   Age is just a digit:-
According to surveys, it has been indicated that 30 is the age to hit your success. Well! Success
Depends Upon Your Productivity, Not Your Age.
 Ritesh Agarwal is the top-notch example that has evolved this age bar synopsis.
At just the age of 25 years, he is holding the net worth of 3500 crores. Moreover, Oravel Stays
Private Limited, OYO, was established by Ritesh Agarwal in 2013 when he was just 19 years old.
Yes, you read it right! Just 19! According to Ritesh, everyone can achieve success by just adding
the right mix of dedication towards what they want to do!
2. Family Background does not Define You:-
Ritesh was born to a family that managed to run a small local shop.
Simply if Ritesh had not opted for another path, he would have been busy supervising the shop
alternately possessing one of the hugest hotel chains worldwide.
Hence, proved that let it be a simple family background or a complex family background doesn’t
define a person’s potentials or abilities!
Cont…
3. Big Problems Tend to Leave Huge Impacts:
With great success comes even greater problems, so did Ritesh faced! He thinks the bigger the
problems are being faced, the higher the success level rises, and by the time one gets the hang of
this, everything lies in their places!
As a result, you take control; build confidence and efficiencies to pass on that faith to investors,
employees, and customers. Therefore, it is a must to get out of your comfort zone and take risks as
it is much better to take risks rather than having regrets!
4. Patience, Hard-Work and Faith – Means to reach your target
Patience puts us in direct control of ourselves as it gives us time to choose how to respond to a
situation.
Hard work also plays a fundamental role in accomplishing our goals as well as faith that builds up
the desire to maintain a positive attitude required for success.
Looking upon the phenomenal success rate of Ritesh Agarwal, some problems even grew up while
his company was aiming to reach heights.
Cont…
But these allegations did not stop him from eliminating patience, working hard, and faith.
And BOOM! There came a pleasant phase, where OYO raised $25 million from San Francisco
based Capital, existing investors, DSG Consumer Partners, and Light Speed Ventures. 
5. Hurdles – A gift from success:-
As success is a journey, so it requires consistency and dedication and not mere words.
Many people do not appreciate the hurdles.
 But successful people must have overcome obstacles before reaching their desired goals.
Likewise, Ritesh Agarwal also came across several hurdles and swore by that starting a business
is not a smooth ride! His initial days were not full of ease at all.
From convincing investors to convincing people around was a great challenge for him.
 Despite nobody supporting him and being broke, he didn’t lose hope.
As a consequence, OYO now exists among the leading companies. Whence, it’s always up to you
how you react to the hurdles! Just remember the ones who last are the ones who don’t give up
in difficult times.
Cont…
6.  With success comes criticism:-
 In the past, OYO has reportedly faced criticism on social media for its services.
 Ritesh didn’t let these criticisms dominate over him; rather, it made him introspect.
 He made sure to work upon them and ensure that the customers get a pleasant experience.
 This act of Ritesh, assuming criticism as a key to improvement, has given a remarkable boost to his company’s productivity. Hence,
criticism teaches you to listen, stay grounded, and aids in overcoming weaknesses, so take them as a price of success!