Ritesh Argarwal is the founder and CEO of OYO Rooms, India’s best online hotel and living space booking site.
From an early age, Ritesh discovered his love for coding. He would spend a majority of his time learning how to code, even at the age of 8. But as his love for coding began to develop, so did his entrepreneurial mind and spirit. In his early teens, he began to sell SIM cards to nearby towns and villages which eventually got him closer to his dream of becoming a businessman. By selling SIM cards, he was able to find different ways of detecting problems in his community and country. Using what he has learned from selling SIM cards, he was able to notice a major problem within the budget hotel sector in India. India at the time had very few hotel booking websites that were suitable for foreigners and visitors. This eventually led him to launch his business venture called “Oravel Travels” in early 2011.
Oravel Travels, which was heavily modeled after Airbnb, found different ways that foreigners and travelers could easily discover different apartments, hotels, and private rooms all across India. It brings extremely affordable accommodation that guests from all over the world can book comfortably.
OYO Rooms eventually expanded to become what it is today; OYO Hotels & Homes. It is a full-fledged hotel chain that includes more than 43,000 hotels across 80 different countries.
Ritesh also went on to win multiple different awards for his company, such as becoming the first Asian to win the ‘20 under 20’ award as well as TiE-Lumis Entrepreneurial Excellence Award.
Today, with a networth of over $1.1 billion, Ritesh is the second youngest self-made billionaire in the world. OYO Rooms also earned nearly 48 billion Indian rupees in 2022, which is some of the highest numbers the company has ever seen throughout its history.
Wow what a cool area to focus in on. I feel like not many of the hotel businesses have been covered, so it’s really cool to hear about how common saw a need and innovated within the hotel business.