Ritesh Agarwal is an unconventional entrepreneur from India. He was not fond of the traditional path his peers were taking so at the age of 17 he dropped out of college in order to pursue his own start up company. He had the idea of opening an affordable hotel chain which provides bed and breakfast services. Ritesh opened Oravel Stays shortly after and at the age of 18 he started his company with 11 rooms in a Gurgoan hotel. Today, his company has 65000 rooms in about 5500 properties across 170 cities in India and it worth over 5 billion dollars. Other accomplishments for Ritesh are a monthly revenue of 3.5 million dollars, a network of 2,200 hotels in 154 cities across India, being named among the top 50 entrepreneurs by the TATA first dot awards in 2013, he was a finalist of the global student Entrepreneurship Awards in India, he has been named one of the 8 hottest teenage startup founders in the world by a Business Insider in the year 2013, and he was the World’s youngest CEO at 17. These accomplishments have allowed his story to become one of the most successful entrepreneurial ventures in all of India.
Source: https://medium.com/@riyanair161991/top-10-young-entrepreneurs-achievers-young-indian-entrepreneurs-of-2018-64c1f83f59f4
Dropping out of college was probably a very big decision to make for Agarwal, especially since all his peers were pursuing more traditional paths. I think this goes to show that we need to not be as afraid of failure, especially in this entrepreneurial setting.
That is a great idea to target the segment of affordable, yet quality hotels. Also, dropping out of college to go after your dreams is very risky and difficult. However, I am glad that it worked out for him. It truly shows his ambition and desire to be an entrepreneur!
Dropping out of college is a risky endeavor, but I’m glad that this opportunity was right for Ritesh and worked to his favor.