How 24-year-old Ritesh Agarwal built Oyo into a $5 billion startup in just 5 years
Live MintBangalore: Finding clean, affordable hotels in India can be a traveller’s nightmare. “By 2023, we will be the world’s largest hotel chain,” the 24-year-old founder said in a recent interview at an Oyo hotel in a suburb of New Delhi, where the company is based. “Oyo is going all out to build a very large base of hotel partners and become a bona-fide brand,” said Mrigank Gutgutia, an analyst with RedSeer Management Consulting. “Their app model works well because price-conscious travellers who search by location like to feel they have lots of choices.” Agarwal wouldn’t give sales numbers, but he said the number of transactions has tripled in the last year, with 90% coming from repeat travellers -- and no money spent on advertising. That makes the startup India’s second most-valuable, after One97 Communications, owner of Paytm, a digital payments company with financial backing from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. A college dropout in a country where university pedigree is obsessed over, Agarwal has become an unlikely business star, with frequent appearances on televised award shows and a cover story last year in Forbes India.