
The 21-year-old building India's largest hotel network - retube
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34078529
======
sandGorgon
There's an interesting article on the other side of the story
-[http://www.livemint.com/Companies/7CN7u5d4i3bfYgBAZLdLpM/Wil...](http://www.livemint.com/Companies/7CN7u5d4i3bfYgBAZLdLpM/Will-
the-real-Ritesh-Agarwal-please-stand-up.html)

~~~
Radim
TL;DR: article claims Ritesh lied about his "bestseller book", lied about his
"Asian Science Camp invite", lied his way into an incubator, lied his way into
the "Thiel Fellowship" programme.

And screwed a bunch of people on his way up.

Confident, assertive and charismatic, he always manages to come on top. In
other words, a successful modern start-up artist.

~~~
Sven7
Modern? Have you heard of Dhirubhai Ambani?

~~~
dmix
Reading his wikipedia page told me nothing... why is Dhirubhai relevant to
Ritesh?

~~~
Sven7
[http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/16/style/16iht-
booksam.t_0.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/16/style/16iht-
booksam.t_0.html)

------
sidm83
What he has done, is standardize the experience in a hotel based on which
category it fits (standard, premium, deluxe) and ensure you'll get a certain
minimum standard of experience on your stay in any "OYO Room" across India.
This is a huge problem in India especially at the lower end (sub $100). Also,
what he has been very smart about is that his app/website provides the only
interface with the hotel so you have to book it through OYO Rooms only, unlike
other websites where you usually just discover hotels and book directly by
calling/mailing the hotel itself.

~~~
mandeepj
really?

I have never experienced this when booking through kayak, priceline, orbitz
and numerous other sites

~~~
sidm83
Yes, but this mainly holds true at the lower end of the pricing, starting from
as low as INR 899 going upto a few thousand per day. He has managed to get
such rates by aggregating a good number of guest houses which cost much less,
which are otherwise out of the purview of typical hotel aggregators. The room
detail page provides you a good description of what to expect in terms of
feature list as well as realistic photographs, eliminating the "surprise"
factor as much as possible. Instead of searching for a Hotel A/B/C when
visiting a new city, you just book an "OYO Room" of your desired category in
your desired location.

------
nikant
He succeeded because he solved a genuine problem. I have experienced the stay
at the Hotels branded under OYO rooms. It is better in so many ways than other
similar budget hotels.

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bbanyc
Similar to how Best Western and Quality Inns started as cooperatives of
existing hotels some 70-80 years ago. Of course they just had paper
directories and no centralized booking at the time.

~~~
thetruthseeker1
I guess there are a host of problems that could be solved in India in a better
way since it is still developing.

------
drb311
Clever way to bootstrap a franchise business. Nice work.

I've stayed in some really basic hotels in India. You get to choose between
cheap and awful or expensive and decent. The bad places aren't always bad to
keep costs low. Often the proprietors don't have the skills to run it any
other way.

A lot of mom & pop businesses could benefit from this sort of approach.

------
gautamnarula
I hung out with Ritesh for a while two years ago when we were both finalists
for the Thiel Fellowship. I found him very impressive even back then, and he
was just a really genuine and nice guy. I'm happy to hear he and OYO are doing
so well!

------
known
You need Cash/Caste to succeed as an Entrepreneur in India;

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_in_Hinduism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_in_Hinduism)

------
awjr
In the UK, you pretty much gamble whether an independent hotel, b&b, or
holiday cottage has decent mattresses. There is less of an issue of quality of
service but you really cannot tell how good the beds are.

------
ericcholis
I love that he didn't reinvent the wheel, he found a crappy wheel and sold
it's owner on how to make it better. He put a price tag on things we all do
when we find a service that could be improved.

------
kitd
A bit OT but this stood out:

>A similar idea - which eventually evolved into Oyo Rooms - won him a coveted
Thiel Fellowship - a programme sponsored by PayPal co-creator and early
Facebook investor Peter Thiel - which pays for 20 teenagers each year to stop
studying and try to set up a business instead.

Someone tell me there are safeguards in place, because this just sounds like
an award for dropping out. I assume there have to be assurances from the
school/college that they can return to their studies later if business doesn't
take off?

~~~
quadrature
Thats kind of what Peter Thiel is all about, he doesn't believe in the current
educational system.

Alot of the fellows do end up going back to school and they're all smart kids
who wont have trouble returning to any university they wish to attend.

~~~
trsohmers
It definitely isn't a lot... I can only think of 6 of the 60 fellows that have
finished the program (Classes 2011 through 2013) that have gone back to
school. Most if not successful get another job in the technology industry (or
start another company). With the two new classes bringing it up to 100, I
doubt there will be more than 20-25 that go back to school.

But yea, those that have chosen to go back to school have done much better
than if they were to stay in school in the first place... Two of the 6 I was
thinking of are now in PhD programs while they never finished undergrad.

~~~
w1ntermute
How many successful companies have actually been started by a Thiel Fellow?
The only one I can find is Oyo, but Ritesh had already dropped out of college
to work on its predecessor (Oravel) long before he applied to the Thiel
Fellowship (which he apparently lied his way into, according to the comment
above by Radim, and this article:
[http://www.livemint.com/Companies/7CN7u5d4i3bfYgBAZLdLpM/Wil...](http://www.livemint.com/Companies/7CN7u5d4i3bfYgBAZLdLpM/Will-
the-real-Ritesh-Agarwal-please-stand-up.html)).

It seems to me (admittedly an outsider) that Thiel learned the wrong lesson
from Zuck's success with dropping out to found Facebook. It wasn't because
Zuck dropped out of college that Facebook was successful - it was because
Facebook was already successful (already seeing exponential growth) that Zuck
dropped out. Thiel then took this incorrect lesson to encourage lots of other
students from elite universities to also drop out, which has had predictably
disappointing results.

Similarly, Ritesh wasn't successful because he dropped out and became a Thiel
Fellow - he was accepted to the Thiel Fellowship because he had already
dropped out and had seen some success (or lied that he had, as it seems).

> Most if not successful get another job in the technology industry

Getting a job is great, but that just means that Thiel's stamp of approval has
been placed on the individual, instead of the college's. The upside being
years/thousands of dollars in saved tuition, the downside being that Thiel is
not commonly known outside of Silicon Valley circles. I'd rather take the
degree any day.

~~~
trsohmers
While I wouldn't call mine a success (yet), I'm a 2013 Thiel Fellow and
founder of REX Computing, a recently venture funded fabless semiconductor
startup. While venture funding is not a measure of success, I would say we are
progressing technically very well. There have been a couple of exits (Streem
was acquired by Box) and others that are still moving along, but no unicorns.

I think you also misunderstand Thiel's motives for the fellowship... it is not
saying that because Zuck was sucessful because he dropped out of college, Zuck
was already lucky that he wasn't in debt. The student debt crisis has been
getting worse and worse over the past decade, and Thiel's real core idea is
that student debt is a huge barrier for young people to take risks (such as
starting or joining a startup) during or after college.

For myself, I actually dropped out of high school to accept the fellowship. At
that point I already had 3 years work experience at MIT, and was going to drop
out of school anyways to accept a position at a large tech company in the
Valley making three times the Fellowship's yearly grant. What the Fellowship
offered me was the chance to do something very risky and being able to get
into the game quickly with an advantage. I think it was the right choice for
me.

~~~
w1ntermute
> The student debt crisis has been getting worse and worse over the past
> decade, and Thiel's real core idea is that student debt is a huge barrier
> for young people to take risks (such as starting or joining a startup)
> during or after college.

I also recognize the debt issue, although I suspect that most of the Thiel
Fellows would have little trouble getting full scholarships, as I did, or come
from stable, upper middle class households with high-achieving parents who
would be able and willing to cover the cost of tuition, as I also did. My
point is that college dropouts or recent graduates (even from elite colleges)
are not necessarily the best people to start successful high-growth ventures,
regardless of whether they're in debt or not. Just because Zuck did it with
Facebook (although from what you said, this didn't figure into Thiel's
decision to start the Fellowship) doesn't mean that it makes sense to
encourage high-achieving college students to drop out and start a business -
and the results have borne that out (though perhaps your internal data says
otherwise).

In essence:

1\. By the time someone is an ideal high-growth startup founder, college debt
should no longer be a big concern, either because they never had it in the
first place or because they paid it off with the high-paying job they got
after college.

2\. Most of those who are suffering from high amounts of student debt are
probably never going to be ready to found a high-growth startup that someone
like Thiel would be interested in anyway.

The real solution to the student debt crisis is to optimize high school
education such that it is sufficient for most jobs (or perhaps high school
education, followed by part-time associate degree + co-op), and alter
societal/employers' expectations to accept that a BS is overkill.
Unfortunately, that is a very thorny sociopolitical issue that isn't easily
solvable by throwing money at moonshot companies founded by smart young
people, and it's this latter activity that Thiel has the most experience in.

Before a BS became table stakes for decent employment, you could rely on free,
government-provided education to get you to a good job. Getting high-achieving
students to drop out of elite colleges to start high-growth ventures is a
fundamentally orthogonal matter to returning society to that norm.

------
carrotleads
A valid problem this.. I have been in Agra and was pissed off at how simple
stuff didn't work.. there seemed to be seemingly simple solutions but the
hotel owners/managers either didn't know or it seemed too hard... Similar
issues in the trip earlier in the year on a trip via Trivandrum in the
southern State..

~~~
notahacker
Depends what your standards are. I stayed in a place in Agra with no windows
and unusual plumbing, but on the other hand it was $3 per night. Was
particularly amusing when people staying in 5 star accommodation nearby came
to check out the view from the rooftop restaurant.

Judging from the link, what OYO is doing well is identifying hotels which are
in a mid-range price bracket by local standards which can justify that charge
on account of service comparable to a Western budget hotel rather than on
account of "deluxe" features that push the price up despite elements of the
service, power supply or plumbing.

------
hackuser
I can see why hotels in India might have quality problems:

> 2,200 hotels operating in 100 cities across India ... and 1,500 employees.

... financed with ...

> monthly revenues of $3.5m (£2.3m)

Revenues of ~$1,600/hotel/month? ~$2,300/employee/month? Am I misunderstanding
something?

~~~
jpatokal
Not necessarily. Average wage in India is Rs 3000/mo (~$44) and you can get a
perfectly decent single room at a guesthouse for under Rs 500 ($7) -- although
at this price range the quality of the room will be a total crapshoot, which
is precisely why this is such a great idea.

On the other hand, if you want a 100% guaranteed Western branded hotel
experience, you'll pay through the nose for it. Back when I was working in
Delhi, 4-star-ish hotels charged $400/night and up and the Trident Hilton in
Gurgaon was $700.

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fdanconia
I wonder how he is profitable or expecting to be profitable. The article
states that Oyo pulls in roughly $3.5M/month but has to pay 1,500 employees.

~~~
jzwinck
A couple grand a month is more than sufficient pay in many parts of India.
Heck, it's enough for new police officers in New York City (ok, I'm ignoring
payroll tax and insurance for this one).

~~~
sudhirj
The average pay for hotel staff and call center operators is around Rs. 25,000
here, with junior pay starting at Rs. 15,000. That works out to less than $400
either way.

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callesgg
look customer service is using ubuntu :)

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littletimmy
How is his age relevant? Would the task be less impressive if done by an 80
year old?

~~~
melling
If you fall outside the norm then it's usually perceived as impressive. 18 and
80 would both be impressive.

In general, it's important to celebrate when people excel because the norm is
a snarky comment on the Internet.

