Top 98 Quotes & Sayings by Ritesh Agarwal

We want to convert broken, unbranded assets around the globe into better-quality living spaces.

There are causes that are dear to me personally including encouraging entrepreneurship, improving livelihoods as well as helping humanitarian rescue and relief efforts.

Everybody has a dream of being the most impactful company in their segment worldwide.

I had three other siblings, and I was the youngest of the lot.

As an entrepreneur and on behalf of the company's management, I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to rededicate ourselves to the company's mission of building the world's most loved hospitality brand that is focused on bringing a better lifestyle for the common man.

While one is in the process of coming up with a truly innovative solution, it is essential to keep an open mind.

That's our thesis, to operate in a few places and make them home, rather than operate in many places and not have significant ownership.

At the end of every year our management regroups and thinks about things we did right and what we could improve.

We are an asset-light transformative platform that converts sub-standard unbranded hotels/unutilized vacation homes into quality living spaces, with easy to book, hassle-free check-in experience.

COVID-19 is unlike any other challenge the world has faced, affecting people from every socio-economic background and causing a disruption in operations and processes across industries.

I grew up in Rayagada in Orissa state in eastern India. Few people have even heard of it.

From my perspective, as an entrepreneur, one is wired to take risks. You, of course, need to be smart and take calculated risks, and then do all you can to make it worth the risk.

Masayoshi Son is one of the most innovative and impactful thinkers and problem-solvers of our generation.

Customer expectation and need was quite limited when we started in 2013.

Small hotels are going to be in vogue. In my view, small is going to be the new big, wherein people will rethink a lot about going back to that 1,000-room hotel versus going to a 40-room niche hotel.

When you scale up your business there will invariably be small groups of vested interests unwilling to see the new ground reality.

Companies that raise capital do it on the basis of past performance and unique competencies of the business. We cannot raise capital if we are not creating sustained value.

We are building OYO to be the preferred hospitality brand for consumers in the new post-COVID reality.

One big learning from Thiel fellowship was think really big and create an impact, without thinking if anybody has done it before.

I grew up in Rayagada in Odisha, in a middle-class family. But I always had the entrepreneurial bug.

Oyo has no plans for an IPO because we are focused on execution.

Our focus area would be recruiting people along with building great technology as well as building a great brand.

I was a small-town boy with big dreams.

The reality of a startup is you have failures very often.

I started my life on the ground selling sim card, telecom products and so on and learned a heck of a lot doing that.

One should accept failure, and be willing to learn, unlearn and relearn again.

By 2023, we will be the world's largest hotel chain.

I can speak Odiya, Telugu, apart from Hindi and a little bit of Rajasthani, so, truly Indian from that context.

Hygiene is going to be a key consumer question post-COVID. Our sanitized stay offerings and commitment towards ensuring minimal contact-based check-in is an important step.

We have, at various levels, invented how hospitality experiences would look like. At lot of levels, we have transformed how the hospitality experience would be by processes and technology.

Geopolitical impact is going to become one of the big risks for companies which are global.

One of the things that's consistent, if you speak to hotel owners or customers across the world, is that the proposition of Oyo is very valuable for each one of them.

Post 10th grade, I came to the northern half of the country. I realized that the usual education did not excite me at all because I felt how will understanding trajectory motions in chemistry help me solve real-life problems?

Initially, when we were running just one hotel in Gurgaon, I used to handle housekeeping, sales, CEO duties, etc. I would literally wear the OYO Rooms uniform for housekeeping and would show the room to customers.

Building culture as part of your team is extremely important.

For me as a young kid, my parents took me to random cities. I stayed at my relatives and the biggest trouble I had was watching TV on my own.

I'm a college dropout. My parents thought they had three respectable children, and I was the black sheep.

My father ran a grocery store.

We are the first company anywhere in the hospitality sector to introduce technology-based solutions to the suppliers side to help them manage operations.

The only constant in my life besides OYO is Lisa, my dog. She's a Lhasa apso. The only reason I shop is to buy accessories for Lisa.

What we are unlikely to do as a leading brand space is just buy revenue or partnership with hotels.

We want to be a daily brand but not once-in-a-while brand.

Long story short, right after my twelfth grade, the six months between school and university, and that is the time when I came to Delhi and I said that let me try and build a company of my own.

My mom is surely worried that the fact that I don't have a college degree will impact my chances of finding a bride.

Every weekend I would take a train to Delhi and sneak into startup events. I really enjoyed meeting entrepreneurs who were solving big problems. They were way smarter than me. I knew this is where I had to be.

There is always room for improvement in experience and it can be achieved if one listens to the customers carefully.

As I grew up, I was born and brought up with a view of, if you can get an engineering degree, getting a job is remarkably easy and that's the ambition you should have.

I know what time a customer checked in, what he ordered, did it get delivered on time, did he order for sling bags, and so on. And when the customer checks out, he can walk out like how you get out of cabs because if you have a wallet it's completely hassle-free.

We use innovative technology to facilitate standardization of services, amenities and in-room experience, thereby helping maintain service standards.

My home has three-tier security, which is valuable to me considering I get five death threats a month.

Oyo is not a market place. Oyo is a fully fledged hotel chain that leases and franchises assets.

I started Oyo right out of my high school, with limited resources.

As a responsible consumer brand, we have not just built for the short term, but build for longer-term relationships.

When I go to colleges for talks, I encourage the students to drop out.

We have partnered Highgate to create our first key flagship property in Las Vegas - Oyo Hotels & Casino.

Stay away from family when you are working on a startup.

For me, it is about having a passion for solving a big problem and leaving a huge impact. Once you have that, everything else falls into place.

Capital is always available for good companies, but the only question is value at which you raise capital. In bad times, you raise capital at low valuation, and in good times, you get a fair price. It separates winners from the rest.

Nobody or no company in this world can say they have got everything right and it has been a perfect journey.

I had gone from a small town in the eastern corner of India to San Francisco, and I was very lucky to get that.