Ritesh Agarwal
Founder & CEO, OYO
HospitalityTurned fragmented budget hotels into a global branded network — as a teenager.
Ritesh Agarwal started OYO as a teenager, frustrated by how unreliable budget hotels in India were.
What they built
OYO signed up small hotels, standardised the basics — clean sheets, working wifi, predictable pricing — and put them under one brand and app. The model scaled fast across India and abroad, through booms and hard resets.
Why it matters for India
OYO showed that a very young Indian founder could take on a messy, offline, trust-poor category and build a recognisable brand at global scale.