Easy for Indian entrepreneurs to go global: Ritesh Agarwal

At the Republic Business Emerging Tech Awards (RBETA) 2024, Ritesh Agarwal, the visionary founder and CEO of OYO Rooms, captivated an audience of aspiring entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts with his journey and insights. Known for celebrating innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, the event was a fitting stage for Agarwal, who stressed the vibrant spirit of entrepreneurship that permeated the gathering.

On entrepreneurial success

There are three unique things that I believe have helped me create this impact. The first is, I'm lucky that I was born in this generation in India. Because if you see, I was born in the year 1993. That is the time, if you think, right before that there were some troublesome events that happened in India. But if you look after that, probably there have been very rare national disruptions that have stopped business or activity or commercial processes.

People's ambitions and aspirations have grown higher than ever before. So today if you are a 19 year old or 25 year old and you have a dream to start a company and no money in your pocket or your parents have no money, it's okay.

That was not okay until then is what I have read. I think 50 per cent of this (entrepreneurial success) is that I am just lucky, and born the right place at the right time. I thought abhi mohka mil gaya hai, and I will take all advantage of it. If I was born in some country which was having riots or the country's economy was broken, I would never get this opportunity. But now I have gotten it, and I am truly thankful for it, and I want to make the most out of it.

The second, I think is also that, this pursuit of naivety is bliss. If I knew how hard it was before I started, maybe I would not have done it.  But when I started, I read on the news it is so easy. Everybody is building big companies. So I thought I can also do it. So I got into it.

Up a year later, I figured that this is nowhere as easy because you have to figure out a way to pay yourself and your teams. Naturally, you keep your teams first as much as you can. And you have to take care of your customers. So effectively, when you start a company, this myth that nobody is your boss is a wrong one. Everybody is your boss that you become an entrepreneur. 

Your customer is your boss, your partner, everybody, right? My dad used to work at road construction for some time. First, he used to have a shop, but later he took a job at road construction company. And, you know, I come from a hilly region in Odisha, so there's a lot of hills and tunnels need to be made. So, he would always say that, you know, if you keep digging, there is always light at the end of the tunnel. And I think it's a saying also. So for me, I felt that if I keep digging, there will be light at the end of the day.

So I was very perseverant. I didn't give up. No matter what, I would not give up. And one person you can't write off is me. If you write me off, the next morning, I will show up again and then again, the following morning until I make a difference. And last but not the least is I'm lucky that I found great colleagues, partners who supported me through this period of time. Sometimes they had more belief in me than myself. So, I think a combination of India being in this exciting time, going from number 11 economy to number 5 economy to now hopefully number 3 very soon. My ability to sort of learn from our value systems or saying, we won't leave it. I mean, until we don't see the outcome, we won't see it through. And just lucky to have good people around. Those three things I would say.

On the size of the economy

I would say that if you are a youth in India, an entrepreneur, a business owner, if I want to tell you one thing, that is that India is currently $3.5 trillion or so economy. Jab hum top 3 banenge, hum log $6.5 trillion ke aaspas mujhe lagta ekonomi banenge. To just for context, jitni badi aaj humari poori aarthi vasta hai, poora ekonomi India ka, we will create an economy of that size in a few years from now. That doesn't happen only by domestic consumption. Of course, domestic consumption will be a big part of it. But I think exports will play a huge role in that. 

When people think about exports, people only think about IT services or they think about some manufacturing. But I think that that is only going to be tip of the iceberg. The real opportunities will be in media, it will be in travel, it will be in softwares, finished softwares, not just the service of softwares. And I will share two or three parts from my own experience. Exactly five years back, our company received zero dollars of revenue from overseas business.

We were primarily an India domestic operation. Today our company does over 13,000 crore of bookings with half of it coming from outside of India. I don't give credit to ourselves or our company. I think I just feel like if I knew it earlier that there are so many customers around the world waiting for Indian technologies, Indian talent, and Indian organisations to support them, I'd have probably tried that earlier. 

Close to 50 per cent of these bookings comes from Europe and US. So if you look at Europe and US, and I go and meet people there, you will see that the number of people who are waiting for Indian companies to come and provide products is unparalleled, right? 

I was recently last week in Austria meeting some of our clients at the Tyrol region.  And they said, they've found Indian technology to be so good that it works very well for their holiday villa. They also asked if there is any software we can use for the ski lifts there. And I told them, I've come on the Indian version of Shark Tank and next time I'm going to tell an entrepreneur to build a software for the ski lifts in Austria because people are waiting for Indian software. And this is just an example of the hundreds and thousands of businesses that can be created.

Second, we are always a little worried, and ask ourselves whether we can go and pursue a big opportunity? Is our technology good enough? Is our product good enough? Are people waiting for us or not?

I think Indians are considered among the most lovable people, and I would say to some extent, adjustable in every country around the world. People love Indians. So, like I was telling you recently, I've been traveling to some of our destinations. People do curry nights every week. So our food is a great export there. People say that they grew up with some neighbour or the other being an Indian.

And at last, and I think probably the most important factor is that, is we take for granted the quality of technology access we have here in India. We think UPI is such an easy thing. Anywhere else in the world, when our company completes a transaction, we spend €1 for it. €1 is over Rs 100 rupees, right? Imagine spending 100 rupees for every transaction we did in India. Similarly, we all use mobile phones for to access all services. 70% of the services, which I saw in some of the regions we do business in, are only available on websites.

I actually believe that India is today probably the most powerful passport in the world. I'll give you an example. I understand that the rankings may not show it fully, but we are rising. But I'll explain why. I was speaking to a friend of mine who runs a shipping business in Greece. He told me that mostly they try to employ only Indians in their ships because large part of the global trade travels in countries near Israel or Iran. Either of the countries, if your ship gets caught, if you have an Indian passport, both countries would love you. There is no other country in the world whose passport you can carry and feel comfortable going to either of these countries. 

So this is leading to a rise in Indians being employed in global shipping companies. We don't think about it. So the amount of work that happens with India as a country rising has a knock-on effect in all of our entrepreneurs' lives and to that extent I'm very happy that there are more entrepreneurs are going global. I hope that in 10 years from now, just like you see a Facebook, Microsoft, Google as the world's largest companies, you will see Indian companies in the same league.

On transformation

Question: So, India over the last 10 years has changed phenomenally and the way Indians like to live, you know, the aspiration quotient of Indians, you know, it's rising by the day and as someone who has been, you know, dealing with rooms all over India, what sort of change or transformation have you witnessed in people's taste when it comes to occupancy?

Answer: This is a great question. l have a view that some may agree or some may not. It is that I believe India is truly and firmly in the path of being a developed nation in the next decade. And I am seeing this in consumer patterns like never before.

And I'll explain some of these specific examples. So, I started my business roughly 10 years ago. So, we are celebrating 10 years of our enterprise. As I see our customer interest, when I started the company, customers used to say, saaf, sutra, majboot. Like, they'd be fine with a good place at Rs 1,500, and want to save rest of the money to keep it either as physical gold or some kind of stuff at home.

From that point, I see a complete transformation. People don't want to buy goods like clothes or the gold or various other things. People want to spend on experiences. It's a part of an economy becoming more and more developed where people believe that the time matters and they want to use the time for the best thing. 

If you look at the clothing business, people are increasingly buying Zudio, which is in the entry to mid-level segment. But if you see restaurants, cafes, events, and travel, people are willing to spend more. That is why we have expanded out of our flagship OYO, we still see that there's a lot of demand for tourism segment. 

OYO Rooms customers seek for OYO serviced hotels. Then OYO serviced hotels customers seek for Townhouse. And Townhouse customers are seeking luxury saying, they'd go for Sunday Hotels. Our customers are demanding upgrade. And we are going to upgrade at a rapid pace, so that we can always meet customers' demands. 

The second thing that I'm seeing is in the stock market and SIP segment. Actually there is more money that left India, largely due to overseas problems. But India's stock markets have continued to rise, largely because of the massive domestic capital. Because now people are comfortable saying they want to grow with Indian companies' success. They prefer to invest out of gold because they started to believe that stock market will give a better return, and that the country's economy is going to rise.

I speak to taxi drivers, hotel receptionists and others, they're all investing money in SIPs, stock markets and so on and so forth. Imagine the trust they have on the Indian economy. And last but not the least is that I also believe that to a significant extent, COVID-19 has made people feel like you only live life once, so you have to make the most out of it.

India is becoming a developed nation, and our value system is becoming more and more closer to our ideals. I'll give an example. I was recently in Mathura Vrindavan. Naturally, I visited a few of our hotels. There is a hotel we've had for seven years. I spoke to the receptionist, he was fascinating person. He told me, “kuch badlaav dikh raha hai pichli baar”, because last time he remembers me that I saw him 5-6 years ago. He said, “aap pichli baar jab aayi the, tab average age jo hai wo 50 plus hota tha. Abhi jo average age hai, wo late 20s, early 30s se mid 30s mein aagaya hai."

Which means younger people are becoming ambitious, they want to take over the world. But they still want to go back to their places of faith. Now it can be a temple, or mosque, or anywhere people have faith. People are close to their faith in India, which is something I haven't seen in other countries. India is this unique place where we have global aspirations, but our value system still remains close what I guess our parents taught us.

On young entrepreneurs

Question: Ritesh, you're not short of being a hero to the entrepreneurs of India. But, you know, when you started and when people were just beginning to start up a decade ago, and starting up was more like a privilege for the urban kid who could get access to a co-working facility or an incubation center. But do you think that things are also shifting for tier II and tier III cities?

Answer: This is one of those places where the shift has already happened. I truly believe that a person sitting in a small town or a small village today, has dreams. For example, I was speaking to one of our customer service agents. We have. a large customer service department. Sometimes I go and speak to our team members. There was this 21-year-young kid, who came from Hisar in Haryana, working with us in Gurgaon. I ask him, “Aage kya karoge?” He looks at me with all seriousness and said, “Ritesh Bhai, jo company aapne banai na, usse thodi badi company banani hai.” This is a 21-year-old kid who's working at a customer service department. He knows that I started my life doing housekeeping myself.

The rise in internet consumption has greatly enhanced the ambitions of youth living even in small towns of India. They sit at their homes, and gather the same knowledge as another kid who is sitting in New York or Berlin. The kid in Raigada and Gaya has the same ambitions as a New York kid. Who will be more successful? The person who wants to more.

I personally believe that a kid coming from the small town would be more ambitious, they'd want to achieve their goal. I remember when my mom used to say, if you get a job in IT service, it has a title. I know the title too. Because if someone in our relative gets a job, there is a big talk at home that if they get a job, assistant system engineer. 

I think you will be surprised in 5 to 10 years the number of companies you will see listed on the NSE and BSE, would be those started by people from tier III, tier IV, tier V towns and villages. I am already seeing it because I speak to those entrepreneurs and it's happening. 

Last year, in Shark Tank I met this entrepreneur who comes from Saharsa in Bihar. His company's name is Roadbase. Because in Bihar when people speak, instead of calling roadways, Bihar Roadways, they pronounce it as Roadbase. His father was a chaparasi who then became a driver of Bihar Roadways. He was also a chaparasi to a company in Patna which had 10 engineers. He self-learned coding from there. Now runs a business which is multi-million dollar in terms of revenues. But now he's gone back to Saharsa and he's training kids in Saharsa to write code. These are the incredible the stories in India. I asked him about his revenue, I asked how he makes technology like big ride-hailing companies. And he gave me a very interesting example.

He said that in mapping, Google Maps takes a lot of money. So, he found out what are the locations 80 per cent of people search on Google Maps, and made the mapping himself. Now, he just have to pay Google Maps for 20 per cent of their service.  It's jugaad. But Jugaad in a competent way, right? I think you should just wait and watch the number of kids from Saharsa, Gaya, you know, Raigad, and all these small towns.