Quotes from Ritesh Agarwal

Other people's view was that saving a rupee is a rupee earned. But for our family, earning two rupees is a rupee earned. That means spending that 1 rupee to make that happen is what it is. It is a difference of risk-taking appetite, going out and doing stuff.

We are reviewing and evolving our business plan as times go. But in the long term, we remain confident about creating a large scale business.

Abhinav Sihna is my partner and the COO of Oyo, and is also the head of the United States division. He spends all of his time building out the United States market for us and has moved out here full-time.

On the customer side, we are continuously making enhancements to our app and activating new partnerships to make their travel experience seamless through the OYO app.

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.

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

The scale of impact that people aspire to create, based out of the Bay Area, is truly incredible.

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.

No one in my town had ever gone to Kota. I mean, it was a big deal if people went to Bhubaneswar.

Dropping out of college was never the plan, but it made me eligible for the Peter Thiel Fellowship. I was the first Asian to win that grant!

I dreamt of running my own business even as a kid, but if not a CEO, I would have probably been a pilot.

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.

I was good at studies and played sports. The only difference was I had big dreams even as a child - I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

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

2017 has been a watershed year for us. We steered our growth trajectory by upgrading and bringing beautiful living-spaces in the value economy segment through OYO Rooms, while launching our operated brand Townhouse.

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.

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

In our education system, we're so focused on the building blocks that sometimes we try to keep the kids from looking at the larger picture.

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.

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

In markets such as the US, China, we want to continuously improve our products and services to win market share.

Whenever I go to Odisha, I make it a point to converse in Odia.

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

There were business challenges, a lot of imitators sprung up, but we built a product that customers love.