Podcasts about Oyo Rooms

In this podcast, we'll delve into the dramatic turnaround of OYO Rooms, a once-troubled hospitality startup that has defied odds to achieve profitability and regain its foothold in the global market. Discover how OYO achieved profitability in FY24 through cost cuts, global expansion, and innovation. Insights for startups and entrepreneurs! #OYORooms #BusinessModelInnovation

OYO Rooms, finally turned a profit in its latest financial year since being founded in 2012. The Indian multinational hotel chain which is backed by Japan's Softbank, is now refocusing its efforts into increasing that profitability by reducing the number of purely budget hotels and providing a more varied range of products to suit more people. Akshay Rathod, country head for OYO Malaysia gives us an insight into what changes can be expected to maintain this positive momentum.

GSD Presents Token Economics and How to Design the Token Framework with Rishabh Gupta May 13, Monday Guest: Rishabh Gupta, Director of Operations, TDeFi https://www.linkedin.com/in/web3incubation/?originalSubdomain=in Rishabh is the Director of Operations at TDeFi and a beacon in the Web 3.0 landscape. At the core, he believes in unlocking the full human potential through spirituality, integrating deeper purpose with modern tech. With a rich portfolio of over 60 startups, Rishabh takes pride in guiding ventures to scale, assisting them in growing 1 to n. Each startup's journey is a testament to human potential and innovation. Deep expertise in token engineering sets Rishabh apart. By combining economics, game theory, incentive design, and financial models, bespoke strategies are crafted to ensure sustainable growth in the decentralized world. Before TDeFi, Rishabh was instrumental at OYO Rooms, shaping its trajectory to become one of the fastest Decacorn (USD 10 Bn+) companies. This journey enriched skills in negotiation and solidified the importance of customer-centric approaches. Holding an MBA in Finance from IIT Kanpur and boasting a CFA Level 3 candidature, Rishabh seamlessly merges the realms of finance and technology. Yet, beyond the boardroom, there's an enduring commitment to societal upliftment, particularly ensuring equitable education access and wealth distribution. #TokenEconomics #TokenFrameworkDesign #CryptoEconomics #Tokenization #BlockchainDesign #DigitalTokens #CryptocurrencyFrameworks

►Think School's flagship Communication course with live doubt sessions : https://thethinkschool.com/sp/communication-masterclass/ ►Follow Think School Social Media: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkSchool Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thethinkschool?igsh=NWg2ZXRyZmdsM2ds&utm_source=qr VIDEO INTRODUCTION: In this episode of the Indian Business Podcast, we get insights from Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and CEO of Oyo Rooms. He tells us about his journey from being a young, inexperienced entrepreneur to leading a big success in the hotel industry. Ritesh talks about overcoming big challenges, like losing 70% of the company's revenue overnight. He also talks about how it's important to think differently and how he got help from the Thiel Fellowship. In this podcast shares lessons he learned, why it's good to be different, and the value of education beyond formal settings, offering invaluable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs and business leaders.

What does your company do?There are many ways to answer this question.Most founders have a really good answer, some have a meandering one.Well, let's just say it's always a compelling answer.This week we have five founders to answer that question on a broader range. They function in very competitive sectors and are successfully making their mark in their respective sectors by innovating and more appropriately reinventing the wheel.First up, we have newly inducted Shark, Radhika Gupta of Edelweiss Asset Management telling us what her company does for its customers, and what she doesn't want her customers to not do through a great example.Next up, we have Lalit Keshre of Groww, who is very clear who the target consumer for his company is. Starting off as robo-advisory and then pivoting into the mutual fund sector and now on their way to become a complete financial services platform.We have another Shark from the Shark Tank panel featured in this episode. Ritesh Agarwal of Oyo Rooms has built Oyo in his own words into a leading global hotel brand. But that's not all it is as he went on to add further.Next up, we have Kartik Jayaraman, who founded Waycool, a food and agritech company  at the age of 40. He started off  with the simple explanation: We're a supply chain company. At our heart that's what we do. After that he got into the nitty gritty of what Waycool does.Lastly, we have Niraj Singh of Spinny, who is busy building in a space that has many competitors, old and new, and he explained how he's servicing the aspirational class of the country by delivering something the competitors couldn't.If you want to read more about our Narrative Workshops – here is who are our trainers, what we do and how we do it. This year, we have a few slots open for companies. Sign up here!Welcome to First Principles—the weekly leadership podcast from The Ken.Let's get started.

Maneet Gohil, started Lal10 as a side hustle while in college and after a roller coaster journey of multiple pivots, scaled it to a ₹200cr ARR business.Lal10 is an asset light manufacturer. Think of it as an Oyo Rooms model for Indian craft manufacturing. They build the market connection and generate demand, and in the back end, digitize small scale factories to manufacture, thereby helping Indian handcrafted textile suppliers to make their inventory available on global platforms.He talks about: How to scale a side-hustle successfully How the ‘Jugaad' culture works in the Indian creative manufacturing sector and how to use it to make a profitable ‘dhanda' How to sell in dollars and spend in rupeesGet notified about the latest releases and bonus content by subscribing to our newsletter at founderthesis.com

“What is something you believe in, that no one else around you does?”If you've heard episode 30 with Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and CEO of OYO Rooms, then you'll recognize this as a question that he had to answer while applying for the Thiel Fellowship.It's a simple but powerful question that usually differentiates motivated, passionate and unreasonable founders from other equally capable professionals. Because what is a startup if not a mere belief in something that should exist?This question is also equally apt for our guests today. Because Soumya Rajan believed in something that no one else around her did. Soumya is the Founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors – India's largest multi-family office and wealth advisory firm which manages over 40,000 crore – that's over $4 billion – for its clients.But in 2010, Soumya was working at Standard Chartered Bank, a bank she'd joined straight from college after back-to-back mathematics degrees. A bank where she'd worked at for 17 straight years – her first and only job. She'd been the head of Standard Chartered's Private Banking arm and reached the top. But having reached there, Soumya wondered why she wasn't interested in playing the same game.2010 was also the year Soumya turned 40. The age when many professionals hit their mid-life crisis. If you remember, Karthik Jayaraman, the co-founder and CEO of Waycool, decided to start up too after hitting 40. Soumya too decided to quit her job and start on her own by making a contrarian bet – that it was better to charge her wealthy clients directly for financial advice instead of making money via commissions paid by financial services companies whose products she would recommend. Soumya says that in 2010, this went completely against the tide in India's wealth management sector. No one else was doing it. Even her peers and ex-colleagues were dismissive of her belief. In this episode, Soumya, in her calm and reflective manner, tells me her story. There is a strong thread of vision that runs through our entire conversation – Soumya is driven by a sharp sense of curiosity and purpose in everything that Waterfield Advisors is doing. You'll notice it in the way she breaks down her midlife crisis, her role as CEO, her beliefs about products and incentives, and even her work for empowering women as investors. We also talk about:What the wealth management landscape of India looks likeWhy Waterfield is like the lawyer or the doctor of financial wellbeingHow to survive in the short-term when you're building to lastThe one question she asks people before hiring them.Check out the First Principles Newsletter, a weekly Sunday read on entrepreneurship, mental models, leadership and reflection here.Send in submissions for book recommendations, interesting reads, Silent Sunday pictures or songs for the First Principles newsletter here.This is Episode 32 of First Principles, with Soumya Rajan.—The Ken's fortnightly leadership podcast.The Ken is India's first subscriber-only business journalism platform. Check out our deeply reported long-form stories, insightful newsletters, original podcasts and much more here.

Welcome to to episode 31 of First Principles! If you've been listening to us for a while, you'll notice that this was supposed to be an off week for us as a fortnightly show. We used to release new episodes every other Thursday. And last Thursday was our episode with Ritesh Agarwal of OYO Rooms.  But starting this week, First Principles is now a weekly podcast. We're going to bring you a fresh conversation every Thursday.  But in a slightly different way. Well, the supply of truly original, accomplished and candid founders and business leaders in India is what we believe, a finite resource. So while we'd love to – at some point – have a roster of guests talking to us every single week, that isn't possible right now.  And so, we're now increasing the duration of our conversations with the leaders we meet to roughly two hours each.  Only to split it into two distinct conversations and episodes.  That's where this episode comes in. A couple of weeks ago you heard our episode with Karthik Jayaraman – the co-founder and CEO of WayCool Foods, an agri-tech start up that distributes and processes fresh produce, grains, staples and milk. It was a wonderfully candid and authentic conversation in which Karthik spoke about complementing, instead of disrupting; treading lightly while making decisions; and starting up at 40.In fact, we'd urge you to check out the episode – or, if you'd like to go through the full transcript. You can click here to do so. But what you didn't hear in that conversation is what we're releasing today as episode 31.  We talk about why Karthik took such a big risk at 40 by jumping from automobiles into a completely different sector, agri-tech. He also reflects on his career, what got him here, and what keeps him going.  We talked about who Karthik is – as a leader and a CEO. What are the habits that he's picked up? What has he been reading, and why? We've tied all of this together for today's episode – a Part 2, on Karthik's life, career and values.  Check out the First Principles Newsletter, a weekly Sunday read on entrepreneurship, mental models, leadership and reflection here.Send in submissions for books recommendations, interesting reads, Silent Sunday pictures or songs for the First Principles newsletter here.This is episode 31 of First Principles with Karthik Jayaraman, Part 2—The Ken's fortnightly leadership podcast.The Ken is India's first subscriber-only business journalism platform. Check out our deeply reported long-form stories, insightful newsletters, original podcasts and much more here.

Papo com o Anjo na Jovem Pan: Entrevistas sobre negócios, de forma simples, descontraída e direta ao ponto. Nesta edição, João Kepler conversa com Vinicius Garcia, head de venture capital da Bossanova Investimentos. Graduado em Administração pela PUCRS e MBA em Gestão de Inteligência e Varejo Omnichannel pela ESPM, possui carreira consolidada em empresas como Kraft Heinz, Lojas Renner, Telefônica, Dell e nos últimos anos vem impactando o mercado de startups com seu track record de grandes corporações, onde fez parte do founding team responsável pelo lançamento das operações da Oyo Rooms no Brasil. Posteriormente, foi o responsável pelo Go To Market da Isa Saúde, resultando em uma das maiores rodadas Séries A do setor de healthtechs no país. Faz parte também do Emaús, movimento da Igreja Católica que realiza missões de evangelização em comunidades terapêuticas especializadas no tratamento de dependência química. Instagram João Kepler: @JoaoKepler See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today's Episode of Figuring out With Raj, we have Founder and CEO of OYO Rooms, Ritesh Agarwal who is India's youngest self made billionaire.He started his journey at the age of 19 with a vision of creating a solution for people looking for affordable hotels around the globe. Ritesh always felt that the budget hotels in India didn't even meet the very basic needs of a budget traveller. Hence, capitalising on this opportunity, he started his first venture in 2012 and called it Oravel Stays.Ritesh Agarwal dropped out of college to follow his dream which later turned out to be OYO Rooms.He was the first Asian who obtained the Thiel Fellowship. In this episode we have discussed How to build a successful business from scratch, Success mantra of OYO, Startup rules of Ritesh Aggarwal and much more. Watch the complete episode to know the success story of Ritesh Agarwal and how he built a billion dollar company OYO Rooms at the age of 19.Follow me and my content on other social media handles:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rajshamani/​LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajshamani/​Twitter: https://twitter.com/rajshamani​Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shamaniraj

In today's video, we look at top 10 Indian startups based in the Delhi-NCR region. #10 Rivigo: In 2014, Deep Garg and Geet Kalra set out to make the profession of truckers more humane and address the growing need of truck drivers in the country by starting Rivigo. The company's innovative relay trucking model not only helps its drivers to go home to their families every day but also makes deliveries for their customers much faster. It is no surprise that Rivigo has become a unicorn and continues to enjoy the support of its investors who have pumped in $268.7 million. #9 GlobalBees: Founded by Edelweiss' former President Nitin Agarwal and FirstCry's co-founder Supam Maheshwari in 2021, GlobalBees invests in and acquires D2C brands that they believe have massive growth potential. GlobalBees then uses their own expertise to help these brands scale their business, turning them into highly successful portfolio companies. #8 MamaEarth: Founded by Ghazal Alagh and Varun Alagh in 2016, Mamaearth is a D2C babycare brand that sells toxin-free babycare products. Today, they have expanded their toxin-free product portfolio to enter the adult personal care market as well. In FY21, Mamaearth's revenue grew 4X to reach ₹461 crore. #7 Pristyn Care: Founded by Garima Sawhney, Harsimarbir Singh, and Vaibhav Kapoor in 2018, Pristyn Care is trying to innovate in India's fragmented healthcare market, and they're focusing on the surgery space specifically. By partnering with around 500 hospitals and clinics – Pristyn Care handles a patient's entire healthcare journey, from doorstep pickup and drop, finding them the right doctor, completing hospital paperwork, getting a diagnosis and submitting insurance documents, and then finally post-surgery recovery and home delivery of medicine. #6 Spinny: Founded by Ganesh Pawar, Mohit Gupta, Niraj Singh, and Ramanshu Mahaur in 2015, Spinny started as an online classifieds platform for buying and selling used cars. However, they soon realised by putting control over the quality of the cars in the hands of sellers, the customer experience on their platform was suffering for buyers. #5 Urban Company: Founded by Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra in 2014, Urban Company is India's largest homes services marketplace. The company has a network of more than 35,000 home service professionals. They have also expanded beyond India to countries UAE, Australia, Singapore and Saudi Arabia. #4 BharatPe: In 2018, Ashneer Grover joined Bhavikkumar Koladiya and Sashvat Nakhrani to build BharatPe, a solution to the problems that merchants had been facing. By leveraging India's UPI, they were able to launch an interoperable UPI-based QR code – allowing merchants to accept UPI payments from any digital payments provider, and the best part was they didn't have to pay any commission for accepting these payments. #3 Cars24: Founded by Gajendra Jangid, Mehul Agrawal, Ruchit Agarwal and Vikram Chopra in Gurugram in 2015, Cars24 was created to organise the highly fragmented used car market in India. They did this by making it easy for customers to sell used cars on their platform. Cars24 inspects the vehicle, settles on a fair price, and then they handle the documentation, all in less than an hour. #2 Delhivery: Founded by Bhavesh Manglani, Kapil Bharati, Mohit Tandon, Sahil Barua, and Suraj Saharan in 2011, Delhivery is India's leading logistics company with a more than 20% market share in the e-commerce delivery space. #1 OYO: Founded by Ritesh Agarwal in 2013, Oyo Rooms is India's hospitality unicorn that had expanded rapidly to international destinations before shrinking operations due to the pandemic. So far, OYO's investors have poured $3.1 billion into the startup.

Ritesh Agarwal's Oyo Rooms is entangled in many legal battles and controversies even as the hospitality sector was severely hit by the pandemic, yet, an ambitious IPO plan. What does the SWOT analysis say? Hear from our guests Anirudh A Damani, Managing Partner, Artha Venture Fund, S. Sundareswaran, former head of Morgan Stanley's M&A team and ET's Anumeha Chaturvedi on whether this is the right time for Oyo's IPO and will it successfully check in to the bourses. Credits: Oyo Rooms, Dream On Aerosmith, CNBC TV18,

India is among the countries that are leading the global IPO boom this year. According to a recent report from consultancy firm EY, 72 Indian companies had raised $9.7 billion through IPOs in the first nine months of 2021 – the highest proceeds for the period in two decades. In the whole of last year, 43 Indian firms had raised a total of $4.1 billion.  As many as 35 more companies are planning to hit the primary markets between October and December this year, aiming to raise a further $10 billion. However, some large issues have been hit by complaints and litigation which threatens to delay their IPO timelines. Examples include digital payments giant Paytm, hospitality startup OYO and edible oil company Adani Wilmar. Paytm filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India in July but is yet to get an approval even after three months. The company is seeking to raise up to $2.2 billion in one of the biggest stock market listings in the country that might value it at up to $25 billion. In Paytm's case, a 71-year-old former director, Ashok Kumar Saxena, has asked SEBI to stop Paytm's IPO, alleging that he was a co-founder who invested in the company two decades ago but never got the shares. His complaint filed with the Delhi Police is cited under “criminal proceedings” in Paytm's prospectus. In its response, Paytm said the complaint was an attempt to harass the company and that there was no definitive agreement for allotment of shares to Saxena.  Meanwhile, backpacker hostel company Zostel has asked SEBI to reject OYO' application for a $1.2-billion IPO because of a legal dispute between them.  The two firms have been entangled in a legal dispute over a deal seven years ago. Under this deal OYO was to buy some of Zostel's businesses and Zostel shareholders were to get a 7% stake in OYO. Even though the deal fell through, Zostel claims it is entitled to the stake and has asked a Delhi court to stop OYO from changing its shareholder structure.  In a setback for OYO, a Supreme Court-appointed arbitrator ruled in favour of Zostel. OYO is now challenging the order. Experts have said that such disputes could trigger regulatory inquiries and the approval process may be kept on hold till the complaints are resolved.  The $600-million IPO of edible oil maker Adani Wilmar is also facing a delay after SEBI in August kept the share sale in ‘abeyance'. While the regulator did not clarify further, reports stated that this was linked to investigations in other Adani Group companies. SEBI reportedly resumed the approval process two weeks ago. The primary issuances of Star Health Insurance and PolicyBazaar are also awaiting approval for the past two months.  An analysis of data provided by PRIME Database shows that SEBI takes a little over two months on average to clear a DRHP.  Previously, too, there have been instances of complaints and regulatory challenges delaying the IPO clearance process. For instance, the issue of mutual fund transfer agency CAMS took 190 days to obtain SEBI approval because of a controversy surrounding NSE's shareholding in the company. In the case of UTI Mutual Fund, the approval took 180 days amid disagreement between its major shareholders. Other IPOs that have seen lengthy approval timelines since 2017 include Likhitha Infrastructure, Barbeque Nation Hospitality, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders and Shyam Metalics.  Some recent IPOs that got quick approval include IRCTC, Mrs Bectors Food Specialities, RailTel, Macrotech Developers and Indian Railway Finance Corporation. Companies including OYO Rooms are expediting their IPO launch process to take advantage of the present bullish sentiment in the markets. But any delay in the approval process could potentially complicate their listing plans if market sentiment turns negative.

Sanjay Mehta, founder and partner of 100X.VC, is a technology enthusiast and angel investor turned venture capitalist. Oyo Rooms, Block.One, Box8, CoinDCX, Unbxd, FabAlley, LogiNext, WowMomo, Coolberg, and Zippr are among Mehta's investments in India and the United States. Tune in to hear about his experiences and insights as an investor.

#10 Urban Company: Urban Company is India's largest homes services marketplace. The company has a network of more than 35,000 home service professionals. They have also expanded beyond India to countries UAE, Australia, Singapore and Saudi Arabia. This rapid global expansion has caused their losses to almost doubled from $10 million in FY19 to $18 million in FY20. #9 CRED: CRED is a fintech startup that rewards its users for paying their credit card bills on time. The company is trying to fundamentally change the behaviour of its consumers in order to build a community of high trust individuals. This is why CRED had to spend a lot to get customers on their platform through expensive ads – leading to a minuscule operating revenue of $71,200, while expense stood at $51.8 million. #8 Delhivery: Logistics startup Delhivery is planning to go public in the coming months – which is why they have managed to cut down their losses significantly but it still remains considerably higher. Their losses rose to a high of $256 million in FY19 before coming down to just $38 million in FY20. #7 Udaan: Udaan is a B2B marketplace for retailers to buy products directly from the manufacturers. Focusing on rapid growth and building their all-India logistics – Udaan ended up raking up some pretty huge losses. Their losses rose by 3X from $112 million in FY19 to $333 million in FY20. #6 Ola Cabs: Ola Cabs has not only established its ride-hailing business in India but has also expanded internationally to countries like Australia, New Zealand and the UK. The company has been continuously improving its unit economics while also cutting down on losses in hopes of going public. They managed to cut down their loss from $436 million to $373 million between FY18 to FY19. #5 Swiggy: Indian food delivery unicorn Swiggy has long been engaged in a battle with its rival Zomato by offering huge discounts and cashbacks to acquire new customers. That combined with poor unit economics has caused their losses to grow. They ended the FY20 with a revenue of $368 million but a loss of $499 million. #4 Zomato: Zomato recently filed for an IPO is yet to achieve profitability either. The company claims to have achieved positive unit economics – which is a step towards profitability but according to their IPO filing, the company is expected to continue to be making losses for a while. In the first three-quarters of FY21, Zomato has already lost $93 million. #3 Dream11: Dream11 is India's only gaming startup to turn unicorn and it is also a leader in the country's fantasy gaming segment. They've had to spend a lot on the advertisement to make fantasy gaming popular among the masses – at a time when it was being looked at as gambling. As a result of which, Dream11's losses for FY19 stood at $19 million. #2 OYO: Oyo Rooms is India's hospitality unicorn that had expanded rapidly to international destinations before shrinking operations due to the pandemic. Their unpreceded rate of expansion demanded investment before they could make any money. This is why Oyo Rooms' losses grew 6X from just $50 million in FY18 to $336 million in FY19. #1 Paytm: India's most valuable fintech startup Paytm has been in the headlines for its heavy losses but they are now gearing up to file for an IPO – in fact, it could be India's largest IPO ever. While Paytm has managed to cut down its losses significantly by 42% from $389 million in FY20 to just $232 million, they are still a long way from profitability.

OYO Rooms was founded by a merely 18 year old college dropout who belongs to a small town in Orissa which has a literacy rate of about 20%. Inspired by his sister he decided at the age of 8 that he wants to grow up and be an entrepreneur.  Today he is not only one of the youngest --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/greatideasgreatlife/message

JOIN ME ON THE SHOW!!! Guest:    Zak Slayback   Author published at McGraw-Hill; former research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania; principal at 1517 Fund, a VC firm spun out of the Thiel Fellowship. Zak is a career & communications expert whose content has been highlighted or featured in Fast Company, Business Insider, The Muse, Newsweek, and the New York Observer. He was an early team member at the startup apprenticeship company Praxis, where he was charged with recruiting new business partners and placing apprentices. He left the University of Pennsylvania in 2014 after pursuing a major in Philosophy.   twitter: @zslayback personal site: zakslayback.com clubhouse: @slayback   Show Notes:   Zak Slaybach started the Deschool Yourself project with his co-host Jeff Till. They talked with a handful of people who had experience with education in k-12 and higher education. Zak's interest in doing the podcast came from his unique experience of working with young adults from different backgrounds and placing them in jobs that required degrees, although these young people didn't have degrees. He noticed a trend where the people who had the most training and academic backgrounds were least prepared for the jobs they were placed in. It was a narrative violation because he'd expected that the best performers in school who'd been accepted to elite colleges would have the best self-governing and organization skills, but in fact that wasn't the case for the majority of the people he worked with.     The pattern which unfolded was that unschooled or homeschooled people were far more capable at self-directing in their jobs, and he found himself seeking them out.  It also made him curious about the link between homeschooling and successful job placement. Zak started researching the history of education and how children learn. He named Peter Gray and John Taylor Gatto's writings as being most helpful.    He remembers one particular experience where he spoke with the CEO of a company where he was trying to place young adults without degrees in jobs at the company. The job description in the job advertisement said “degree or equivalent work experience required” and he asked the CEO what he meant by that. The CEO said equivalent work experience meant just a semester of work experience, so 4-6 months. He explicitly told Zak that someone would learn more about the business by spending time in the company than they would at university. The degree is nothing more than a filter. It is not a leading indicator of a good hire.    Jenna asks Zak why his company only hires degreeless adults. Zak explains that he worked for the Peter Thiel Fellowship which gives away $100,000 to young adults with new business ideas to start a company rather than going to college. There's a line in Peter Thiel's book, “Zero to One” that reads elite students climb confidently until they reach competition sufficiently intense enough to beat their dreams out of them.    Jenna actually recalls when her daughter was  preschool-aged, she was an amazing artist who did art because it was fun and she enjoyed the process so much. As soon as she entered the school system and began comparing her work to her peers, she stopped producing art and lost her individuality because she thought other people's work was better than hers.    Zak adds that hyper-competition leads to people not pursuing their ideas and/or copying each other. Some of young people who were selected for this fellowship have gone on to develop things like Figma, OYO Rooms, Ethereum, Longevity Fund, and Luminar.    Jenna asks Zak about gatekeepers in the US being less prolific than in Europe. From her experience living in Europe, it still seems imperative for companies that young people get college degrees. Zak agrees that it's used as a filtering mechanism for companies to weed through applicants. He doesn't think it's been all that successful for Europe though in producing innovative tech companies, with the exception of Spotify which was developed in Sweden. He points out that goals for US companies vary from European countries in that US companies are always striving for growth, whereas European companies are all about keeping pace and business sustainability.     Switching gears, Jenna asks Zak about his book “The End of School.” Zak explains that the book actually started as a personal challenge to write every day, once a day, for thirty days. That turned into a longer three month challenge. He says you naturally begin writing about the things that are on your mind at the time. He encourages people with knowledge and new perspectives to not be afraid to write about what they learn and not to self-censor too much. Jenna adds that this project is a perfect example really of how self-directed learning works, following your interests. That's actually how the Rogue Learner podcast was born.    Zak talks about some of the problems he sees in traditional schools. He starts with talking about what he calls “the schooled mindset” which means students are looking at life in levels. They are essentially leveling up in life, yet each level does not promise anything “better.” He refers to Nathaniel Brandon who asserts that it's not the achievement of a goal that makes people fulfilled, it's the progress toward the achievement of meaningful goals. School has us reaching toward goals, but not meaningful ones. For example, we set goals in school like; land this job, get this promotion, pass this class, get that ‘A' on the test. Jenna points out that a lot of the goals students are trying to achieve are set out by their parents as well. And to some degree, Zak points out that this comes from the pressure in our society where children's success in life reflects back on their parents.   We've reached a point for the first time in society where two generations have been thoroughly schooled. Parents are expecting their kids to live better lives than themselves, but the metrics for which we measure “better lives” isn't based on overall well being, life expectancy, etc., rather it's primarily based on how credentialed they are. More credentials does not equate to better or more fulfilling lives, unfortunately.    Jenna adds that there is a lot of wasted time in school and it comes from the idea that we all learn in a linear fashion, which isn't the case. There's no expiration date for when a person can learn something. Zak feels as though he was able to become educated in spite of schooling not because of it.    Jenna mentions how the most engaged and curious students in her classroom most often were those kids who had access to diverse experiences and people in their home lives. The kids who went places on the weekends and enjoyed board games with grandparents on the weekend were the students who most enjoyed learning. With homeschooling, she feels that “the weekend” can be possible everyday. You can mix with various age groups, go to interesting places and spend time with your loved ones every single day if you want.    Zak says if he were given the choice between hiring a student who attended a magnet school and participated in a variety school-based extracurriculars vs. a homeschooled student who'd worked at Chick- Fila, he'd likely choose the latter. He adds that the reason is they would likely have the required soft skills necessary for their work. Jenna mentions how the soft skills are easier to acquire when you're interacting daily with adults of all ages from varying backgrounds and experience levels, whereas in school you'll likely only get the chance to talk with teachers in a top-down, authoritative situation. The teacher has a lot of control over the conversation in the classroom.    On the topic of socialization and diversity, Jenna says she finds it tragic that in most cases students are lumped together by zip code because it prohibits us from mixing with different races and socioeconomic classes than our own. In home education groups however, we are meeting with families from all different cultures and backgrounds from all over the county. The argument that combining disparate zip codes within a school district allows for diversity misses the reality that segregation still naturally occurs within the school itself. Zak says removing the geographical association with schools would be the best way to go forward, however it would generate an immense amount of pushback from teacher's unions and property owners. Jenna states that school systems can't truly be equal when they are geographically appropriated because the wealthier families will always have a leg up by being able to move to the more desired school districts. Zak adds that the argument that home education is expensive may not be as valid as families think when you consider the price for living in a “good school district.” Plus there are so many free resources available and even options for parents who both work full time.    Jenna asks, what are some ways parents can deschool, particularly those who want to trust in self-directed learning but find it challenging because of their schooled mindset? When a child begins to develop a curiosity and pursue it, deschooling has reached its end. Peter Gray's work was transformation in bringing a language to this concept for Zak. Zak has seen most success in families where the parents have guardrails in place which allow students to access their interests by imploring them to use their own skills or money to access it, while also providing numerous opportunities for them to absorb information about their interests. An example of this would be  Lenore Skenazy's story from the Let Grow organization, who let her kid ride the subway home in New York and was dubbed America's worst mom. Deschooling is hard sometimes, but be patient with yourself and your child.    Jenna asks what is the best way to prepare young adults for the ever-changing workplace? Zak says as many apprenticeships or mentoring opportunities as possible. Turn to hiring managers in the field you want to pursue for feedback on skills and requirements your students should be acquiring. Young adults should get really good at cold emailing people. You can sign up for Zak's masterclass to learn how to write professional emails. Finding out how you can add value to the company and explicitly telling the hiring manager that, will help the company place you and give them an incentive to let you intern with them. You can find out what skills would add value to the company by doing a bit of homework in advance and acquiring those specific skills beforehand.    Helpful Resources Mentioned in Today's Show   Deschool Yourself Podcast    Pints with Aquinas    Zak Slayback Website   The End of School by Zak Slayback   How to Get Ahead by Zak Slayback   Free Resources for Homeschoolers Masterclass: learn to write professional emails Lenore  Skenazy's: Let Grow Nathaniel Brandon Zero to One by Peter Thiel Episode 11 and 12 with Naomi Fisher   Ways to Connect Email me: contact.roguelearner@gmail.com Facebook  Instagram Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rogue-learner/id1543224038 Google Play: https://podcasts.google.com/search/rogue%20learner Spotify: https://roguelearner.libsyn.com/spotify YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCocbWsxxAMSbUObiCQXPg Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/rogue-learner

“There are always two roads which will emerge for an entrepreneur, and you have to take the one less travelled.” – Dr Ritesh Malik Our guest today is a person who has donned many hats – an entrepreneur, an investor, a public speaker, and a doctor. In a candid conversation with Akshay Datt, Dr Ritesh Malik, Founder, Innov8 Coworking, takes us through his amazing journey. Hailing from a family of doctors, his career was pre-decided. He studied medicine and started practising as a surgeon at Sir Gangaram Hospital in Delhi. It was in 2012, he decided to quit his medical profession and took the less travelled entrepreneurial route and ventured into an augmented reality start-up AdStuck as its co-founder, an experience that made him learn the art of entrepreneurship in a hard way. He also founded Guerrilla Ventures, an angel fund, in 2013, with an aim to create a self-sustaining ecosystem of entrepreneurs and has backed 70+ start-ups to date. Irked by the office conditions in India, Ritesh came up with an idea of coworking spaces and started Innov8 Coworking in January 2016. Soon after the launch, Innov8 was selected by Silicon Valley incubator Y Combinator, where he was guided to expand to larger campuses. This attracted investors and since then Innov8 has expanded to 42 campuses across 8 major cities in India. Tune in to this episode to hear this medicine professional turned entrepreneur and angel investor speak about how Innov8 Coworking is transforming the office going experience in India. What you must not miss! A great product is everything. Treat consumers like God. The power of community. Acquisition by OYO Rooms. What he looks for in a venture as an investor.

 Today’s guest is a two time founder and I had the special privilege of observing him work from very close quarters.  Paavan co-founded Winzo Games which was funded by the seed program of Kalaari Capital, where I had also worked . This is also one of my favorite episodes because of the candid conversation we both had including some very difficult conversations. Paavan earlier co-founded Zostel & Zorooms which has been in news since its ill-fated acquisition by Oyo Rooms. Not to be deterred he then went on to founding Winzo a Real Money Gaming platform targeting the next billion users. With over 25 million registered users, 5 million monthly users and a Billion transactions  Winzo has become a serious contender in India’s gaming space. I talked to Paavan about the lessons from his Zostel experience and his vision for Winzo.You can find me on Twitter @tweet_kp. And, check out our website at https://www.thetermsheetpodcast.com. Intro music by Andy Slatter. Additional background music by Scott Buckley – www.scottbuckley.com.au 

In this episode, we chat with Arun Venkatachalam, who comes from the Murugappa Group - family, and is also an active Angel Investor. Arun has invested in 25+ companies including Posist, ZoomCar, ZestMoney, AdPushup among others. And he has also got successful exits from companies like Innov8 CoWorking (acquired by OYO Rooms), Yourbus (acquired by Naspers/Ibibo Group), Endless Robotics (acquired by Mojay) etc. During the podcast, he also shares how he initially invested in equity markets to build his own capital, which he later invested in his studies and his portfolio companies.For anyone looking to start up as an Angel investor, this conversation can be of great value. From gaining a deep understanding of a particular space, to sourcing potential deals, to making your first investment, this podcast will really help you start and build.Notes - 00:55 - Belonging to Murugappa Group (Family Enterprise); starting in Investment Banking04:56 - Initial investments as an Angel investor07:42 - “In order to be an expert down the line, someone has to start somewhere.” 12:50 - Creating an impact on Cap-table25:21 - Investing in Recykal; creating impact because of ESG28:01 - Advice for a first time Angel investor32:12 - Having a conservative approach as an Angel investor34:32 - “Opportunity isn't in running with the herd, it's always in running against the herd.”36:51 - Finding investment deals as a first-time investor39:17 - Having a nuanced view while investing in Fintech

OYO Rooms was founded by a merely 18 year old college dropout who belongs to a small town in Orissa which has a literacy rate of about 20%. Inspired by his sister he decided at the age of 8 that he wants to grow up and be an entrepreneur. Today he is not only one of the youngest CEOs in our country, but also was the first asian resident of the Thiel Fellowship Programme, under which he founded OYO. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/greatideasgreatlife/message

At a time when the Indian Government is ruthlessly banning Chinese apps and pushing the Indian Start-up eco-system to raise their game,the question really is, "Are we ready to take the challenge"?It's well known that most Indian startups are prone to emulate successful global ideas, by and large fine-tuning an existing model to serve local needs. There's Ola for Uber, Gaana for Spotify, OYO Rooms for Airbnb, and Flipkart for Amazon. So while India has provided for a nurturing ground to numerous startups in the past few years but they are merely clones of Western ideas.To storm this very pertinent norm we have none other than GV Ravishankar, who is a Managing Director of Sequoia Capital India. GV's specific focus areas are the Consumer, Financial Services, and Education sectors. Two of the most interesting Indian start-ups GV works with are Byju's and Rebel Foods. A President's Gold Medal awardee from IIM Ahmedabad, GV's experience spans many years with Wipro Technologies and then McKinsey & Company in senior advisory roles.

EP30: {Aakrit Vaish, Co-founder & CEO of Haptik} We chat with Aakrit on the conversational AI space, his startup journey and the sale to Reliance Industries in April 2019, in a very candid conversation. The conversational AI, chatbot space has seen a lot of action across the world after messaging services like the Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have started enabling such interactions at scale. One of the leading players from India has been able to reach over 100 million devices, and process over 2 billion conversations. More recently Haptik supported the Govt of India's My Corona Helpdesk in the wake of the pandemic. They built and delivered it incredibly quickly and enabled it to scale to more than 76 million messages. We also get chatting about Aakrit's journey from Flurry to being an angel investor. Aakrit is an investor in consumer focussed and SaaS Startups. Notable investments include Unacademy, Third Wave Coffee, Flatchat, Tookitaki, Dil Mil, iON Energy and a lot more. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — → Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! → Full episode of the podcast is available on my YouTube Channel — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — About Haptik: Today, Haptik is one of the world's largest companies in the conversation AI space with more than 100 large enterprise clients including KFC, Samsung, Coca-Cola, OYO Rooms, Kotak Life and Dream11. In April 2019, Reliance Industries acquired majority shareholding in the company in a $100 million transaction. Haptik is also #Hiring! Do check them out. Stay Safe & do share the episode! - V (@varunvummidi) Timeline: 03:00 - Reliance JIO raising capital from global investors 04:45 - Becoming a part of Reliance - JIO Platforms Limited (JPL) 07:44 - Landing the MyGov Corona Helpdesk project 11:15 - Framework for choosing a strategic investor 14:33 - Creating a rapport with the promoter 16:51 - Govt's involvement in getting the chatbot right 19:20 - Evolution & the history of chatbots 25:20 - Returning to India and building a startup 26:36 - Venturing into Angel investing 30:15 - Struggles of Haptik & finding Product-Market-Timing fit 32:45 - Industries that are in a hype cycle 36:06 - Hiring at Haptik

At a time when the Indian Government is ruthlessly banning Chinese apps and pushing the Indian Start-up eco-system to raise their game, the question really is, "Are we ready to take the challenge"? It's well known that most Indian startups are prone to emulate successful global ideas, by and large fine-tuning an existing model to serve local needs. There’s Ola for Uber, Gaana for Spotify, OYO Rooms for Airbnb, and Flipkart for Amazon. So while India has provided for a nurturing ground to numerous startups in the past few years but they are merely clones of Western ideas. To storm this very pertinent norm we have none other than GV Ravishankar, who is a Managing Director of Sequoia Capital India. GV’s specific focus areas are the Consumer, Financial Services, and Education sectors. Two of the most interesting Indian start-ups GV works with are Byju’s and Rebel Foods. A President’s Gold Medal awardee from IIM Ahmedabad, GV’s experience spans many years with Wipro Technologies and then McKinsey & Company in senior advisory roles.

Sanjay Mehta is a man that needs no introduction to people familiar with the venture capital ecosystem in India. He has founded over 5 companies, and invested in 100+ start-ups to date. 100X. VC is Sanjay Mehta's latest venture that aims to invest in 100 start-ups using iSafe Notes in India - within a year. 100X.VC is sponsored by Sanjay's family office - Mehta Ventures. In today's episode you will learn: What were the challenges Sanjay faced when he decided that he was going to take up entrepreneurship over an established job? What has Sanjay learned from his successful and unsuccessful ventures till date? How does he use this knowledge even today? What would Sanjay do differently as his first venture? When did he decide to become an angel investor and start advising other companies? What was the investment strategy he started with? What was Mehta Ventures all about? What's the difference between Mehta Ventures and 100X. VC? How does maintaining an active online presence help Sanjay get access to the best deals? What are some ways in which you can leverage your online presence to expand your knowledge and network? What is his view on the online fitness and wellness sector? What has Sanjay learned from his exits from two unicorns – OYO Rooms and EOS Blockchain? Why does he believe that "the investment in failure is the route to success."? What did Sanjay see in Ritesh- founder of OYO? What's an investment he should have made but he did not? What are his top 3 industry picks for start-ups? What does 100x do? What's the best way founders can reach out to Sanjay? Sanjay's Book Recommendations: Zero to One by Peter Theil The Lean Startup by Eric Ries --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/damanitalks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/damanitalks/support

Vista Rooms provides experiences to customers at exquisite properties across India. They started as a budget hotel platform like OYO Rooms but decided to pivot their strategy, branding themselves as a luxury homestay brand. Pranav Maheshwari is the CTO at Vista Rooms. Market conditions forced Vista Rooms to pivot before discovering their right target audience, creating, and becoming a category leader! In today's episode, you will learn: What was the genesis of this idea? How did he meet his co-founders? What was it like launching in a start-up space filled with well-funded competitors? How was Pranav convincing people to use Vista Rooms? Why did Vista Rooms decide to pivot after raising money? What were the internal and external changes that were required when shifting from selling at ₹2,000/night to ₹20,000/night? How did he manage to scale from 10 cities to 40 cities in just 1 year? When is Vista planning on going internationally? What was a conscious decision made by Pranav on geographic expansion? How has COVID-19 impacted their business operations? What are "Workcations," and how are tech founders using them? How do they ensure the hygiene Covid checklist is maintained on every property? What is Pravan's experience completing 5 years at Vista Rooms? How does he protect his brand from fake publicity? What is Vista's most significant achievement, according to Pranav? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/damanitalks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/damanitalks/support

Welcome to another episode of E-telligence. Today we’re bringing you a really interesting episode all about AMP and creating interactive email.   It’s my pleasure to be joined by April Mullen to talk about the practical application of AMP into our strategies and how it can help transform the interactions we have with subscribers.   In episode 10 of this podcast, we spoke to Jay Oram from Action Rocket about Interactive email design and he gave some fantastic tips and code to start really digging in to that for your business in our show notes (you can find that at https://e-focusmarketing.com/podcast/episode10/) and we mentioned AMP briefly, but In today’s episode we talk more about the promise of AMP (and interactive email) and what this means for marketers.     AMP is the acronym for Accelerated Mobile Pages, a mobile-friendly framework for website developing. The AMP project is pretty new; announced by Google in 2015 the first AMP pages appeared in February 2016. And now it’s available in email! Having started as a Google project, its now opensource and we’re seeing other mailbox providers picking it up – including Microsoft and Yahoo! The whole point of AMP is to change the static to the dynamic – to provide a mini website experience right there within your inbox; in theory making it easier, faster, more intuitive for subscribers to take an action and engage with your messaging.   For example, instead of receiving email notifications when someone is mentioned in a Google Docs comment, they can just see an up-to-date comment thread right within Gmail. They can then simply reply or resolve a comment without ever leaving Gmail or the email itself. Many companies like Booking.com, Despegar, Doodle, Ecwid, Freshworks, Nexxt, OYO Rooms, Pinterest and redBus, have already started to use dynamic email “to make their emails more actionable and relevant.” And that’s ultimately what we are aiming for. Ease of action and specific to that 1 person. Sending the right message, to the right person, at the right time (through the right channel of course).   Join April and I to discover…   The possibilities and opportunities using AMP brings How AMP for email will change the role of email marketer The challenges we foresee for AMP Potential use cases for AMP and a real life example How you can get started 

How did BookMyShow, Zomato, PaperBoat, Epigamia, First Cry and OYO Rooms become such celebrated brands in a short time? Get to know more about such brands in this episode with Harsh Pamnani, author of best-selling book Booming Brands! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/secrets-of-storytellers/support

Key Insights in this episode: - Co-working space startup in India - Innov8 - Start-up incubation with Y Combinator and getting acquired by OYO Rooms - Innov8 - Being Forbes 30 under 30 ------------------------------------------------------------------- About the guest: Sumit Ranka is the Founder CEO of ThinkPot, which is an online business selling happy & motivational merchandise. Previously, Sumit co-founded Innov8 - a co-working space provider (Sold to OYO rooms in 2019). While building products he is passionate about and heads the Operations, Supply Chain & Ecommerce at his family business KANFA - A one-stop supply solutions company based in India. Because of his incredible contribution as an entrepreneur, Sumit was awarded the Forbes 30 under 30 Asia recognition in 2018. Apart from working on his businesses, Sumit is also a member of the Board of Studies (BoS) at NMIMS - School of Entrepreneurship & Family Business (PDSEFBM) and a member of the Departmental Advisory Board (DAB) for Electronics and Telecommunication at DJ Sanghvi College of Engineering. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sumit-ranka-69753532/ ThinkPot: https://thinkpot.com/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

On this episode of Money Matters with Shradha Sharma, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, OYO Rooms joins us for an unfiltered session to talk about his journey, how he built the world's third-largest hotel chain, navigating through the coronavirus crisis and more.

"Navigating Businesses in a VUCA World" Meet Julian Rossy, Asia Representative Fairtiq (Switzerland) Q&A with Aditya Ghosh Board Member, Oyo Rooms. Navigating Businesses in a VUCA World - "The VUCA world will also have both danger and opportunity, he explains. “Leaders will be buffeted, but they need not allow themselves to be overwhelmed, depressed or immobilized. Leaders must do more than just respond to the whirl of events, though respond they must. They must be positive change agents in the midst of chaos, creating the future. Some things can get better, even as other things get worse.” Uncertainty and complexity aren't going away — and confusion will remain part of the mix. The next 10 years will be exceptionally volatile, with many make-or-break decisions to be made. What are the leadership skills that immediate and long-term future will need? *source: CCL.ORG"

Innovative startups that are disrupting the industry - this is nothing new but it is very interesting when it comes to how this happened and happens in the travel industry. I have looked up 10 startups that are making waves and that people have invested millions of dollars in. Article: https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/resources/top-10-travel-startups-watch-2019/ 10 StartUps: https://www.klook.com/ https://www.traveloka.com/en/ https://adara.com/ https://www.awaytravel.com/de/en/ https://tripactions.com/ https://www.omio.co.uk/ https://www.travelperk.com/# https://www.evaneos.com/ https://www.hopper.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OYO_Rooms

Instamojo raises a series B, whiz.ai closes their seed round, OYO Rooms shares guest details with authorities, Ethereum bug pushes Constantinople again. Grin ups the ante in the privacy coin game. I want to dedicate this song by They Might Be Giants to the Ethereum community: - YouTube https://youtu.be/xo0X77OBJUg - Apple Music https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/istanbul/298111036?i=298111047 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pjain/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pjain/support

Deals Alibaba has provided another $2bn for Lazada, the Southeast Asian e-commerce marketplace it had already invested $2bn in as of June last year. India-based Oyo Rooms may be the next online services provider to benefit from SoftBank’s largesse, having reportedly entered talks with the corporate, and two unnamed new investors, for a round that … Continue reading "26 March 2018 – Sir Li Ka-shing to Retire from Two Businesses"

Ritesh is the founder and CEO at OYO Rooms. He was selected for the 20 under 20 Thiel Fellowship which makes him one of the very few Indians to have been shortlisted. He started working early in his life at the age of 13 and by 18 he was building OYO Rooms.

Welcome to episode #234. On the show: Fujitsu's Ubiquitouswear; SocialRadar's LocationKit; Domino's order by tweeting an Emoji; Tunity App; JCDecaux punks Belgium Marketing Directors; Auto-cue's car movie scenes re-enacted with augmented reality; The Doghouse Virtual Reality movie; ooVootique; Dunlopillo's connected mattress; Geoconquesting in real life thanks to Zo Rooms vs. OYO Rooms. Chuck Martin joins us to talk about the latest Thinknear Location Score Index. Full show notes can be found here.

Welcome to episode #234. On the show: Fujitsu's Ubiquitouswear; SocialRadar's LocationKit; Domino's order by tweeting an Emoji; Tunity App; JCDecaux punks Belgium Marketing Directors; Auto-cue's car movie scenes re-enacted with augmented reality; The Doghouse Virtual Reality movie; ooVootique; Dunlopillo's connected mattress; Geoconquesting in real life thanks to Zo Rooms vs. OYO Rooms. Chuck Martin joins us to talk about the latest Thinknear Location Score Index. Full show notes can be found here.