Oyo Rooms founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal shared the broad contours of the path to success in his fascinating entrepreneurial journey, urging aspirants to savour even small details of the trek exploration that leads them up to their destination.
In the inaugural episode of his podcast ‘How to Become a Millionaire’, Agarwal said he often gets asked how to earn more money and become a millionaire.
“When I started my own company, I used to think like you. And in my opinion, why should we not think? All these are valid questions. If we do not think big, how will we achieve anything,” he said.
Agarwal suggested one thing that is more important than reaching your goal.
“However, I thought of sharing one more thing with you – the journey is more important than reaching your destination,” he said, adding that every part of the journey looks beautiful when you look back at it.
Ritesh Agarwal shares experience
Sharing his experience as a millionaire, Agarwal said it was not easy trajectory.
“Living in the rains of Delhi, being kicked out of the house, moving water from one tank to the other using a pipe, signing new hotels only to face competition, winning that battle to take that business forward, building it, facing profitability challenges, overcoming the Covid challenge – life throws all of this to you,” he said.
He asked aspiring entrepreneurs to live all the experiences fully.
Agarwal alluded to his early days of starting Oyo, when he lived in Ghaziabad and travelled daily for over two hours to reach Delhi or Gurugram.
“In these times you may think that your big dream has no way to materialise. Even I felt the same. But when I look back at them, I feel that those experiences were extremely important. Even now I think that all the opportunities I get today are because of those experiences,” he said.
The challenges in the early stages of establishing a business are “once in a lifetime” experiences, the Oyo Rooms founder said.
“The destination is far, but within that destination we should accept every experience happily,” he added.