Let’s take a look at the success lessons we can learn from one of the youngest billionaires in the world, Ritesh Agarwal.
Ritesh Agarwal, CEO of OYO Rooms, became the world’s second-youngest billionaire in 2020. Yeah, that’s billion with a B. Firstly, if you haven’t heard of OYO Rooms, it’s a budget hotel booking portal originally under the name Oravel stays.
To give you guys an idea of how big the company is, OYO Rooms currently operates more than 43,000 properties and 1 million rooms across 80 countries worldwide. Pheww. That is just simply astonishing.
In this post, we’ll look at five success lessons we can learn from Ritesh Agarwal.
1. Don’t Let Your Age Hold You Back
Ritesh is the second youngest self-made billionaire in history. Without a doubt, he never let his youth hold him back from what he could accomplish. While many of us are unsure what to do, Agarwal launched his company at the inspiring age of 19.
The lesson here is never to let your age hold you back from your own big ideas, grand visions, and enormous opportunities. On the other hand, we sometimes prevent our own success with self-imposed limitations.
We think we are too young or too old to go for it. We use age as an excuse to stay small. Conversely, Agarwal never set these types of limitations. He blasted forward with a clever kind of focus on what he wanted.
Don’t give up, no matter how young you are or how you are. These are among the essential success lessons we can learn from Agarwal and many other successful people.
We can follow his lead by dropping beliefs about what we can accomplish at any specific age. We can free ourselves from the mental blockages of being too young, too early, or too late. His wisdom here is evident in his words:
“We ignore the noise and the distractions. We know our vision, our goals – and we just focus on getting there before anyone else can.”
– Ritesh Agarwal
2. Formal Education Will Make You a Living. Self-Education Will Make You a Fortune
Like Bill Gates before him (among others), Agarwal dropped out of school to pursue his vision. I’m not going to belittle how important formal education is, it is surely very important too.
But I’m just saying that you still can do it, even without any formal education certificate. As long as you did not stop learning. It should be noted that Agarwal keeps learning and learning, filling himself with self-education.
Definitely, just a mere understanding of the books without any action will give you nothing. So whether you are a student, a dropped out, or you just didn’t get the chance to further your study, just do everything you can to take massive action towards your goals.
Don’t rely completely on your teachers or your school to create your education. Alternatively, seek out information gaps that you can fill with knowledge and experience. In addition, be a life-long learner.
3. Seize Opportunities
After dropping out of his university, Agarwal realized that he was eligible for the Peter Thiel fellowship. He used that $100,000 to launch what is now his billion-dollar company. From this case study, you can learn to seize good opportunities when they present themselves in your life and career.
Sometimes we second-guess ourselves and miss opportunities that could change our lives. Sometimes we are so distracted by the hard work in front of us that we forget to raise our heads out of the fray to spy on the career-making opportunity standing right in front of us.
Subsequently, Agarwal would have been easy to pass up the fellowship opportunity to focus on survival or making instant money. That’s what a lot of people would have done in his position.
However, as history proves, he is not like most people. You can stand out from the crowd, as well, by keeping an eye open for good opportunities. When you see them, don’t hesitate. Seize the day, take action, and reap the amazing rewards.
4. Be Obsessed with Independence
Do you know what OYO stands for? It means On Your Own. Clearly, Agarwal’s entire billion-dollar industry is based on an obsession with independence. It’s been reported that he started his business because he wanted to control the remote.
Agarwal never had control of the remote as a kid, and he felt desperate for that simple object of independence. That’s probably why he didn’t remain in a university where other people managed his education.
In fact, his entire incredible story demonstrates the electrifying potency of independence. His independence echoes in his standards for excellence:
“It is extremely important to build something that a 100 people absolutely love using rather than make something that a 1,000 people would just, kind of, like.”
– Ritesh Agarwal
Without a doubt, we, too, can take a lesson of independence from his story. Learn to take our lives into our own hands, despite relying on others to make or break our dreams. Besides, we can be fiercely obsessed with independence by taking daily massive action to turn our biggest goals into reality.
5. Take a Deep Hands-on Approach
During his time running Oravel, Agarwal stayed in over a hundred different rooms in bed-and-breakfasts. This hand’s-on experience gave him deep insight into the business and what was needed for success.
Most other entrepreneurs, business people, and founders would delegate that responsibility to others. But not Agarwal. In contrast, he took it upon himself to learn about his business and to study his customer’s experiences.
From that hands-on approach, he gleaned insights that helped him accelerate his venture into a billion-dollar business. What lesson can you take from this part of his story?
Whatever field or line of business you are in, take a hands-on approach. Book a room at your own business. Be a customer, client, or service recipient. Do this for your own business and with your competitor’s services.
Get personal with your business. Definitely, you’ll gain deep insights that you wouldn’t be able to discover in any other way. If you are currently hiring out this part of your business, consider doing at least some of it yourself.
Let’s Review
In conclusion, it’s all about passion! If you love something, you will love to do it by yourself. From dropping out of school to owning a company, you have to realize how hard the challenge was when you dropped out of school and how hard it was to build a great company.
Take a deep look into these success lessons we can learn from Ritesh Agarwal.
All of this needs your passion for getting yourself the actual experience. Agarwal said:
“No matter how smart, cool, great you’re – there is no substitute to real experience.”
Because when you face all the challenges by yourself, it would be easier for you to start and expand your business. These five lessons can combine to be the engine that drives you towards your vision.
