Oyo founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal recently shared a unique leadership approach, revealing that he still cleans washrooms in his hotels as a role-modeling exercise. Speaking at Mumbai Tech Week on March 1, Agarwal emphasized that entrepreneurship demands letting go of fear, embarrassment, pride, and arrogance.
“I still, sometimes, clean washrooms as a role modeling exercise,” said Agarwal.
OYO, founded in 2013, has grown exponentially, scaling to over 1 million rooms across 80 countries. Despite the company’s massive expansion, Agarwal believes that core entrepreneurial values such as humility, fearlessness, and perseverance are vital for success.
“I think as an entrepreneur on day one, you have to leave fear, embarrassment, pride, arrogance—everything outside the room and enter, because these are the biggest enemies of entrepreneurial success,” he emphasized.
The 29-year-old entrepreneur stressed that many people struggle with these ideas due to their upbringing. He encouraged budding entrepreneurs to move beyond the mindset of categorizing tasks as “my work” and “someone else’s work.” “You have to leave ‘sharam’ (embarrassment) and ‘ye kaam mera hai, ye kaam dusre ka hai’ (this is my work and that is yours),” he explained. According to him, true success lies in choosing big impact over pride and wealth creation over prestige.
