The Ken is launching a Southeast Asia edition soon. Join the waitlist to get early access

Humble pie

How I was wrong about OYO’s Ponzi scheme

Or was I really? No one cares about the business model in any case—the company, the founder, the investors and the media

08/05/17

Sumanth Raghavendra

Oyo-ponzi.jpg

Around a year ago, I had written a post on OYO Rooms on LinkedIn questioning if its business model was the startup equivalent of a Ponzi scheme.

At that time, OYO Rooms was a managed marketplace for budget hotels in India and had gained fame on account of the tender age of its founder, Ritesh Agarwal (who had started the company at the age of 18) and more importantly for being one of few early-stage Indian startups backed by over $100 million in funding from marquee investors like SoftBank.

Read the full story. Create a free account.

Also read our exhaustive coverage about Travel and Hospitality, Oyo and Future of Retail

Or subscribe. Why? Let us explain.

Already Registered?

Related stories

More stories in /Commentary & /Startups

See all in Commentary & Startups

Want to read this story for free right now? Just

Read the full story instantly.
Just enter your email address.

Also read our exhaustive coverage about Travel and Hospitality, Oyo and Future of Retail

Or subscribe. Why? Let us explain.

Or

By registering, you will be signed-up for an account which gives you access to a free story published once a week and archives of all our free stories. You will also receive a daily newsletter sent to your inbox. To unsubscribe, please visit the profile section in your account.

What you get

Access all free stories

244+ archived free stories, and all upcoming ones too.

Paid story summaries

Read an exclusive 200 word summary for all our paid stories.

Daily Newsletters

Our world-renowned emails, in your inbox, every day.

Or get full access to all our stories

About subscriptions

Already Registered? Login

Questions?

What is The Ken?

The Ken is a subscription-driven media site. We write one story a day (weekdays only). These stories have sharp, original insights on technology, business, science and healthcare from India.

Why do I have to sign up to read your stories?

Our stories are not free. Well, some select stories are. But, a significant part of what we write at The Ken is for subscribers only. We put in a lot of effort and resources in writing our stories and believe that you must pay for good journalism.
Hence, our three plans. 1) The annual membership
2) The free sign up
3) The recurring quarterly subscription

On journalism and why you should pay for it, if you haven’t already seen it, here’s a great explainer from John Oliver.

So, one must pay for journalism?

Yes.

How many stories will I get if I take an annual membership?

914+ stories.

And, in the free sign up?

Four stories every month.

Do I get a refund?

We allow you to sample our journalism for free before signing up, and after you do, we stand by its quality. But we do not offer refunds.

I am not getting my daily emails. Do I have to whitelist emails from The Ken?

An added benefit of your subscription (free/paid) are the daily personalised emails. These emails, at times, might end up in your spam/junk folder due to emojis, attachments or images. In case you’re not receiving these emails, it might help to whitelist us. If the problem still persists, write to us at [email protected].

Why am I unable to access the archives?

Full and unrestricted access to our archives is a feature of our annual membership.

My payment is not going through, what can I do?

Please write to us at [email protected] detailing the payment error or queries.

See all FAQs

    See all results for Ken

    No results found for Ken.