Even as the hotel franchising startup cuts costs and tries to revamp its Chinese operations, a slew of strong local rivals have cropped up.
In the era of Uber, WeWork and Ofo, we have become weary of fast-growing startups propelled by venture capital money, led by young men long on ambition and short on experience. OYO, India’s embattled hospitality chain, founded by CEO Ritesh Agarwal in 2013 when he was just 19 years old, seems to teeter on the edge of fulfilling that familiar boom-to-bust arc. In the last month, OYO has made sizeable job cuts in offices across the world and exited 200 cities in the name of restructuring, amid backlash from investors and partners all over.
In China, OYO’s second largest market, …
Frankie Huang is a Chinese American cultural writer, illustrator and strategist based in Shanghai. Her work has appeared in publications such as Foreign Policy, The New York Times and SupChina, and explores feminism, diaspora identity, and social issues in China and beyond. You can follow her on Twitter @ourobororoboruo.
frankie.fx.huang@gmail.com