 stories that you've been hearing through the day. I just got bits of it. So what I've called my session is that how do you kind of go, grow, or transform at the speed of dreams? Because I think what entrepreneurs have is this amazing ability to dream and kind of think of things that nobody else can see at that stage. So first of all, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm not an entrepreneur, right? I've never been. So I have a very simple resume. I was a lawyer for 10 years, and then I ran an airline for about 10 years, and now I run a hotel business. So I'm actually not an entrepreneur at all. But what I've been able to do is I've had the good fortune of having worked with entrepreneurs and founders for a long period of time. And in each one of the opportunities that I've been involved in, we've gone through an amazing hyperbolic expansion, and we've taken companies and ideas from where it was literally a piece of paper to where they're seen as one of the largest or almost recognized brands or ideas in the country and in various parts of the world. So just talking about OYO, and thanks for that plug. So we are actually now in 80 countries, where OYO is a six-year-old company. And we are now in 80 countries, where it's the third largest branded hotel chain in the world. And there are a few myths about OYO that I wanted to clarify straight away. We're not a marketplace. We're not an aggregator. We're not some certification company or an online travel agency. We're a full-stack hotel company. So what that basically means, and this is something that people don't know much about. But we actually do everything that a full hotel company does like the one we are staying in today, whether it is leasing a piece of property, or whether it is converting it, or whether it is putting capex in it and transforming it, or running the hotels and the housekeeping and the revenue management, the pricing, and all of that. So we're a full-stack hotel company, actually. And that's important to keep that in mind, because of just the sheer piece at which this company grows and this concept grows. So clearly, the opportunity is staring at us. And but at the same time, I think the future is not what it used to be. This is a very famous line from Yogi Berra. And if you have all those folks who ever want to get a quick laugh out of things, you should go and look up Yogi Berra quotes. He's got some amazing funny quotes. So before that, I want to tell you a little bit of a story. And the story is about scale and how to kind of think about growth. And the story is an Indian parable about the guy who invents the game of chess. And he comes and he presents it to the king. The king is very impressed. And he wants to reward the inventor. And he asks, what can I offer you as an award? So he says, look, it's OK. I don't need very much. He says, seriously, I want to reward you. And this is just a great game. It's so complex, so intelligent. So he says, OK, all I want is that I want one grain of rice for the first square. And then another two grains of rice for the second square and three grains of rice for the third square. And that's all I'm looking for, some grains of rice. The king obviously says, OK, I'm sure that sounds pretty simple. And most of you are engineers, MBAs, unlike me. So you can do the math. So what actually happens is that by the time you get to the 64th square, you've got a heap of rice, which is taller than Mount Everest. So as you set up to transform companies and as you set up to look at scale, I think what's important is to first answer the question as to why do you really need to scale up. Because there are some great businesses. There are some great products and products and brands that I have a lot of respect for, which do not scale up or haven't scaled up, but have created great brands and great products out of just creating perfection in something really small. These famous Michelin-style Japanese chefs, where their whole life they run a restaurant which is 18 covers or 20 covers, but people line up for three years just to get a table to come and have a meal. And in these restaurants, you don't even have a menu. The chef gives you what he decides to give you on that particular day. And he has so much confidence and dedication to his art that people just come in to experience that one meal and wait for three years and plan a trip to Tokyo to come and eat at that restaurant. So success doesn't actually mean that you have to scale up or become big. So therefore, at the stage of many of the businesses that you might be involved in today, the very first question to answer is, why do I really need to scale up? And I think it's important, like we set out in the case of OYO, is to try to solve for a fundamental problem. And that fundamental problem is this. I don't know about you, but if you grew up, like me in India in the last 20, 30 years, in most cities, if you would walk off a strange city of a plane or a bus or a train, the first argument you're going to have is with a tout. And depending on how much he's getting paid that extra 50 rupees in, he's going to take you to a hotel or a guest house that he has a preference for. And then once you get to that hotel, depending on what clothes you're wearing or bags you're carrying or whether you have kids with you or it's the middle of the night or the day, you're charged anywhere between 500 rupees to 5000 rupees. At this moment in time, you know you're getting cheated. It is only a question of how much you're getting cheated. All right? And what's happened in the last four or five, six years is this one red and white sign has meant that you can come off any street and you don't have to ask anybody where the hotel is going to be located. You don't have to negotiate with anyone for that price of that hotel. And for the price of about three or four cups of coffee, you get a standardized room and a bed to sleep and air conditioning and a geyser and television and cable TV and a customer relations and so on and so forth. So there has to be a fundamental need that we're trying to solve. So over the next about half an hour, I'm going to share with you some learnings that I had over the last 20 years being involved in transforming or scaling up businesses. So the first lesson that I learned was that we only scale up if there is a certain big larger purpose that you're trying to solve. So the next question is the choices you make. Scaling up is always about or transforming companies is always making some really tough choices. And I'll take you through a bunch of these choices that you might be facing today. I certainly faced in the last 15 years. And they all seem to be diametrically opposite. And depending on the choices you make, and hopefully you'll make a few larger bunch of right choices versus the bad ones, which will take you to where you want to get to. So the very first choice is between having targets or one clear big objective. So for instance, in the business that I was involved in, in the last 10 years running an airline, or when we were starting up our business back in 2006, or when Oyo started up six years ago, there are always big targets that you set for yourself. And you're going to talk to investors and making pitch presentations, and there are revenue projections, and there's a plan. And you know, and the investor knows, that plan is worth nothing. And it's going to change. But you spend so much time putting up all this PowerPoint presentation doing that. All the cool graphics on the data point. On the other hand, the lesson that I had was, if you kind of think of one big objective that you're driving towards, that stays consistent over a period of time. While targets may change year to year or month to month, that is what one needs to focus on. So in the case of Oyo, for instance, we said, our goal, our one big objective, is to create quality living spaces. And that can be in a holiday resort. That can be in budget accommodation. That can be in mid-scale brands. That can be in the largest wedding banquet business that we own. Or we just announced our co-working business. In every place, can you create a more affordable quality living space? And that is not a target that changes. But that is one big objective that you're trying to change. And I'll talk about Indigo in just a bit too. So the lesson I learned is, there needs to be a larger purpose that the whole company or we are trying to change year on year. And that stays pretty consistent, just like value stays consistent for us. The next question, after you've figured out that you want to be in the hotel business, or the airline business, or the tech business, or whatever you're trying to solve, often people end up asking, what do customers want? And you're trying to solve for what that customer wants. And in the businesses that I've been involved in, customers actually want a whole bunch of things. There's only one slight problem that I've figured out with customers. They don't want to pay for it, if it happens to you or not. But all these end up going to customers who don't want to pay for all the things that they want. So the next lesson I learned for myself is, it's more important to solve for the needs of the customer than all the ones. So the airline story that I often give is, when I used to run an airline, more often than not, if I did a customer survey right here, which we never did, I didn't go, by the way, here's what I probably hear. You should make your seats a little bit bigger. And you should make a separate line to check in. And here, five minutes later, you can come in. And I don't know why you're so adamant about charging for that extra one kilo. And that Rajma Chawal, I don't know. Look at Vistara. They give that chocolate mousse and all of that. And all the airlines who have gone out of business, if you check their ads out, it'll always be a tray of food. And a Czechoslovakian aerosist taking it through and a sunlight coming in and all of that kind of stuff. And the question that I always ask myself is, you're sitting in front of the computer with your credit card about to book an airline ticket. And you're like, no, no, no. I don't care about on time or hassle free. What's that airline that gives that rasculla? Never happens. Never happens. We all want airlines to be like hotels. But when was the last time you were coming into land? And you had a great flight. It was just a fabulous flight, right? You loved it. The screen, the TV, and everything. And it was coming into land. And you went up to the pilot, said, one more hour. Late landing, please. Customers want what they need. And the idea of the business should be to be able to solve for that need, and which is basically what will the customers pay for. The next question, when you're ramping up, is between cost and quality. And you're constantly trying to make this choice. And you're trying to think that as I scale up, I'm either going to spend more money. If I cut down on my cost, I'm going to lose on quality. And fortunately, I'm involved in a business today. And I was able to be a part of a business for the last decade or so, where we were able to consistently prove that low cost has nothing to do with low quality. By the way, these are real pictures. And all of these are oils. So whether it's a castle in France, or whether it's a hotel in London, or a hotel in China, these are all real oils. And therefore, the lesson that is very, very important to learn is that low cost does not have to do anything with low quality. If spending more money was the only way to get customers through the door, then there would be another blue or a red colored airline in this country. As ridiculous as that, and as example sounds, just think back of how many times you sat down with your management teams and somebody said, we've got to throw more money at this problem, and that's the only way to solve for quality. So the next question is, what do you do with all these ideas that keep coming to you? And since I never went to business school, I can make this joke. I do it all the time. But the problem with going to business school is that you have all these great ideas, and you learn the skills of making them look really, really pretty. And but when all these ideas come in, again, the difficult choice you're making as an entrepreneur is, do I chase all these ideas? Or do I have a plan and a process for it? What if someone else takes this idea away from me? Will I be too late in the market to come up with that idea? While you're still working on the five ideas that we did not make a success out of at the moment. So the lesson I learned is hope is not a plan. You have to put the bad news out there. Whether you're a team member talking to your leader or a founder, or whether it is the entrepreneur painting that canvas that we want to paint, you've got to put the bad news out there first. Because once we know what the problem is, we can at least attempt to find a way to solve for it. But if you hope that it'll never happen to me, it's never going to work.