Set up by Devendra Sharma when he was 18, Jaipur-based startup OLE Rooms allows one to rent flats, paying guest houses, and hostels for a day to over a year.

An inability to find an accommodation as an engineering aspirant in Kota, coupled with a medical emergency, led 18-year-old Devendra Sharma to start an online marketplace for renting flats, paying guest houses, and hostels for as low as Rs 199 a day. Started in 2018, Jaipur-based startup OLE Rooms lets people list, discover, and book accommodations on an individual or shared basis for a desired period — from a day to more than a year — at low rates without paying brokerage.

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A fresh graduate of the Poornima College of Engineering, Jaipur, Devendra, now 21, was searching for a room to stay in Kota back in 2017.

“I and my father kept looking for rooms all day long,” says Devendra. “But my father, who had blood pressure and diabetes, collapsed and I had to rush him to a hospital in Kota.”

The episode made him think about the problems other students too must be facing in finding a suitable accommodation. “Millions of young people would be searching for a room every day and will waste their precious time for it,” says Devendra. “I thought, why not make such a platform where people can see the room and book it with ease?” He started working on the idea and chose Sitapura in Jaipur as his first target because it has several engineering colleges and a sizeable student population.

“We started with one hostel and now we have more than 3,000 hostels, PG rooms, and flats on our platform,” says the founder and CEO.

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