Vijay Shekhar Sharma life story
From earning Rs 10,000 a month to $ 2.4 bn in value, here is the story of Vijay Shekhar Sharma
One of the biggest success stories to come out of the Indian ecosystem Paytm will be listed today following the first public contribution of $ 2.5 billion last week.
As they say, try and try, until you succeed. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the serial founder of the genre and an example of that saying, finally found success - and a blockbuster there - via Paytm.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma Paytm story
One of the biggest success stories to come out of the Indian ecosystem Paytm will be listed today following the first public contribution of $ 2.5 billion last week. But things did not always go smoothly. Until a few years ago, Sharma was earning Rs 10,000 a month through her company and was being pushed by her father to start a job even though that meant earning only Rs 30,000.
Sharma, 27, was a trained engineer, selling mobile content through a small company. He revealed in an interview with Reuters that his meager salary did not help his marriage. "The families of those who want to get married will not call us after finding out that I earn Rs 10 000 a month. I had become the wrong boyfriend in my family," she said.
But now, Forbes estimates its value could be around $ 2.4 billion.
Born in 1978 to a schoolteacher father and housewife in Aligarh, Sharma was the third of four children. According to him, there was not much money to travel. The founder of Paytm said in an interview with Bloomberg that he should find ways to make money by consulting jobs. But as a teenager in 1997, Sharma reportedly started a website called indiaasite.net, which sold for $ 1 million two years later.
Sharma said her study of Hindi did not equip her well in English. He told Bloomberg that he, a well-known rock fan, had learned English himself by memorizing rock songs and reading textbooks translated into English and Hindi. He graduated from engineering college at the age of 15. He was the youngest engineer in his university, and years later he would become one of the youngest billionaires to settle in India.
In 2000, Sharma founded One97 Communications, which would eventually become the parent company of Paytm. One97 Communications, at the time, was selling content to users through telecom operators. Paytm was launched almost ten years later, in 2009. By 2010, smartphones have become a distribution channel, he said. Paytm relocated to online payments in 2014 and launched its licensed wallet product.
The year 2015 brought good news to the company as Ant Financial, Alibaba and Softbank decided to invest in the company. At the time, digital payments were gaining traction, but cash was still an uncontested monster.
While Paytm is slowly growing, it was in 2016 that it held its lucky break. On November 8, 2016, the government announced the release of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 papers and the release of a new series of notes. That meant a shortage of funds in the coming weeks. With chronic shortages, people are turning to digital payments. Paytm was one of the most well-known digital payment companies at the time, offering fast services. By then Uber had included Paytm as a payment option, promoting its use among passengers. It also allows for a host of resources including movie and bus tickets.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma Paytm story
Soon, Google, Amazon, WhatsApp and PhonePe filled the gap, but Paytm was already a brand.
In addition, India's National Payments Corporation has created the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) which enables banks and fintech companies to perform faster operations. Since then, Paytm has grown in leaps and bounds. In 2017, the company launched Paytm Payments Bank, Paytm Gold and approved a FASTag recharge. In 2018, it launched the First Paytm Games and in 2019, it launched its 'buy now, pay later' resources.
Sharma or VSS as he is best known for being a successful company man and who is clearly convinced many times, apparently, once asked Softayank's Masayoshi Son about what he thinks his problems are. Son told him to "raise a lot of money, go back down and get in" and focus all his energy on his payment, unlike his rivals who had other businesses.
By 2021, Paytm presented its first $ 2.5 billion donation on November 8. The digital payment company has collected Rs 18,300 crore per IPO. The release size of the share sale was revised from Rs 16,600 crore. Passed Coal India (IPO of Rs 15,475) and Reliance Power (Rs 11,700 crore IPO) in terms of output size.
India’s largest IPO was registered 1.89 times on the last day. The issue received bid for 9.13 crore shares against a share size of 4.83 crore shares.
The 43-year-old now intends to move the company forward. It aims to dominate the mobile payment ecosystem and travel to the United States and Europe.