The man, who always wears a welcoming smile, stands true to every word he wrote during the most difficult times of his life.
The man who believes “To the winners who won, because they didnt give up.”
Vijay Shekhar Sharma owns a company who se current value is a little over $3 billion in the market in 2016 , a dream dreamt when he was struggling to make end smeet with Rs 10 in pocket.
His Journey is inspirational to every Indian Entrepreneur;
Let’s go through his journey with this Info graphic showing how he started.
From being a small-town boy from Aligarh who bought second-hand tech magazines to the founder of one of India’s most trusted technology brands, Vijay Shekhar Sharma has come a long way.
WAS HE ANY DIFFERENT AS A CHILD ?
Vijay was an exceptional student, passing secondary school at the early age of 14. However, this would only be the start of a long journey to success for the young boy .He passed his higher secondary when he was just 14 years old, a child prodigy of sorts, making it through college was the first tough challenge he faced when he left the cozy comfort of his small hometown outside Aligarh and ventured into the real world. He was even bullied by classmates.
A topper in his school, he was lost in transition in college-Delhi School of Engineering. Coming from a very humble background (his father was a highly principled, school teacher, who refused to earn the extra buck through tuitions, because he believed in what was the right thing to do), Vijay did not know how to read and write English.
What he really wished for…:
He dreamt of becoming SABEER BHATIA. For which he even bunked his classes and spent most of his day at computer center.
HOW THINGS HAPPEND TO VIJAY:
He almost gave up !
The darkest time in his life was when having his dreams of reaching the Silicon Valley shattered, he was also left bankrupt by his partners, with whom he had just begun a business and raised the first round of funding. In 2005, he had raised a hefty amount of Rs 8 lakhs through his venture of which he was conned off 40%. He was devastated. But Vijay was not a man to give up so easily. He lived at a hostel near Kashmiri Gate in Delhi, skipped meals and walked long distances to attend work or meetings in the southern part of the State.
Infact having been through such tough times, if there is a fear that the ‘Iron Man’ of the startup ecosystem of India still harbours, it is that someday ‘some unknown’ will take away all of his hardwork.
BUT THEN…
Things took to a better turn when he began One97, the parent company of Paytm. They started experimenting with the three basics of internet- content, advertising and commerce. But the big eureka moment came in 2011 when he first pitched the idea of entering the payment ecosystem in front of his board. The board was not convinced, as he was talking about betting the company’s money on a non-existent market.
“Some other entrepreneur would have sold the equity and started their own company. But I aspire to build a 100 year old company. I think that men and boys are different because the boys flip and sell. Men run and build legacies,” Vijay said.
So he put 1% of his equity, which was about $2 million around 2011, on the table and said, “This is for all of you, if I waste the money that we put on the site.” He adds, “There is no fun in doing what others ask you to do, the real fun is in doing what people say you can’t do.”
And it is with this belief that the first avatar of Paytm, Pay Through Mobile, was born, going rapidly onto becoming the next big thing of the startup ecosystem in India. And, since then it was never looking back. he first built a strong 24×7 customer care service to address the worries of customers to enable them to trust the wallet enough to put their money into the hands of the unknown.
His struggles are the reason why he hates reading fiction. How can one be inspired by made up tales!
Vijay stands testimony to the saying, “A man makes his own destiny.”
Inspite of all these, his attitude to life can be best defined in his own simple words.
“It (his success) still seems so surreal.”
His vision:
“Looking forward to a cashless India, Vijay’s dream is to bring half a billion Indians to the mainstream economy. His dream is to build India’s first $100 Bn firm, a company that would make the nation proud.”
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