Paytm Founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s inspiring life story

Paytm was nothing but a dream that he dreamt when he was struggling to make ends meet with just 10 Rupees in his pocket. He tasted the victory a very hard way and it was all because of his hard work and dedication.

Life distressed him right from the beginning of his journey to becoming one of the most influential people in the business world today. Vijay was a child prodigy of science as he passed his higher secondary when he was just 14 years old. However, making it through college was the first tough challenge that he faced. When he left the cozy comfort of a small hometown outside Aligarh and adventured into the real world. Vijay came from a very humble background. He did not know how to read and write English as he completed his school education completely in Hindi. He realized soon that to make it to college he must start learning the language. So with the help of books, second-hand magazines and from friends he started learning the new language. Even after 100% dedication to learning Vijay was struggling to learn English and to survive the rigors of engineering college in a metropolitan city like Delhi. He decided to build and use the time he had from not attending college by turning into an entrepreneur and believed in challenging the unknown. He made the internet his playground and Sabeer Bhatia and yahoo as his inspiration. He aspired to go to Stanford as that was where Yahoo was built. But realizing the lack of financial sources and his challenge with the English language he decided to emulate some of the genius at Stanford by learning how to code all by himself. He then started building his own content management system with some of his college mates which later went on to be used by some of the biggest news publications including the Indian express. It was also during this time when he started his first job at an MNC but he quit after 6 months and built a company of his own. And later passed all his exams.

However, when everything seemed good going for Vijay, it had also become the darkest time of his life. Having his dreams of reaching Silicon Valley shattered and he was also left bankrupt by his partners when he had just begun a business and raised the first round of funding. Later in 2005, he raised a hefty amount of 8 lakhs through his venture count of 40% equity in his company. At this point, Vijay was devastated but he was not a man to give up. He lived at a hotel near Kashmiri gate in Delhi. Skipped meals and walked long distances to attend work or meetings in the southern part of the state.

But things took better when the big moment came in 2011 when he entered the idea of a payment ecosystem. As he was talking about betting the company’s money on a non-existent packet but to convince everyone but put 1% of equity on the table which was valued at about $2million around 2011. With this belief, the first avatar of Paytm was born going rapidly on to become the next big thing of the startup ecosystem in India. From then on there was no looking back for Vijay and Paytm. It was packed with customer trust. Paytm’s journey to the top of the internet wallet market is now a part of startup folklore. Vijay believes that after building a billion-dollar worth company, maintaining success is the most difficult part of the journey and it cannot be done with good teamwork. He ensures that the right people are people who share the same passion.

It is not just the fighting spirit that made Vijay in the position that he is in today, despite his engineering background and no formal education in business management he has the business acumen of genius. His struggles are the reason, he always believed that a man himself makes his own destiny and by working hard there is no force that can stop him from reaching his goal.