Vijay Shekhar Sharma is the man who always wears an always welcoming smile and built a company that transformed the way of money exchange in India. Paytm was nothing but a dream for Sharma when he struggled to make ends meet with just Rs.10 in his pocket. He captured victory the hard way, and it was all because of his hard work and dedication that he was able to make his dream a reality. Today, with this article, we will appreciate his life story from start to end.
The founder and CEO of Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, is an Indian billionaire businessman ranked as India's youngest billionaire by Forbes in 2017. With a total net worth of $2.35 Billion, he was ranked # 62nd richest person in India by Forbes in 2020. He has also been featured in Time Magazine's World's 100 Most Influential People 2017 List. He is also a recipient of Yash Bharati, the highest civilian honor of the Government of Uttar Pradesh.
The million-dollar startup founder was born in the small town of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, on 8th July 1978 and was a child prodigy. He went to a Hindi medium school in Harduaganj, a village near Aligarh. He then went on to get his bachelor's degree in Electronics and communication engineering from Delhi College of Engineering. He graduated from college when he was just 19 years old.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Mridula Parashar Sharma, his wife, have a son named Vivaan Sharma. Sulom Prakash Sharma, his father, is a schoolteacher, and Asha Sharma, his mother, is a housewife. Ajay Shekhar Sharma, who is presently Senior Vice President at Paytm, is his younger brother, and he also has two older sisters.
Despite being incredibly bright and excellent in his academics, 15-year-old Sharma, who was educated in Hindi, could not deal with what his college lecturers were teaching. He claims he battled with a language barrier not only in college but also outside of it.
"In college, I didn't understand what the teacher was saying. I never felt one with my peers; I couldn't speak or understand English. I was a failure in my class but a hero in the computer lab." Vijay confessed to India today.
As Sharma's worries about his communication skills continued, he started to spend more time in the library and computer lab rather than in classes. He got inspired by the stories of Silicon Valley, of entrepreneurs who had made it big without a college degree. He began to study English with commitment with the assistance of translation books, magazines, English music, and his friends.
While in college, Vijay and his friend started a company outside their hostel named XS Corps. Their business card carried the address of their hostel and a phone number for the DCE's computer center. He also started a website in his college days named www.indiasite.net and later sold it for $1 million two years later.
In 2001, by taking a loan of Rs 8 Lakh, he started a company named One97 communications, the parent company of Paytm. The company offered mobile content, including news, cricket scores, ringtones, jokes, and exam results. The loan repayment was becoming a bit difficult, so he took jobs like delivering small guest lectures and setting up LAN connections, etc.
After he launched Paytm, two words came to every Indian mind while doing money transactions were "Paytm Karo". The secret behind the success of Paytm was the trust Sharma built with his customers. He built a 24 * 7 internet wallet service with around the clock customer support service, which responded to customer complaints immediately, which made the customers trust him and put their money in the hands of the unknown. Users can recharge their mobile phones, DTH TV, Metro cards, pay bills, and whatnot through Paytm.
Now, Paytm handles more than 5000 transactions per second, and a high capacity of transactions is made possible by implementing a straightforward yet effective and safe payment method. Users may make payments and transfers from anywhere by scanning the QR code of a seller or inputting the recipient's cell phone number.
Normally, anyone in place of Vijay Sharma's situation would have quit, but Vijay decided to build and use the time he had to become an entrepreneur. Thus, passion and hard work can bring you endless amounts of opportunities and nothing good can come by sitting waiting for the opportunities to come. You have to create them yourself. He is now the inspiration to all the young entrepreneurs who think that they can do nothing.
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