- Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an Indian entrepreneur who founded Paytm, an Indian e-commerce company, in 2010 and serves as its CEO. - He struggled in his studies as an engineering student due to difficulties with the English language but went on to found his first tech company while still in college. - After several challenges including the failure of previous business ventures, Sharma founded Paytm in 2010 and it has now grown to a company valued at over $3 billion with over 4,000 employees.

1. Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Vijay Sharma
Born Aligarh, Uttar
Pradesh, India
Nationality Indian
Alma mater Delhi College
of Engineering
Occupation Founder &
CEO
of Paytm andO
ne97
Communicatio
ns Limited

2. Paytm
Type Private
Industry Internet
Founded 2010
Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Headquarters Noida, India
Area served India
Key people Harinder Takhar,
[1]
Services E-commerce
(Online shopping)
Parent One97
[2]
Website paytm.com

3. • Paytm is an Indian e-commerce shopping website headquartered
in Noida, India, launched in 2010. It is owned by One97 Communications
The firm started by offering mobile recharging, adding bill payment and e-
commerce, with products similar to businesses such
as Flipkart, Amazon.com, Snapdeal. In 2015, it added booking bus travel.
History
• Paytm was founded and incubated by One97 communications in 2010 as a
prepaid mobile recharge website. Paytm is an acronym for "Pay Through
Mobile".with Android,windows and iOS apps.

4. Vijay Shekhar Sharma
• Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an Indian entrepreneur and founder
of Paytm. Sharma was born in Aligarh, UP in a modest family. Sharma
cites Alibaba's founder Jack Ma and Masayoshi Son of Softbank as his
inspirations.
• In December 2015, Sharma criticised Facebook's Free Basics initiative in
India, as being against the principle of net neutrality

5. Early life
• He faced difficulty in his studies at Delhi College of Engineering because
he did not speak English. In 1997, while in college Sharma started the
website indiasite.net and sold it two years later for $1 million.
Career
• In 2001, he started One97 Communications which offered mobile content
like news, cricket scores, ringtones, jokes and exam results. One97 now is
Paytm’s parent company. He started college at 15 and runs a billion dollar
company at age 37 now

6. Background
• Mr. Vijay Shekhar Sharma is the Founder of Paytm Mobile Solutions
Private Limited and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Sharma
Founded One97 Communications Ltd in 2000 and serves as its Chairman,
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.
• He is a Partner of One97 Mobility Fund. Mr. Sharma is responsible for the
strategy and direction for One97 Communications and leads it in all areas
relating to business expansion as well as product road map.
• He is an Advisor of Socialblood.org. He serves as an Investment Advisor at
One97 Communications Limited, Investment Arm. Mr. Sharma has more
than 10 years of experience in the telecom and new media industries,
having founded his first venture XS Corps while he was at college, which
he sold to Lotus Interworks LLC, New Jersey in 1999.

7. • Prior to founding One97 Communications, Mr. Sharma played key roles in
a number of organizations such as Riverrun Software Services Group
Limited, Inter Solutions Software Private Limited, Startec Global
Communications Limited, focusing on the design and development of
various products and applications for the technology, media, and telecom
industries.
• Mr. Sharma serves as the Chairman of MobiSwipe Technologies Pvt Ltd.
He has been a Director of One97 Communications Limited since December
22, 2000. He serves as a Member of Advisory Board at Milaap Social
Ventures. He holds a Bachelors degree in Engineering from Delhi College
of Engineering.

8. Paytm Founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s
incredible life story!
• Vijay Shekhar Sharma owns a company whose current value is a little over
$3 billion in the market in 2016, a dream dreamt when he was struggling to
make ends meet with Rs 10 in pocket. But he tasted victory the hard way.
Nothing came easy for him.
• Life tested him right from the beginning of his journey to become one of
the most influential people in the business world today. Though 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 cosy comfort of his small hometown outside Aligarh and
ventured into the real world.

9. • A topper in his school, he was lost in transition in college-Delhi College 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 for he completed his
school education completely in Hindi, in his small town.
• However, he realised soon enough that to make it through college he must
start learning the language first and with the help of books, second hand
magazines and his friends, he mastered the language in a way which few
can. His modus operandi was to read a Hindi version of the book
simultaneously with the English-one, a habit that ensured that he soon
learnt to read two books at the same time! But it wasn't easy to say the
least.
• The first-bencher in school slowly started gravitating towards the back
benches, and in a short while, was so disheartened and disillusioned with
his bad grades, mostly due to language constraints, that he completely
stopped attending college.

10. • So he taught himself English using dictionaries and poring over second-
hand magazines. It was the mid-90s and copies of Fortune 500 transported
the teen to a new world - that of Silicon Valley and the internet. He felt he
belonged there, but as was the case so often in those years, there was a
major obstruction. "There was no way I could have gone. I remember the
IIM fee was Rs. 2,30,000! So this was the underdog movement for me, I
said, 'one day I will be worth enough to hire these people'".

11. • While still in college, he created a company that included a search engine,
sold it, then set up One97, which provided Value-Added Services or VAS
like premium or paid content to mobile phone operators. The future looked
bright and then the stock market crashed. That's when bus-rides became a
luxury and tea a treat.
Then, in 2010, he launched Paytm, an online payment platform. And it all
came together. 4,000 employees now, an online wallet that is near
ubiquitous and a full-blown e-commerce site.
Among his investors are Jack Ma of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba
and Ratan Tata.
"It doesn't matter whether you are from a small or big town. It doesn't
matter at all. You need sincerity. Either you're in or out," he says with the
decisiveness that rests on a body of success.

12. • 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.

13. • 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.

14. • Thank you