New Delhi: At 27, Vijay Shekhar Sharma made 10,000 rupees ($ 134.30) a month, a simple salary that did not help the prospect of his marriage.
“In 2004-05, my father asked me to close my company and took a job even if it was for 30,000 rupees,” Sharma, who went to the Paytm digital payment company in 2010, told Reuters.
At that time, trained engineers sell cellular content through small companies.
“The family of the bride and groom will never call us back after learning that I get around 10,000 rupees a month,” Sharma said.
“I have become a bachelor who doesn’t qualify for my family.” Last week, Sharma LED 43 years led $ 2.5 billion in the initial public offering (IPO).
The Fintech company has become a new Indian toast, where the first generation of the country’s startup made the star stock market debut and scored new millionaires.
Born from a school teacher father and a mother maker in a small town in the state of Uttar Pradesh, the most densely population of India, Sharma, who became the youngest billionaire in India in 2017, still likes to drink tea on a train on the roadside and often A short walk to buy milk and bread.
“For a long time my parents did not know what their son did,” Sharma said about the time the Chinese ant group was first invested in Paytm in 2015.
“As soon as my mother read about my net wealth in an Hindi newspaper and asked, ‘Vijay Do you really have the type of money they say you have? “Forbes put Sharma’s net worth at $ 2.4 billion.
“What’s my chance?” Paytm began more than a decade ago as a cellular refill company and grew rapidly after rising Uber company registering it as a fast payment option in India.
Its use in Leapfrogged in 2016 when the prohibition of Indian surprises on high-value currency records increases digital payments.
Paytm, who also calculated Softbank and Berkshire Hathaway as a supporter, since then branched into services including insurance and gold sales, film tickets and aviation, and bank deposits and money transfer.
While Paytm pioneered digital payments in India, the room immediately became crowded as Google, Amazon, Whatsapp and Phonepe Walmart launched a payment service to take a piece of market which is expected to grow more than $ 95.29 trillion at the end of March 2025, according to EY.
The encouragement by the global giant gave Sharma a rare doubt, which he lifted with the founder of the Tycoon Softbank Masayoshi Son billionaire.
“I called the period and said – now everyone here, what do you think is my palank?” Son, initial investors on Yahoo! And Alibaba, told Sharma to “collect more money, double down and go down” and focus all its energy to build payments, unlike rivals that have other main businesses.
Sharma, who was married and had a son, said he had never seemed backward since then.
While some market analysts have concerns when Paytm will change profitable, Sharma is sure of the success of the company.
In 2017, Paytm launched the bill payment application in Canada and a year later entered Japan with a cellphone wallet.
“My dream is to take the Paytm flag to San Francisco, New York, London, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
And when people see it, they say – you know what, Indian company,” Sharma said.