Full Name – Vijay Shekhar Singh Sharma
Date of Birth – 31.12.1977
Place of Birth – Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh
Currently Living in – Delhi
Wife – Mridula Sharma
You earn money when you shop! Woahh! Another scam? Most of us thought the same when Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s PayTm made its way in India. It has emerged as one of the most trusted technology brands; rather popular among Indian youths for cash-backs.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s Early Life
Vijay Shekhar Sharma has seen many ups and downs in his life before becoming a successful entrepreneur. His life’s journey speaks of his constant efforts and perseverance. Vijay Shekhar Sharma belongs to a small town of Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh. He hails from a middle-class family; his father was teacher at a Harduaganj school.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s Education
Vijay Shekhar Sharma is from Hindi-medium educational background. Being an exceptional student and a topper, he passed his senior secondary from a Harduaganj school at 15. Quite an early age! Because of the age limitations he had to skip taking admission in many engineering colleges. Luckily, Aligarh Muslim University had no age criteria for engineering students back then. He applied and appeared for the test. Though he qualified the test but couldn’t qualify the interview round. This did not deter Vijay Shekhar from achieving his goal. His will power was strong. He did not let these incidents affect him. Instead, he dedicated a year to prepare for college.
In an interview with a prominent news channel, he laughs it off while telling how he prepared for the college, “I couldn’t write in English, a language required to write the answers in IIT exams. I attempted test for Delhi Engineering College and qualified the exam. Since the entrance had objective multiple-choice questions, yet in English, I would guess from the answers and certain keywords.”
https://twitter.com/vijayshekhar/status/967026023454867457
How Vijay Shekhar Sharma made his dream come true through PayTM?
As the days went by, being a student from Hindi-medium and UP board background, he could not understand the class lectures. He, then, started to skip his college lectures and would spend time in Computer lab of the Delhi Engineering College. This was where he explored Internet and learnt and practiced coding. In his initial college days, with the help of his friends, Vijay Shekhar Sharma established a startup and named it as XS Communications. The company built content management system for the organizations; many renowned media organizations including The Indian Express had bought the software from his startup.
It was because of his interest in the technology he would buy second-hand magazines from the local book markets; money was constraint then yet he would save a few to gain his knowledge on the latest trends in technology. He admits that reading several stories of the influential people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates in Forbes magazine inspired him a lot. In 1997, while in college, he started a website named indiasite.net; he sold it after two years for $1 million.
Soon after, in 2000, Vijay Shekhar Sharma started his a company named One97, which is now the parent company of PayTM, with Rs 8 lakh-loan. One97 offered mobile content liked ringtones, astrology, cricket scores, etc. To pay off the bills of the company Vijay Shekhar worked with various private firms in Delhi. He, even, had delivered guest lectures to make the ends meet.
The turning point of his life was when he met Jack Ma of the Alibaba Group at a Hong Kong Conference. Later, he was successful to meet Jack Ma in person and convince him with his future plans. Alibaba had invested in PayTM initially. Vijay Shekhar launched the India’s fastest growing internet company and mobile wallet which now has a base of 230 million registered customers and seven million daily transactions.
Did You Know? Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s favourite motto which he still lives by – “Be good. Work hard. Have fun. Create history.”
He might be a Billionaire and the owner of residential property worth $12.72 Mn (approx), Vijay Shekhar’s Networth is $2.1 Billion as of 10/20/18 (via Forbes) yet he is a down-to-earth man who drives himself to office and enjoys the street food just like any other common man. He draws his inspiration from Jack Ma, Steve Jobs and Masayoshi Son (Masa).
#GoBig & #GoHome – Paytm’s Networth is between $10 billion to $12 billion as of 10/2018 (via Forbes).
Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an inspiration for many. Despite being a Hindi-medium student, he continued to make efforts and never gave up on his dreams, even when PayTM faced major crises, he stood behind his team as a support.
The influential stories like that of Vijay Sharma’s help us see the positives ahead. It inspires us to move ahead with a focused approach towards life.
Photo : Facebook
