How the Paytm CEO Went From Being ‘Ineligible’ Bachelor to Billionaire

At 27, Vijay Shekhar Sharma was making Rs. 10,000 a month, a modest wage that didn’t assist his marriage prospects.

“In 2004-05, my father asked me to shut my company and take up a job even if it was for 30,000 rupees,” Sharma, who went on to discovered digital funds agency Paytm in 2010, advised Reuters.

At the time, the educated engineer bought cell content material by way of a small firm.

“Families of prospective brides would never call us back after finding out that I earn around 10,000 rupees a month,” Sharma mentioned. “I had become an ineligible bachelor for my family.”

Last week, the 43-year-old Sharma led Paytm’s $2.5 billion (roughly Rs. 18,515 crore) preliminary public providing (IPO). The fintech agency has turn into the toast of a brand new India, the place the first-generation of the nation’s startups are making stellar inventory market debuts and minting new millionaires.

Born to a faculty trainer father and a house maker mom in a small metropolis in India’s most populous Uttar Pradesh state, Sharma, who turned India’s youngest billionaire in 2017, nonetheless loves having tea at a roadside cart and infrequently takes quick morning walks to purchase milk and bread.

“For a long time my parents had no idea what their son was doing,” Sharma mentioned of the time China’s Ant Group first invested in Paytm in 2015. “Once my mother read about my net worth in a Hindi newspaper and asked me, ‘Vijay do you really have the kind of money they say you have?'”

Forbes places Sharma’s web value at $2.4 billion (roughly Rs. 17,775 crore).

“What are my odds?”

Paytm started simply over a decade in the past as a cell recharge firm and grew rapidly after ride-hailing agency Uber listed it as a fast cost possibility in India. Its use leapfrogged in 2016 when India’s shock ban on high-value foreign money notes boosted digital funds.

Paytm, which additionally counts SoftBank and Berkshire Hathaway as its backers, has since branched out into companies together with insurance coverage and gold gross sales, film and flight ticketing, and financial institution deposits and remittances.

While Paytm pioneered digital funds in India, the house quickly turned crowded as Google, Amazon, WhatsApp, and Walmart’s PhonePe launched cost companies to seize a slice of a market anticipated to develop to greater than $95.29 trillion (roughly Rs. 70,57,41,560 crore) by the tip of March 2025, in line with EY.

That push by international giants gave Sharma a uncommon second of doubt, which he raised with SoftBank’s tycoon billionaire founder Masayoshi Son.

“I called up Masa and said – now everyone’s here, what do you think are my odds?”

Son, an early investor in Yahoo! and Alibaba, advised Sharma to “raise more money, double down and go all in” and focus all his power on constructing funds, in contrast to rivals which had different main companies.

Sharma, who’s married and has a son, mentioned he has by no means appeared backed since.

While some market analysts have issues over when Paytm will flip worthwhile, Sharma is assured of his firm’s success.

In 2017, Paytm launched a invoice funds app in Canada and a yr later entered Japan with a cell pockets.

“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, that’s an Indian company,” Sharma mentioned.

© Thomson Reuters 2021