We’ve seen or heard of many rags to riches stories of
entrepreneurs who started off with modest beginnings but this one is
slightly different. In that, while most others were forced into such
beginnings, Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s were those out of choice. Well
perhaps chosen not by him but his father – who lived a principled life,
which meant, the family just about subsisted leaving very little room
for a life that would count as comfortable, much less for indulgences.
Whether or not Sharma was seized of this situation so early in his life,
except the fact that his father wouldn’t do tuitions over and beyond
the normal course, is debatable but what is not is that the child
prodigy was always ahead time equipped with an enterprising spirit.
He
finished his higher secondary when he was barely 14 years of age, which
course otherwise would take 3 more years. What’s more astonishing is
that he was able to enrol for an engineering course at a renowned
university at the age of 15! (Which is like high school for most Indians
as well as for many elsewhere in the world).
Then he didn’t let
neither his humble background, his struggles with the English language
(Hindi had been his medium of education all along his life up until
college) and, consequently, his falling grades, to bog him down. For he
had always been very determined and focused.
It were his
entrepreneurial spirit, never-say-die attitude, and a conviction in his
abilities that helped him succeed against all odds and show way for many
other aspiring young people.
Child prodigy
Sharma
was born in a village just outside the town Aligarh. His father was a
school-teacher who led a principled life and imbibed the same in his
children. Call it genes or whatever but young Sharma was topper
throughout his childhood. He stood first at every major stage of school
education – something that allowed him to seek more challenging things
and get the better of them, as he would manifest in most of his
endeavours in later life as an entrepreneur.
He completed his
higher education when he was all of just fourteen years. As if that
wasn’t a big achievement in itself, he got enrolled for an engineering
course at the Delhi College of Engineering at the tender age of fifteen
years.
The language barrier
Sharma had his
school education in the Hindi medium. This would prove to be a big
obstacle at college where, for obvious reasons, the tuitions were in the
English language. It handicapped his ability to learn and understand
properly and, therefore, to reproduce the results he wanted. This dented
his confidence and insecurity started to creep in slowly – all of which
concocted to a slump in his grades as he relegated to the back benches
from being a front-bencher (pointing to a cliché in the Indian school
system that front-benchers were good students and the back-benchers were
poor in studies).
Picked himself up
They
say success is how high you bounce once you hit the ground. Sharma had
already hit rock-bottom – at least per his very high standards. From a
layman’s perspective he had nothing to lose. But, for Sharma it was not.
He knew he had to buckle up and gather himself to prove to the world
what he was made of. To overcome language problem he started reading
books and magazines – English and Hindi versions of the same parallelly
to understand the contexts better and get a hold of the language. This
helped greatly and he soon picked up himself from the lows to up his
form in studies and passed out of college in 1998.
Apparently, Yahoo!
was his inspiration and perhaps that is what took him towards software
therefore, while he was still in college he started the website
indiasite.net and sold it two years later for $1 million.
Jobs
To
take his career path forward, soon after graduating out, he joined
River Run Software Group in the business development department where he
lasted for about a year.
But he wanted to make good of his
engineering studies so he joined the Intersolutions India Pvt Ltd as
technical Team member and worked there for another year. He also joined
the India Today Group Online as the technical head – the stint lasted as
long as the one with Intersolutions ending in 2000.
Founded One97
In
the year 2000, he founded One97 Communications which would eventually
become the parent company of his most successful venture – Paytm.
Somewhere along the line he also worked as the CTO of a start-up called Startec Global Systems, India for a year.
Difficult phase of life
Having
overcome the language barrier, one would think it would be a piece of
cake for a whiz like Sharma. But, life had other things in store for the
young man. Things weren’t moving as he had desired because just around
the time he was about to launch his entrepreneurial life big-time, the
dot.com bubble had burst and life had suddenly become more difficult
than ever before. He had to skip meals, take to foot often and walk
miles from one place to another – just so he saved enough. All the
suffering didn’t shatter his confidence. It only made him all the more
determined than ever before to go after his dreams and he persisted with
One97 which offered mobile content like news, cricket scores,
ringtones, jokes and exam results.
Life had taught quite a few
lessons for the young man – for after all the work-stints and shot at
business, he was still only 30 years by the time he launched Paytm.
Paytm and thereafter
Sharma
founded Paytm in 2010 – as mobile wallet. The idea was simple but
implementation required great effort from everyone involved – primarily
in winning the trust of the customer as well as the One97 board of
directors. Therefore, it was a hard sell for him with the board which
didn’t believe in the idea. He put his stake in the company (1%) to
trade his idea as an insulation if it failed. This was enough to win
them over. Next was the all-important customer.
For that, even
before he offered wallet services, Sharma started the customer support
for the service address queries from people who could potentially be
customer or users who would buy stuff from vendors through Paytm. Over
30% of the company's campaign budget is invested in building trust with
the customer.The strategy worked and people slowly but surely enough
took to Paytm and, as Sharma had envisaged, turned it into their mobile
wallets.
The USP
Obviously, in a field
where there were more than 30 competitors, one would need to have
differentiators to be able to attract as well as hold on to users
availing the services.
More than his engineering education and his
rock-solid determination, one would imagine it was his deep business
acumen that helped Paytm become what it is today.
Apart from a
dedicated customer care, Sharma enhanced the user experience of the
service so that users had a seamless experience while all along
improving the quality of services delivered.
Then, he could not
make Paytm as a sheep in a herd – doing what others did. He had to have
some bench-marking that would let Paytm paly niche.Paytm had enough
brand equity to ensure that the company followed some smart business
practices. It doesn’t own any warehouses, it only partners with sellers
and logistics providers to ensure the services / items are delivered to
the customer on time.
Also, there is no free-shipping, which means
either the buyer has to pay or the seller has to take a cut. This
ensures no pilferage in margins or revenues – unlike other ecommerce
portals and market-places – whose GMV is more but profit realization are
nil. In fact very few companies are in the green – surviving mostly on
the several rounds of funding in the hope that they will make hay in the
future.
On the other hand, Paytm has had only one round of
funding - of $100 million (including himself, SAIF partners, Alipay,
& Ratan Tata) and uses it to improve the services while still
maintaining a decent profit margin.
Perhaps Paytm is the only
Indian company to have broken-even and go on to earn profits. Paytm
continues to lead the pack with smart offerings and incentives for users
in lieu of using the service such as discounts, cash-back, etc., but
all of them with a rider – fair enough as everyone has a right to
protect their interests.
The leader
Sharma
has seen the company grow into a $3 billion dollar pioneer in the
country and continues to herald it even in the face of contenders and
pretenders as well. Its mobile-first marketplace has over 50,000
merchants and processing over 75 million orders a month.
But, he
also knows that the company is made of people – it is the talent as work
that is making it possible for him to run the company successfully.So,
as mark of respect for their hard work, as also the fact that not all
hard working people are as successful as he is, Sharma has distributed a
good chunk of the money from the shares he owns.
He also
continues to fund in interesting and promising start-ups through his
funding arm – One97 Mobility Fund that he started in 2010.
Quotes |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Become so sharp that you cut |
| My aim is to make Paytm an Indian Internet conglomerate |