SR: How will India’s digital payment transformation be different
from China’s?
VSS: China has two players. We will not have that kind of domi-
nance. India will have four or five players, with a leader, which will
have significant market share. Everybody can coexist. Payment is
way too huge a problem for one or two players to control.
India is far more competitive. We have neither the best talent
nor the best infrastructure, nor the required levels of capital. We
have to be far more resourceful. To raise money we have to take
a flight out of India and explain our market to investors. Neither
the Chinese nor the Americans have had to describe their market
to their investors.
SR: Is India changing?
VSS: With low mobile data tariffs, the internet is reaching the
corners of India. That’s spawning a huge number of startups in
payments, cloud, and even startups that help people file taxes.
There is a large local market. Risk capital is available to win the
market. We are now grade-A entrepreneurs, not Third World busi-
nesses. It is possible to build a business to serve this country and
then take it to the rest of the world. These are phenomenal days.
Ten years ago, there was no local market, no risk capital, no inter-
net infrastructure, no customers. When we started, it was the very
beginning of the internet era of the country. I feel tickled that I am
now bracketed with today’s young entrepreneurs of India, like
Ritesh Agarwal of OYO [Oravel Stays Pvt.] and Bhavish Aggarwal
of Ola [Electric Mobility Pvt. and ANI Technologies Pvt.].there was no money to go around. I had to find ways to make money
through weekend consulting jobs to set up computer networks
for small businesses. At engineering college, I naively asked around
[to find out] what the best-paying job is. Somebody said CEO. I
didn’t even realize the person was being sarcastic. I knew the only
way to get to be CEO was to build my own company. Looking back,
I’ve never had a business card which said CEO. When I set up One97
Communications, my business card stated my title as EO. My
engineering school buddy and one of my first employees, Harinder
Takhar, also had the same title. We were both EOs.
I couldn’t get to Stanford or Silicon Valley. Somewhere there
was the urge that I should do something worthwhile, but I would
have to do it in the Silicon Alley called Delhi. I wanted to build a
great company; I wanted to attract the best talent. The internet
age was calling. Paytm began offering people searches and went
from there into business services, payments, commerce, gaming,
content, financial services, and banking.
SR: Are you satisfied with what you’ve built so far?
VSS: Many entrepreneurs are called “overnight success.” I say,
“Yeah, my overnight was 19 years long.” We started in the dial-up
internet era, where we ran up huge phone bills. We now carry the
internet in our pockets. How far we have come! The last 20 years
have been the most significant for India. It is an unprecedented
kind of change the world hasn’t seen, not even in the U.S. or China.
Nowhere else have such a large number of users come online in
such a short period of time.
Sharma<GO> INSIDE THE TERMINAL 49