When Steve Jobs died, I called him the Vishnu: Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Vijay Shekhar Sharma is the unlikely billionaire. He is a good sport and spontaneous. One time he shows you his selfie with Jack Ma. Another time he takes a dig at his own fitness level. There never is a dull moment with Sharma.

It’s easy to understand why Sharma is on a perpetual high. Paytm, his brainchild, is not just successful, it has touched the lives of the masses. This is a winning combination that is every entrepreneur’s dream.

As ETPanache’s ‘ Trendsetting Entrepreneur’, Sharma says he has always treated all his assignments as a management course. Here he explains what trendsetting means to him and which trend has influenced him.

What does trendsetting mean to you?
When being on this path is no more a fashion, it’s mainstream, then you set a trend. If you are to build something new, everybody should be able to accept it, unanimously like it and look forward to more of it. That’s the time you call it a trend.

What was the moment when your big idea struck you? From thought to execution — at what precise juncture did you see it taking shape?
This happened twice for us. Our voilà moment was when the Uber moment happened. What we had built was inspired and learnt from the app store, but when we saw it implemented in Uber, it was an UBER experience. That’s the moment I said, ‘Wow, we did it’. Second was when the lowest common denominator of your product explains to you what the product is.

What is the one trend, in these shifting times, that shaped or influenced you?
When 3G came, consumers virtually had computers with internet connections. They were just called smartphones. They are now consuming technologies that are not necessarily built by an American or a developed country company. We, for the first time, have a technology customer base in the country and for any industry to be successful, home base is a great test run. India will now produce a lot of tech companies and a lot of international companies will come in; this will be a fight of global standards. Unlike other markets like Japan, Europe and China, where there is a bit of protectionism, India is an open market. A winner here is a man of steel.

Who are the people and the ideas that you believe have set a trend?
Steve Jobs. When he died, I wrote a blog in which I called him the Vishnu of our generation. He literally created the [tech] revolution. Travis Kalanick of Uber. He’s proven that if you keep going head on and banging your head, you will get a head-banging result.

What’s the legacy you want to leave behind?
Being India’s first $100 billion company and a company that could build something in India that could get replicated in the world. The model that we are building with [Paytm] banks and financial services is definitely worth replicating in the world.

What is the one trend that you wish you had started?
Social messaging app. We tried doing something, but it didn’t work.