Paytm Founder: How Spotting Smartphones Early Saved His Firm

In 2010, Vijay Shekhar Sharma was preparing to take his company public when he made a decision that must have seemed crazy: he canceled the IPO because he knew his thriving business was about to die.

Sharma's company, One97 Communications, was minting money selling ringtones, cricket scores, and astrology readings via SMS to millions of Indian feature phones. But after seeing smartphones in the United States, he realized the clock was ticking on his entire business model.

"No one will pay Rs 15 for a ringtone anymore," Sharma told the audience at India's AI Impact Summit 2025. He was right. Within years, the ringtone industry vanished as smartphones let people stream songs directly.

Instead of riding his profitable business into obsolescence, Sharma pivoted hard. He transformed One97 into Paytm, betting that smartphones would become the gateway to India's financial system. That gamble paid off spectacularly as Paytm became one of India's largest digital payment platforms, bringing financial services to millions who never had bank access.

Now Sharma sees another disruption of equal magnitude: artificial intelligence. And he's urging Indian entrepreneurs to apply the same lesson that saved his empire.

"2026 begins with a commitment and confidence that AI will bring the capability in business and work that we typically would not have assumed would be solved," Sharma said. He believes AI will unlock financial inclusion at unprecedented scale by assessing credit risk across millions of complex individual cases.

Why This Inspires

Sharma's message carries weight because he's lived through exactly this kind of technological cliff before. He's not a theorist warning about disruption. He's someone who stared down a dying business model, made the hard pivot, and built something bigger on the other side.

His advice to today's builders focuses less on chasing foundation models and more on solving real problems. "The fight is not about just a foundation model," he said. "The fight is about AI that works for a sector, works for a segment, and solves the problem."

Coming from someone who turned a ringtone company into a financial inclusion powerhouse, that's wisdom worth hearing. Sharma's story proves that spotting disruption early and adapting immediately isn't just survival strategy. It's how you turn potential extinction into extraordinary opportunity.

The entrepreneurs who see AI coming and pivot now might be building the next generation of companies that transform millions of lives.