Paytm is a very successful thing. I was working with the operator. The biggest need — why did we set out to do this? Let me explain it this way: we all do it. Like...
So first of all, I am mighty impressed. I mean, I would say I am overwhelmed by seeing the valuation that students have done. First of all, I asked many people, you study here and do this right now, so what I have seen, you could say, is extraordinary. And I was so surprised that there are so many innovations that have happened. We should try to take the school to market. Obviously, students may do some things which are early days — in the beginning they create some new experiments. But along with that, when I saw the innovations of Uttar Pradesh here, I can understand that students have a very different passion to do something new. And one good thing is that the excitement they have to do this could not have happened earlier. If I talk about my era, most people wanted to take a job. It's not that they wouldn't want to now, but the resources they got and the way they picked up those resources and tried — that is an odd. So first of all, extraordinary.
I would say hats off to the ATU Innovation Hub, and this... my... [laughter] I had to understand what this is — how did this much excitement build up? Because sometimes you come, you go to a particular college, you go to a particular location, you get to see something and you are happy about it. But the kind of structure it has placed — I mean, so I must say this: congratulations to the state government, congratulations to the people who are managing it, and under the aegis of IIT, it is extraordinary. So over to them. And now, a message to students, where I can only say that you are working in absolutely the right direction. Okay?
India is no longer dependent on the world. We can all create something new in our own country, and we have capabilities, resources, and a market. Earlier, India had a problem: if you wanted to sell something inside India, there were fewer customers, fewer consumers, and less demand. So more or less, whatever we were making, we had to explore it elsewhere. Or the demands we had were very foundational, local. But now, the innovation that we are seeing — everybody has a smartphone, everybody has a computer, everybody has an internet connection. So every person is a potential consumer, depending on what you are doing. There is a very big market inside India, and you are seeing the needs of that market with your own eyes. And after that, you are building your own solution. So there is nothing to fear about whether the solution will work or not, or whether your commercial venture, if you are starting it, will be successful or not. Because in the beginning, one or two such setbacks happen — that is also normal. It is like when you learn to ride a bicycle, you fall once or more. That does not mean you will not learn to ride a bicycle. And if you fall, it means you got hurt a little, something may happen, but it is not fatal. So, and I am going to say, the amount of experience — anyway, whatever experience you get, and after that whatever new you can do with it, that will be very different and extraordinary. My point is that India has the demand, and you have that capability, that power and capability. You have that creativity. You have that ability. So now I will say that the necessity is to match demand and supply. And my belief is that today, if you have created something — let's assume it is not perfect — then slowly you will need to make it perfect, and you will meet new kinds of people. One of the biggest things I learned is what they call increasing your success area. So to become luckier, you have to take more chances. In other words, let's say if you know 10 people, and let's say you are talking to your university, talking to people around you, talking in your village, talking in your city, talking to your people — you change the location, the same thing will have a very different value. I am going to say a very important sentence: opportunity is geographic, which means that maybe when you are there, you may not get the full sense of it — how important it is and how useful it is. But I can confirm that in a different geography, it could be an extraordinary opportunity. So we have to overcome our initial limitations, and sometimes that requires changing location. We have all seen it. I myself came from Aligarh. I studied at AMU. So going from there to the city — Aligarh was a big event. A big event was coming to Delhi. Then I obviously went for international fundraising, and so on and so forth. So I learned one thing: change your location, fortune changes. And I don't mean change location by just leaving. I am saying increase your success. The kind of people you can meet, the kind of people you can talk to — expand. And just, meaning that...
I get emails, and I would say that you get attention in such a good way, but in that attention, what you are saying — I also want to do that. So now it is written right there, so you can all ask: if somebody has attention for a few seconds, what should I say about my business, what this is, what you think will be... And I am sending them emails, so AI will compose it for you. So I would say: take chances, increase the area. Do not feel bad about whether this is successful right now or not, because your vantage point — the way they say, where you are looking from — is in the current context. As soon as you go further ahead, you will get a bigger vantage point. A big problem and opportunity will appear in which you can act. But the fact that you are doing what you are doing at this stage is the reason that you will do something at the next stage. What you are doing is very important, because by doing this you will get the opportunity to do the other thing. The lessons learned inside this — it's like saying that by taking the class four, five, six exams, you get to take the ninth, tenth exams. Exactly like this. This is a journey you will scale one at a time. And any success — if you want to give anyone as a reference — does not happen overnight, and it does not come first; it comes after multiple steps. So you have to keep the capability and commitment inside you that you are going to keep learning, you are going to make sure that this opportunity is captured by you and your team, and the country gets to be something. One more very big thing I want to tell you.
Many of us are going to work in software companies. At the time when I came out of college, there were jobs in software companies. So when we solve another country's problems, that country becomes rich because we keep solving their problems. When we solve our own country's problems, we become rich by being resourceful. So it is two more — that's it. The generation that we belong to solves a problem and captures an opportunity that belongs to us. Our opportunity is for us. If we look at these from our side as problems, they will look like problems. And if we look at them from the perspective of solving the problem, they will look like opportunities. The more we are able to solve for it, the more this country, this community, our state — Uttar Pradesh — and whichever city you come from, will be enriched. Now you can say whether there is a big market there or not. I can confirm to you that when you do even a small thing in a small place, and as I said, you increase the success area, you meet bigger people, that thing becomes big by itself. So give yourself a chance. Do not give up just because it is a big name.
Sir, I don't know. [laughter] And how it will happen, whatever — maybe many of us listening to this. And today I can say, don't do this thing, don't do that thing. And I will tell you one lesson that we all follow: just as a river, coming from different, different places, reaches its destination — reaches its destination. So when you... when you do not know what you have to do, you take chances. Once you become mature and scale, then you know which chances are correct or not. So now, in my time, I must have tried three or four businesses. Paytm is a very successful thing, and at that time I was in advertising, content, and I was working with telecom operators. There were many businesses, and I could then take a chance — I felt that because smartphones were coming, consumers would need something. And then we created Paytm and a payment solution. Today, when AI is coming, I am far more sure of which things will work and which will not. So in the beginning, we are very open-minded and have a wider approach. Later, we become focused.
