Serendipity
Recently I was invited to be a part of a wonderful ‘creative’ conference called The Coalition, I had a great time meeting people who are a part of such diverse creative fields. Also I announced my pseudo retirement from the gaming industry and had a chance to share my journey with lots of people Quite a few friends have asked me about whats going on so decided a quick medium post won’t hurt. Also if you haven’t seen Serendipity do so tonight.
A lot of us don’t like to leave our career paths to chance, but my career in video games was by chance. I was presented with an opportunity and I decided to take it up, for me the possible regret of ‘not doing’ is always bigger than fear of screwing it up.
This story takes place at the Google for India event in Delhi, I had arrived at the event and was waiting inside the car collecting my things when someone opened the rear door and flung a backpack inside, I was puzzled but stayed put and picked up my cellphone and stepped out to a gentleman waiting to get into the drivers seat, I saw him and instantly recognised him as Vijay Shekhar. I laughed and told him Vijay this isn’t your car, he looked at me puzzled and at the same time the valet arrived with Vijay’s car.
I guess I should have savoured it more, I think many people would be hard pressed to find him at a loss of words. Since the ball was in my court I quickly decided to ask him for 15 minutes of his time, he was busy but promised that he will meet me later. A few weeks pass and I find myself waiting inside a Paytm conference room, he doesn’t have a office or cabin. I wanted his time and advise to understand the big bad world of raising capital and ended up pitching him a game prototype which me and a few friends were working on. That 15 minute meeting ended up lasting around 2 hours where we talked about everything from digital payments to user experience.
Since then I’ve become a part of Paytm and leading their foray into the Gaming world. Its been an amazing journey so far and I don’t think its getting boring anytime soon. Also I promise to share more often and want to thank Om Tandon and Deepak Abbot for inspiring me to write and share. I sincerely hope to do this more often.
Update:
Paytm AG Tech JV Announced:
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