Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder of Delhi-headquartered One97 Communications , is a busy man. Sharma has been travelling constantly to raise funds for Paytm, which One97 promotes. And by the looks of it, Paytm is on course to be the first company in India to get internet giant Alibaba's funding.A leading mobile marketplace and mobile wallet company, Paytm has also sought permit for payment banking recently. Interestingly, Sharma reveals the mobile payment business wasn't even on the company's agenda.A first generation entrepreneur, Sharma is difficult to pin down because of his hectic travelling. He finally agrees to a telephone interview, in which he speaks about his journey as an entrepreneur, his struggle as a Hindi school student to pick up English in engineering college, and coming a full circle by becoming an investor himself.Edited excerpts:I have treated all my assignments as a management course. I jumped jobs to learn management strategies, which I could implement later on in my company. One of the important lessons I learnt was the importance of quality team members. You might have great aspirations but if your team members don't sync to that, then you are stuck. The second thing I learnt was perseverance.Working with large companies taught me how they end up becoming places where innovation and new things are not encouraged. In my company, I make sure we always respect new ideas, new businesses. That's how Paytm came up. One of the team members and my college junior, Abhishek Rajan, wanted to try out the payment business. We supported him.Not launching an IPO in 2010. I can't be more thankful about it not happening. Sometimes a failure is a blessing in disguise. Failure to launch an IPO gave birth to Paytm.I wouldn't have completed my graduation if it was not for my mother. I didn't want my mother to say, "We spent money on you and you didn't even graduate." I also figured out that education is overrated.Education should teach you how to think about a problem, how to address a situation and have clarity of thought, not rewriting what's written in textbooks. Overcoming English was quite a story. One single mantra that changed my learning was you should start thinking in English instead of thinking in Hindi and then translating it.My mother was crying. I was working in the US and in 1998-99, I returned to India to run an internet company. My parents and sister didn't approve of it. I sort of negotiated with them on the benchmark that defined success. We eventually came to an agreement.(Laughing) Yeah. I was a black sheep in many ways. In my family most people are doctors or teachers. So yeah, some relatives want to become businessmen but I always tell them it's not necessary to imitate someone. You should choose what you like.I always invest in the bus driver instead of the bus. In other words, I would back the entrepreneur I know versus his company. So I try to find out about the entrepreneur — do I sense chemistry in the conversation, do I respect him, etc.As for learning, a lot of entrepreneurs need to know that it's fine to give up and move to the next idea if one idea is not working out. It's tough to make that call and it's also challenging for an early stage company to discover that what they are pursuing will be a great success versus doing something new altogether. That balance is an art.I usually look for a person who went through horrible times and came back a success, with a smile and lessons. If you haven't gone through the worst patch of your life already, I wouldn't know how you will behave when tough times come.I do. I have lot of respect for entrepreneurs whether they have failed or succeeded. It takes a hell of a lot; it takes a lot of energy and giving up on a lot of things. I would always prefer an entrepreneur who went through tough times over a cushioned, 'been there, done that' person. Your inspirations? I am inspired by Jack Ma, Masa (Masayoshi Son), Steve Jobs, Rupert Murdoch and Sunil Mittal. All of them were the world's underdogs who ended up creating business empires even when they were written off at different points in time.I love any high adrenaline activities. I regularly go rafting, have done bungee jumping and sky diving. I also drive a lot. It forces my attention on the road instead of thinking about work. Even music helps me relax. I usually drive a BMW and listen to music. U2 and Coldplay are my favourite bands. I also like to listen to Cuban jazz and the blues. And I mostly go to sleep listening to western classical music.Work-life balance is such an overrated thing. If you enjoy something, you don't balance it, you do more of it."I met Masa (Masayoshi Son of Softbank, above) a couple of times — one time related to funding. The fi rst time was in Los Angeles around May. I love the energy and passion he carries into the room. When you have been through what Masa has gone through, you can create an impactful statement in a few words. He's a very simple conversationalist. He would ask you the correct questions and that's an uncanny capability."