Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma is often at the receiving end of some bizarre emails, and he shared one of them on Twitter last night. The email, from a man seeking funding for his start-up idea, is a study in how not to write pitch decks. It begins with the man explaining that he studied more in the last eight months - everything from Socrates to Newton to Swami Vivekanand - than he did in 18 years of school. He then goes on to wax eloquent about his two rules in life, his assurance that he can build a trillion-dollar business and the importance of money before coming to the point of the email - his goal of building the world's number one toy company.
"Sir me paisa to bohat kama sakta hu trillion dollar business - textile, telecom, real estate beer alcohol jaisa hazaro steel etc (Sir I can earn a lot of money, I can set up a trillion dollar business in textile, telecom, real estate etc)," the man wrote in his email. "Aaj k samay air, water, friends, family k baad important hai to paisa (money) hai (In this day and age, money is most important after air, water, friends and family)," he continued.
He then reveals his reason for writing to Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma: "Mera aim hai No 1 toys company in world (Nxt level)."
"My aim is to build the world's number one toy company (next level)," he told Mr Sharma.
To that end, the man revealed, he sought funding from five venture capitals by calling, messaging and emailing them, but no one agreed to fund his idea.
The funding-seeker goes on to explain that if he had a trillion dollars and if someone asked him for 0.01 per cent of it, he would give it easily. In his trademark rambling style, he then starts talking about the problem with the Indian economy: "India me kisi k pass paisa hi nhi hai jiske pass hai bo deta nhi (neta log)" -- which roughly translates to "No one in India has any money. And those who do have it (politicians) don't want to part with it."
Sharing the email on Twitter, Mr Sharma asked his followers if they would part with 0.01 per cent of a trillion dollars if they had the money. He also added the hashtag #mails_I_get
Maan ko aapke paas 1Tn hai, tab kya aap 0.01 se sakte ho ? #mails_I_get pic.twitter.com/Tn9FKHTqR1
— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) October 13, 2021
Mr Sharma followed it up with another gem from his inbox. In the second email, a Hyderabad man elaborates on his dream of building a "progress report" app for small business owners, similar to report cards handed out to schoolchildren.
"Sir we will have a 100 million paid users," he says, explaining how that would lead to 24 billion dollars in revenue each year without offering any statistics, numbers or history to back his projection.
And … we will have profits of $2.25 Bn.
— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) October 13, 2021
Another #mails_I_get pic.twitter.com/FF3ffIw8oL
The emails amused many on the microblogging platform, racking up hundreds of 'likes', comments and retweets.
Agar socrates, newton aur buddha ke paas #linkedin hota to woh bhi ek baar to funding maang hi lete shayad... ????
— Sriram Iyer (@iyer_sriram) October 13, 2021
He seems to be fully frustrated by that no one is taking interest in his idea. But I really didn't get the starting sentence, in which he stated I studied a lot in last few days. Why he was telling that?
— Gaurav Seth (@post2seth) October 13, 2021
Such emails must be entertaining at times amid aggressive pitches loaded with heavy financials.
— Gautam Gupta ???????????????????????? (@GAUTAMGUPTA10) October 13, 2021
You should NFT these
— Subrahmanyam KVJ (@SuB8u) October 13, 2021
It's safe to assume these budding entrepreneurs will not be hearing back from Mr Sharma, but if you are seeking funding for a start-up, you can check out Ratan Tata's pitch deck template to help debuting entrepreneurs here.
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