Shreyas Srinivasan, Paytm CPO and founder of Insider.in, bids farewell to the unicorn; shares heartfelt message

Shreyas Srinivasan, Chief Product Officer at Paytm, has introduced his exit from the corporate and its ticketing platform Insider.in, ending a profession that spanned over a decade within the tech and reside leisure area. His exit follows the sale of Paytm’s ticketing enterprise to Zomato in August 2024 for Rs 2,048 crore.

Srinivasan, took to his LinkedIn to announce the top of his time with Paytm and mentioned that Monday was his final day right here, whereas August was the ultimate month with Insider.

“In august, when the deal between Zomato and Paytm Leisure closed, It felt like the appropriate time to take a break, repair tech debt of my physique and re-discover a ardour I can chase for the following 2 a long time,” he mentioned in his submit.

The deal between Paytm and Zomato has helped the previous to make lemonade out of lemons, for now not less than as One97 Communications surpassed expectations in Q2 FY 2025 by posting a revenue of Rs 930 crore, defying predictions of widened losses as much as Rs 660 crore.

This vital revenue was pushed by a one-time distinctive achieve of Rs 1,345 crore from the sale of its leisure ticketing enterprise to Zomato.

Srinivasan’s heartfelt submit

In his submit, Srinivasan briefed about his skilled journey, which started in 2010 at NH7, the place he gained foundational information in concert events and shopper experiences. His work there paved the way in which for the creation of Insider.in in 2014, a platform that stuffed the hole for reside leisure ticketing in India. Srinivasan led Insider.in by means of its early challenges, creating complete options for ticketing, which positioned the platform for development.

“At the moment there was no platform devoted to reside leisure and I used to be uniquely positioned to construct a product on this area. Constructing a brand new platform wanted new options in each a part of the ticketing stack,” he wrote.

By 2017, Insider.in had caught consideration and Srinivasan wanted a accomplice. That is when Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Madhur Deora supplied pivotal help that fueled its speedy growth.

“It took all of three hours for Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Madhur Deora to again us and I owe them an excessive amount of gratitude. Insider could not have grow to be the success it did (psst: Zomato deal) with out their backing,” Srinivasan mentioned.

This partnership finally led to Insider.in merging with Paytm in 2018, turning into Paytm Insider. By 2020, the platform had established itself as a frontrunner in sports activities ticketing and a robust competitor in different classes.

Nevertheless, the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted the reside occasions sector, pushing the enterprise to near-zero operations.

Reflecting on the pandemic’s challenges, Srinivasan mentioned, “Nice groups determine a technique to keep alive, and nice tradition lets you develop popping out of a disaster.”

The workforce break up, with half transitioning to work on Paytm’s core product and others, led by Varun Khare, Dipti Goel, and Yuvraj B., ready for the reside leisure sector to rebound.

“The primary workforce moved to engaged on the Paytm product. This workforce was filled with stellar leaders like Neehar Venugopal, Abhishek Madan and Prashant Tiwari, they rapidly grew to become senior-most leaders in Paytm,” he mentioned including, “As soon as issues opened up, this workforce (the second) went on an absolute tear and grew this enterprise greater than 4x within the final 2 years.”