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In the last session of The Makers Summit 2021, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma revealed all the trade-offs and nuances that the product function at the fintech giant deals with every day

To everyone’s surprise, Sharma also announced a contest for budding product makers at The Makers Summit in a completely impromptu manner

Two paid internships/jobs (depending on the stage of career of the candidate) will be given out for product builders who can solve two puzzles that Paytm is trying to crack

This article is part of Inc42 Plus’ — The Makers Summit, India’s largest product conference, supported by Netcore, Amplitude, HPE and more. Watch all the sessions here.

The ending to three days of power packed insights by India’s unicorn founders and product leaders couldn’t have been better. In the last session of The Makers Summit 2021, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma revealed all the trade-offs and nuances that the product function at the fintech giant deals with every day.

To everyone’s surprise, Sharma also announced a contest for budding product makers at The Makers Summit in a completely impromptu manner. Two paid internships/jobs (depending on the stage of career of the candidate) will be given out for product builders who can solve the following problems. 

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• One major challenge for Paytm has been where to place the Show QR code prompt such that new users can find it easily and old users don’t feel it has disappeared
• Another interesting problem is that users who have their bank accounts connected to the Paytm app don’t need to do a KYC but communicating this has been difficult 

In the aftermath of the announcement, there has been a tweet storm by young makers who are suggesting their solutions to these problems. We are curating a few of the most interesting ones here and will keep updating the article as more quirky takes appear in the thread: 

1. Shrishti Madan has a suggestion that won’t disturb any element on the current home screen of Paytm:

2. Krishna Kumar Soni wants it to be shown in a follow-up screen:

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3. Yash Agarwal’s solution gives the feeling that he is an Apple fanboy:

4. Santosh Patil was among the few to suggest solutions for both the QR code problem and the KYC challenge — and he created an extensive thread and a PDF document to explain why his solutions are the best:

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5. Nishchay Mehta, too, suggested simple solutions to crack both the puzzles:

6. Pratham suggests that the QR code be placed on the upper half of the screen to get more users to pay through it:

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7. Vaibhav (rest assured he isn’t getting the mention for sharing his name with our CEO) feel that a pay button with a QR code icon can help solve the problem:

8. Manav Jain has suggestions for two options — one in case Paytm wants to make QR code a high usage feature, another in case it doesn’t. (One of those kids who write answers to questions that the examiner didn’t ask, just in case it could fetch extra marks)

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9. Manoj Kumar wants the Scan any QR option on one side and Show My QR Code on another:

10. Pathange Balaji gave a video demonstration of what is right with Twitter and WhatsApp QR codes but we couldn’t find his solution for Paytm. We are sure it would be a great entry given his insights on other players.

Click To Access The Makers Summit 2021 Sessions