Goals, ambitions, hard work, dreams are the words which some people are good at reading from books while some people are often good and satisfied by hearing it from others or some movies… and next comes those people who are good at believing in those words and implementing them in real life just like NIKITA BALIARSINGH and NISHITA BALIARSINGH, the founder of FELIS LEO VENTURES PRIVATE LTD.
Imagine what if a sales or a management person suddenly changes his/her mind and starts dreaming of becoming a scientific researcher, just to peruse his/her passion. Will that be possible? Certainly not. Because, a person who had already invested one-third of his/her life cannot risk the rest of his/her life in an illusion of uncertain destiny.
Surprisingly Nikita and Nishita Baliarsingh have made all the above notions false. Though, being from a commerce background they accumulated all the efforts to learn science, and ultimately they are successful today the way they wanted to be. They cultivated their passion with such dedication that they are now an example for many. Their journey…
“Childhood is a phase in everyone’s life where a child only dreams to be a part of his/her Disney land. Very few children are there who sets apart their goal and dreams to be something out of the box”.
It all started when they were in school and entered into the world of commerce, standard 11, terms like company, dictatorship and shares were all new and fascinating to both of the sisters.. and time was all in their favor as, during those phase words like entrepreneurship, startup was trendy in the
market.
“So we always decided that we don’t want to do a job and we want to start our company and create jobs that was the basic mindset from the school” -Nikita Baliarsingh Eventually, after completing their 12th boards just like others they had plenty of time with them and so they found an opportunity to develop their own website, being a freelance they welcomed this opportunity with grace although later on, they knew that developing website was not a long live futuristic plan for them so they decided to multiply into digital marketing after that and many more related stuffs to sustain.
Later on from their college with the popularity of paper sustainability and greener planet terms they realized the importance of the words and how they could contribute to it. So at that point, the entire notion changed into conventional methods. Then, they started doing research about all those things that they could change in an Eco-friendly way.
“We worked on it further and we tried to develop on things and one among us was a person fascinated about vehicles, automobiles then we tried to understand why aren’t the electric vehicle’s very popular in India and Orissa,”-Nikita Baliarsingh.
They researched further and they found out that as the companies decided to launch the cars at a time so there were many concept cars that were not coming on the road. They noted that battery charging and battery retention period of how long it could travel were the answers for the main questions of that time, so that was the time they thought they could change the entire battery technology.
“That is where we thought we could change the entire battery technology and fortunately at that time one of the books that our grandfather had given us, had this one statement which said that proteins have potential benefits in electrolytes which is one of the components in batteries”-Nikita Baliarsingh.
This line appeared to be ‘like a cherry on the cake’ for them. Without wasting much time they focused on that line and picked up to research and finally they found that yes proteins are electron positive that can really help them in flowing and storing hours. They researched further and urged to develop an entire concept. That’s where Nexus came up, and again they had one such discussion with their college faculty and they came to know that there were many cropped residues that were not used and were being burnt out which were also causing air pollution.
The latest project that both of them were working on was initiated by Nishita, as she was into the research and development area and Nikita herself was mostly into the technical fields. So they both merged their knowledge, time, hard work, dedication and discovered that those batteries charged very fast, a way faster than the current leafy mine batteries, they can be retained further for long term travel vehicles. So it worked well in their favor and then based on those research work they filed for a provisional patent, and later they got the provisional patent. They did further research and tried to develop a commercial product and then they filed the patent completely –which they were ready to launch within a year, during this, there were many awards and felicitations for them.
UNSEEN OPPORTUNITIES-
“Talking about unseen opportunities I would like to talk about the present project i.e, the Nexus batteries, so the first thing we realized that electric vehicles were very popular, because it was the future ultimately. We had been putting noble energies into power. Also, Nishita and I, both of us, though, not having a scientific background, to be honest, we had tremendous interest in these technologies and scientific research which we decided to go into it, when we realized that proteins are potential, which actually was nobody talking about at that time and that is why we wanted to research about it further, that was the first unseen opportunity, fortunately, there were no competitors on proteins yet.”
Crop residue being the waste material and that not being used anywhere else with no beneficial works. So, we tried to inculcate those ways into our product and we took that as our raw material, this is a concept called industrial ecology where we used the waste – as the raw material in another industry.”-Nishita Baliarsingh
OBSTACLES IN THEIR JOURNEY
1. “We did not have any technical background. So understanding the chemical ounces of the product – was very tough . So we had to personally sit down and read a lot of textbooks to understand their zone”. And so they also had to look for people where they had a like-minded thinking or who believed that proteins could make a difference because when initially they interacted with their college friends and teachers they really liked the idea and appreciated it but they didn’t know how to get with it because proteins are a very rare thing to work with especially when it comes to battery technologies.
2. Both of the sisters interacted with a lot of scholars and research people who were working on proteins and then only they could gradually develop it.
3. The next problem that they faced was gaining some funding for the project, although the project was very innovative and it was also a futuristic work. People were not very convinced on the first go. So, they tried for some revenue collection first, before the founders tried to put in some funds in the company, most of the time that happens. “Funding was something in which we were facing some backslash as we were still into the R&D and we didn’t of icially launch the product. So right then, we were trying to tackle that problem, and we were trying to generate and work on that grants, as grants could help us push the product fast forward”.
4.“When we discovered that we already had a lot of people working on battery technologies, at some points we were stressed, as so many people are already there in the market and so it can create obstacles for us”. They researched on their competitors as well as what and how they were working and what was their field of work, and later on, they realized that there were lots of points of differentiation so they did not need to stop the project and grow on fearlessly.
COMBINATION OF TEAM MEMBERS
Their team members consisted of people from multiple domains such as one, specialized in biotechnology, nanotechnology, and electronic and instrumentation work, also who were a bunch of close friends.
Learning from my journey….- NIKITA BALIARSINGH
“ A person has to be always ready for last minute problems, or things, that they might not be perfect individually or personally and obviously we will have to be free to see that competitors are coming up in the market. So, emotionally we have to be very strong because I really believe that entrepreneurship is not only just all the physical efforts that we put into a company, it’s a lot more about how emotionally we handle the entire situation, and to keep the person going. To achieve the goals we have to be very stable emotionally and we have to be sure that we have to reach where we want to”
“Many people go for jobs but I would suggest to go for entrepreneurship as by this they can create jobs for many others and change their lifestyle”
“There are plenty of people who come up with negative notions and advise us to take different paths, if we believe that we can do it, we should go on with it”
There are some stories that we hear that make us feel enjoyed and relaxed while listening. Likewise, there are some extraordinary stories too which are engraved in our hearts forever and those stories must be pass onto others, those stories must be told in a way that the words should motivate millions of them who still step their foot back thinking about the uncertainty and consequences that their
dreams can bring. Because It’s time, it’s time for them to know how much power their dreams hold,
those dreams which are stated as mere mad thoughts by others who don’t believe in themselves. Those ‘mad thoughts’ thinkers must know how unique their ideas are and that it’s time for them to dive deep in the ocean of their dreams, keeping in mind that the first time will be way harder to survive, to thrive between multiple hurdles coming up on their way especially when you don’t know how to swim but it will really get easier and interesting when one will constantly not give up and with time they will learn how to swim and survive in their ocean of dreams with goals, ambitions, hard work, passion and
dreams.
