Transcriber: Siddharth Gupta Reviewer: lisa thompson
Just to make it easier for you, she is Nishita, I’m Nikita,
and I hope because we are dressed very different,
I hope you will be able to differentiate between us throughout we speak.
And thank you so much for a very wonderful introduction for us.
It was very sweet the way you highlighted everything we’ve done.
So, I will just say a lot of these things
just fall into your kitty if you focus on your goods.
And I think that’s how it has happened for us as well
so far and so on.
So, ideally, you know, we believe India is a very job-dominated market.
And, you know, most of us choose to get into jobs
once you finish your school, your education.
In fact, we don’t just choose it.
We are somehow groomed in that direction.
Ever since you start your education,
the first thing you are told is you study well,
you get a good job, you have a good life.
Whenever we step out, we say, even if you don’t get a good job,
you start your company, you still have a very good life.
That’s something this generation has to keep in their mind,
that there are plenty of options when you get into your career options
and you have to choose something that suits you as a person.
So, when we got into this entire idea of, you know,
making batteries out of crop residue,
which is something that we call--is our innovation,
which is core to Nexus Power,
people would look at us with stunned faces.
The first question would be a question mark:
Crop residue, batteries for electric vehicles?
What sense does it make?
But if you get down to the particles
and the entire procedure of how it is made,
it actually is very fascinating.
Obviously, I won’t to say it here
because that’s what our company does and makes money out of,
so I don’t want to build a lot of competitors here,
but surely that journey has given us so much more
than the company, that entrepreneurship, as individuals,
the entire journey of learning how innovatively you can do things
has transformed our lives.
You know, and what I really believe is
I don’t want to make something that builds me, that makes me what I am.
I want to make something that builds the country, that builds my community,
which gives India a space under the global spotlight.
That is what the main target is.
And for that, you know, whatever we might choose as our pathway,
all our journeys are obviously always different.
(Nishita Baliarsingh): What I want to highlight here
is we’ve all heard about the story of the fern and the bamboo.
You know, you sow both the seeds together in the same soil.
The fern, in a couple of weeks’ time, it’s almost half-grown.
It’s that quick.
But the same time, you look at the bamboo:
you sow the seeds; for first one year, you keep watering it, nurturing it.
Nothing happens.
Second year, again, nothing happens.
You see absolutely nothing on the ground,
whereas the fern is now fully grown,
beautiful, almost blooming,
enhancing the beauty of the forest or wherever it’s planted.
Two years down, bamboo, you see nothing on the soil.
Three years gone. Four years gone. Nothing.
Fifth year, you finally see tiny stems shooting out,
and in six months’ time,
these tiny stems go touching the sky, 100 feet tall.
So, my point here
is that the fern might take a few weeks to reach where it wants to reach.
The bamboo took almost five and a half, six years.
So, the question is, what was bamboo doing
for those five years before it actually came out?
The fact is that the bamboo was actually strengthening its roots.
It was making itself strong enough
to go out and then reach that 100-feet height as soon as it can.
Now, similarly for us, with Nexus,
at the moment, we are literally strengthening our roots.
We are not on the market yet,
but what we are looking at is when we get into the market,
when we must launch our product and we’re ready to have the sales,
we will be able to create a 15x, maybe 20x impact on the environment
and the future of electric vehicles.
So that's the whole point.
The fact is that whether you are a fern or you are a bamboo,
that completely depends on you, on what you decide.
In competition to us, in the startup atmosphere today,
there are plenty of companies.
We’ve heard of companies becoming unicorns,
and by unicorns, what we mean
is a startup which has a one-billion-dollar valuation.
So, we’ve heard of startups become unicorns
in hardly four months’, six months’ time.
And then there are still companies who take their own time,
relax, take seven, eight years, like Nykaa.
We’ve all heard of Nykaa.
Nykaa took its own time comfortably to stand where it is today.
The founder of Nykaa is now the richest woman in India.
And their journey is very different.
My mentor at school, Shri Vijay Kumar Sahu,
always told us that you strive hard.
You know, what matters is the time and the patience.
So, whether you want to be the fern
and you want to grow up in a couple of weeks and bloom immediately
or you want to be the bamboo
and you want to wait, strengthen yourself, build yourself, learn,
understand how things move,
change your paths, pivot,
and build your company or whichever aspect you want to go
depends on where you want to really lead yourself to.
So, that’s typically what matters is the time, the patience
and the determination you have.
Now, imagine if you’re sowing the bamboo,
watering it for one year, seeing nothing happen,
keeping the patience to water for another year, but still see nothing happen,
and then you leave your determination to do it.
What do you think the bamboo would happen after that?
The bamboo would never really shoot out.
So, it is typically a space
where you are beginning your journey, but somehow leaving it midway
because you lack the motivation of taking it forward,
and the very reason is because you don’t see anything happening.
But what we don’t realize is what’s happening below the soil:
it’s strengthening its roots;
it’s going deeper and deeper to build itself.
Similarly, as a person, you know, when we choose our path,
when we look at being, say, an artist or dancer,
maybe a choreographer or maybe even a mentor or speaker
or somebody as a scientist
or somebody who is simply doing a job, or an IT professional --
the point is that we often hear an artist being told that,
Oh, you’re going to be the next Picasso or you’re going to be the next Einstein.
But what we don’t hear is,
I am going to be the next or the fresh new X, whatever my name is.
So if I build myself to be the fresh me,
which is being you, like Nikita being Nikita
Nishita being Nishita.
So, very simply, the identity that you create is very different.
So, that’s the whole idea of being a trailblazer or maybe a path maker
and leaving a trail behind you is to choose what you want to do yourself,
not by copying what is happening
or not by being the next Picasso or the Einstein,
but simply being what you are.
And that's the whole point of how things move,
and that’s how the fern and the bamboo they choose their own paths.
Now, if I would have asked the fern to be a bamboo
and stay below the soil for five years,
again, you would have never seen the fern shoot out
because that's not what it's meant for.
The fern comes out, the bamboo comes out.
They have their own time, and they take their own space to build.
What is also important here is how you nurture it.
If you overwater your plants,
automatically, they don’t really turn out the way they should.
But if everything is in the right metrics --
time, patience, hard work, determination --
then you’re sure to make an impact and build yourself as a path maker
who is leaving a trail behind for thousands of people to follow.
So, where I highlight the entire essence of choosing your own path --
you could be a fern or a bamboo, that completely depends on you --
but like our mentor said,
striving hard to achieve what you want to achieve is important.
Your time, your patience and your determination is really important
in what you want to achieve.
You take 5 years or 10 years or 15 years or even 6 months,
that completely depends on how you want to grow as an individual.
(Nikita Baliarsingh): Picking up from what she said,
watering the bamboo for five years or watering the fern for five years,
it is also important to know which of them needs five years of watering
until it shoots above the ground.
So, ideally, when you step into something,
specifically when we talk about startups or companies,
or if you want to be an entrepreneur,
you have to know what takes how much time.
It is also important to know when to stop doing something
or when is it too long to wait to achieve something.
There’s a very common saying that we have in the startup ecosystem,
which we say, Don’t be a bonsai for too long.
You cannot be a small company all your life.
If you are a startup, you have to grow,
and some day you have to be termed as a proper limited company.
A limited company is the one which has an IPO
and is listed on the stock market.
Ideally make sure that you are watering your bamboos, not ferns, for five years;
because if your fern is not growing in one year’s time,
you have to stop there and look for another seed
because it’s not going to give you any fruit; that’s important.
Talking about that as well, there are a few things that I believe worked for us,
hopefully will work for you guys as well.
When we talk about, you know, being a trailblazer
or carving footsteps on the road which is not taken,
we have put in a few things from our end,
which is creativity, curiosity, courage and confidence.
You have to be very confident in what you want to do,
and you have to be sure what you want to do is going to be right for you.
Having said that,
courage is probably one of the most important factors
that works towards taking your own path.
So, these days, actually, what India is looking for is a shared economy.
If you guys have heard of a shared economy,
it is simply multitasking.
So, I can still be an IT professional working a nine-to-five job
and also be a writer, also be a singer, maybe a musician.
So, what I’m doing is
I am contributing towards the growth of all these industries
by being just one individual.
So that saying of be a master of one is actually a yesteryear thought.
You have to now stand up
and try and master a lot more domains than just one.
Before we actually conclude
and, you know, before we end our entire discussion today,
I’d like to leave you with four learnings
that we have had in our journey as entrepreneurs so far,
and I’m sure they’re going to help you guys as well in whatever you do in life.
The first is do not celebrate too early.
Everything takes its own time.
Wait for the end result to reach you.
I have a very simple example here:
one of my friends who is also into a startup,
they’re looking for funding, investments for their company,
and, you know, they were almost closing their deals,
and one night before they had signed all the papers,
he called up everybody and he was very excited.
He said, I’m getting funded; I’m getting money for my company.
I’m getting investments from Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra’s firm.
And we were all excited.
We are partying around.
You got funded, and that’s amazing.
We finish our partying,
Next day in the morning, we received the news,
Raj Kundra has been arrested.
So, obviously, the papers were not signed until then.
None of them ever received his calls anymore.
So, all these celebrations was actually in vain
because the end result was not out yet.
So, I always believe, wait till you get the final conclusion.
Don’t celebrate too early.
Second, it is important to be curious in life,
and it is very important to keep challenging yourself.
Observe around you.
There are so many things that might raise a question in your minds.
If you have this curiosity that we have like children
to go ahead and question anything and everything that we see --
I remember as a child, I would even want to go and break the fire alarm glass
only to know what actually happens if I break the glass.
And that was in school.
So, this curiosity has to stay throughout your lives.
Because of this curiosity, you’ll be able to question things you see around you.
You will want to go ahead and practically experiment them.
And when you actually experiment, you’ll discover so many things.
So, we discovered our batteries and the technology behind it
because of this curiosity,
because of this understanding that we have to go ahead and experiment
and practically see what happens
and not just read the books
and not just follow the theoretical knowledge.
So, challenge yourselves because a ship in the harbor is safe,
but that is not what it is built for.
It has to go out and sail in the sea, however harsh the sea might be.
Third, entrepreneurship, for the matter of fact, and very specifically,
is not just about having the right team
or having enough money to start your venture
or having a very innovative kick-ass idea.
Entrepreneurship is so much more about the emotional strength
that the founders hold
because there are a lot of highs and a lot of lows,
but your emotional graph as a founder has to be linear.
If you celebrate too much at your highs and you're too depressed at your lows,
these little changes will impact your team in ways you won’t even be able to imagine.
So, to actually manage a company,
you have to be emotionally very, very stable.
And the last that I’d like to quote here
is something that our mentor used to tell us always,
which I will leave here telling you guys:
whatever you might choose to be in life,
whether you want to be a startup founder, you want to be an actor,
you want to be a writer, you want to be into a job,
you want to be, say, even, you know, making your own films --
whatever you might do in your life,
either be the best or different from the rest.
Nikita Baliarsingh: Thank you. (Nishita Baliarsingh): Thank you.