Life is always full of surprises in Avantika especially on Fridays. We had an exuberant guest who had bounteous amounts of experience in areas of start-ups and the rapidly growing industry of 3D Printing. This dynamic guest was Nikhil Furtado.

Nikhil Furtado is a mechanical engineer by profession, born and brought up in Mysore. He is a serial entrepreneur having founded his first company, ‘Hidden Reflections’, a design and marketing agency at the age of 18. Amid the success of his first venture, Nikhil Co-founded Gotee Apparel and went on to start-up ‘iPrint3D’ in 2014, developing their own low-cost 3D printers. He went on to be one of the 6 finalists in NDTV’s ‘Quest for The Next Big Online Business Idea’ and was also one of the Top 5 Student Start-ups in India at TATA First Dot. Hidden Reflections is now a part of Merako Media Pvt. Ltd.; a media and marketing company with a number of verticals serving clients across the world.

Nikhil was a self-taught Designer, Developer and Marketer. He has consulted several start-ups & continues to do so. His passion for helping entrepreneurs and growing businesses is unmatched, and he regularly interacts with students to inspire them to start up like him.

An ardent follower of Steve Jobs, Nikhil started from Kwality Walls. But just being an engineer never satisfied his palate. He always dreamt of doing something more. Something with an edge. So, he started exploring photoshop and playing around with it. We even got to see his first ever photoshop project which was the point of realization that, “oh! We were too at this point just a while back”. Who knows what lies ahead for us too? Inspirational enough. His first ever venture into the business world was with his start-up ‘Hidden Reflections’, wherein he designed T-shirts for his friends. He took it off from there and went on to do the same in 50+ colleges for over 10000+ students.

After that, he started building his own 3D Printers after he analyzed the market and how rapidly it was changing its pace. He created a 3D printer within his next business venture that was ‘iPrint3D’ for which he came in 6 th for NDTV’s Quest for next big online business idea. A truly admirable thing to say the least. But first things always have a special place in heart, so he returned to focus more on Hidden Reflections. He took things in his own hands and started putting in more effort and now Hidden Reflections is a part of Merako Media Pvt. Ltd. which is a huge branding company. And this was done in a short span of time. With just his sheer willpower and determination to change something for the world.

He went on to tell us his trade secrets on what made him successful. It was simple. Purpose. Passion. Profit. So basically, you convert your passion into profit with a purpose which connects you altogether on a different level. And it all starts with finding your passion first. After that, comes building your customer base; the crux of all business ventures because they decide whether you reach to the top or not. Finding the first four customers is the trick basically. It can be your friends, family, foes or fools. Literally fools who’ll buy anything from you and that is achieved by great service. Building your USP is equally important, for that differentiates you and your product from the rest.

Now this was just the first part of the session. The second one commenced on the next day 9^th March, 2019. And it was the best part of the 2-days for we were finally getting hands-on action with 3D Printer. We all got to see what it actually does and how it works. With 2 full-fledged models being made in front of our eyes, it was hypnotizing to say in the least. The way the rods moved, and the printing process occurred…mezmerizing. We were taught how and what materials were used in the process (PLA or Poly Lactic Acid to be exact) and how it was revolutionizing the world. How it was changing the face of medical sector with artificial organs being 3D-printed and saving lives. The most interesting one for me had to be the one wherein in some part of Africa, some housing company 3D-printed a whole HOUSE. That’s right. A whole house. In one day. And we all just gaped in awe. Which was what this whole session was about. An awe-inspiring session as always with something great in store.