Reel-life success

When Sundeep Singh (Bobby) Bedi was 25, he was looking forward to retiring at 40.

Today, at 53, he shudders at the thought. “I dread leading a retired life. I am in love with my work,” says Bedi, managing director, Kaleidoscope Entertainment, a film production company.

It’s not difficult to see why he’s reluctant to hang up his boots. A success in a risky business, Bedi has been amply rewarded for choosing an off-beat profession.

He enjoys his entrepreneurial career so much that even failure only strengthened his resolve to take more risks. After a string of successful films - Bandit Queen, Fire, Saathiya, Maqbool - the box office disaster of The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey rattled him.

“But I was well covered,” says Bedi, who used this debacle to rework his strategy. In flamboyant style, he has set up a mega project to produce 10 films in the next three years.

Strangely, Bedi did not start his career thinking big. “In the 1970s, we were expected to join the civil services or become chartered accountants; there were not too many great jobs for a management graduate,” he says.

A graduate from Delhi’s St Stephen’s College, Bedi longed to start his own venture. However, his parents belonged to the generation that believed in the virtues of a steady job. So Bedi, who specialised in finance, began working as a sales executive with HCL Mumbai at the then princely salary of Rs 1,500 a month. That was in 1977; a year later, he moved to Philips India.

BOBBY BEDI, 52

Education: MBA (Finance), JBIMS, Mumbai

Last job: Manager, Sony

No. of years as employee: Seven

Age at starting business: 28 years

Initial investment: Rs 10,000

Source of fund: Savings

Company: Kaleidoscope Entertainment

Turnover: Rs 10 crore (in 2006-7)

No. of employees: 30

The entrepreneur in Bedi was getting restless. But he had just got married, had no savings to speak of, and his business idea had not evolved into a plan yet. “I quit Philips, took up a project with Sony and moved to Delhi,” he says.

The move back home meant that he saved on food and accommodation costs. It also meant that Bedi could salt away the bulk of his salary to build a cushion for when he quit.

The big question was what to do once he quit. During his stint at Philips and Sony, Bedi had realised that there was a niche but profitable market for making corporate films.

In December 1983, he took the plunge. He quit his job and set up his own company, BV Videographic. Leaving a steady job to start a video filming business was fraught with risks but Bedi was not looking for a safe ride; he was dreaming big. “I never sought the approval of my family members. I just went ahead with my plan,” adds Bedi.

The beginning of his entrepreneurial venture was hardly promising. His first film, for Escorts, was held up by the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. The silver lining was when advertising agency Lintas asked Bedi to create a two-minute film on peace and amity for national telecast.

After this, more work began coming his way. “I would engage students of Jamia Milia Islamia and freelance videographers. This made work very easy without draining me financially,” recalls Bedi.

The same year, Bedi also got his big break—a contract to create a cable TV network for a colony in Bareilly. This allowed him to close the year with a turnover of Rs 20 lakh. He also won the contract to install a CCTV network at the Delhi Race Course Club. This ensured his company a steady income; “We operated it till 1997,” says Bedi.

TIPS FOR ASPIRING START-UPS

FOLLOW YOUR BELIEFS: Don’t look for approval. If you are confident, just go ahead with your plan

BE ENTHUSIASTIC: If you have the energy, the show will go on ALWAYS LOOK FOR

OPPORTUNITIES: Don’t restrict your business horizon. Try out new ventures

PREPARE FOR LOSSES: Always create a buffer to absorb at least a part of the loss, if and when it happens

By 1996, Bedi had six employees, and that year entered the big league. He was asked to produce a film for Doordarshan, scripted by Arundhati Roy and directed by Pradeep Kishan. “I had no experience but I saw a wider business horizon,” says Bedi.

The film—In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones—was a producer’s dream. “Costs were minimal, as we filmed inside Delhi’s School of Planning and Architecture campus.

It was a readymade set, canteen at our disposal and hostels for the actors to stay in,” says Bedi. By 1989, he had hired 12 people and was into his second film production— The Electric Moon — which won accolades. After that it was smooth sailing. In 1991, one of UK’s premier television channels, Channel 4, asked him to produce Bandit Queen. “This is where I handled some real money, fought a court case and managed to emerge a winner,” he recalls.

The controversies and setbacks worked in his favour and he won the reputation of being a producer with guts. At around the same time, Bedi made his directorial debut, creating a documentary series on Raj Kapoor—Kehta Hai Joker— for Sony. “One needs to continuously look for expansion and innovation to succeed in business. The idea should be malleable,” says Bedi.

Documentaries for Doordarshan, corporate videos and commercial campaigns ensured a regular income. Critical acclaim was his after he produced Fire and Train to Pakistan. By 2002-3, Bedi was on a roll. He was considered a big-league producer, with two commercial hits that year—Saathiya and Maqbool.

That’s when disaster struck. The Rising , starring Aamir Khan, released in 2005, bombed at the box office. “It was quite a blow as I had never been in such a situation,” says Bedi. “I had spent about Rs 38 crore on production, advertising and film distribution.” Luckily for him, this did not mean a huge financial blow.

The movie had been viewed as a purely business venture, and Bedi had sought financing from banks— the one source film producers had never turned to. Exim Bank offered him a loan of Rs 8 crore at an effective interest rate of 5% per year. He had also roped in high-networth nonresident Indians as equity partners.

Bedi also has a finger in other pies, including running The School of Convergence, a media management institute. He now plans to repackage the Mahabharata in various formats—TV, film, animation, gaming and even a theme park. It’s an ambitious Rs 200-crore project for which he plans to take the public issue route. “We are clear we won’t put in more than 20% of the money in any project. In case it fails we can get up and continue to run,” he adds.

That’s Bobby Bedi—reaching for the stars with his feet firmly on the ground.