Sound success

MY BIG IDEA

Bharat Mehta

Bharat Mehta, 36, stumbled into the hi-end audio business by chance. His 14-year-old business selling computer hardware and training youngsters in high technology had just gone bust and he was wondering what to do next.

One day someone asked him to service a hi-end audio editing system and that sparked an idea. Soon he learnt the ropes of editing and audio systems used in Bollywood and started IDS Audio Video Inc in 2001 to install and sell edit and audio systems for studios.

Today, his clientele includes most Mumbai film industry studios from Dev Anand's Anand Recording Studio to Empire Audio Centre (owned by the Nadiadwala family), Vidhu Vinod Chopra Productions, Sagar Entertainment and Prime Focus.

"I had a tough childhood. My father, a businessman, passed away when I was six. My mother, to support her four children, took up a teaching job at a school in Santacruz. With all the difficulties that we faced, money was never taken for granted. My mother had a clear ideology that once we had finished our education we were to be completely on our own and try to make a name for ourselves.

"When I was in college, a friend of mine joined a six-month computer course and I also decided to enroll. So I got my diploma in software programming from Computer Software Consultants while I was still in college. At the time computers were just coming into India and were part of the school curricula but schools were not equipped to handle the courses. I decided to teach computers to young students, and during the summer of my first year in college, I set up a teaching school in the garage of my building. The society charged a rent of Rs 800 a month and I bought a home computer for Rs 10,000 with a loan got with difficulty from a small finance company.

"Despite these primary obstacles, within 15 days I had 75 students. I even continued the classes after college re-opened and during that stint I must have made a little over Rs 25,000. In 1984, I set up another place in front of Talwalkar's (the health club) Santacruz branch, where I used to work out. But I had to shut the garage classes in 1985 due to the society and Talwalkar's also did not renew the arrangement after that summer.

"I started teaching at schools. Also, after my commerce graduation in 1986, an uncle suggested setting up a computer training institute. We started the Bajaj Institute of Computer Technology with four computers, two people and a part time lecturer. Simultaneously I finished a correspondence course in computer management and we started giving our own certification. The arrangement was that I would take a salary of Rs 2,500 a month and 15 per cent of the profits. But soon we started losing out to other start up institutes with better infrastructure. My uncle lost interest and four years later we parted ways.

"Next I started in the assembled computers trading business, and for a while business flourished. It was only in 1996 that things started going wrong. I lost money due to bad debts and faulty contacts. Someone told me that my Santacruz office was extremely unlucky for me so, desperate to turn things around, I shifted office to a suburb. I started dealing in computer storage products and took a credit limit from the bank to try and re-build my business.

"During that time a channel to which I sold a laser printer called me to check out a technical problem in one of their edit machines. I got hooked on to the editing and audio market. I taught myself edit systems like Avid, and soon I knew everything about the software. With my studio maintenance work, I was able to build a contact network, and soon I got my break, as they say in the industry, from the Nadiadwala family who were setting up a hi-end audio and edit studio.

"Although it took me a lot of time to win their confidence, slowly my name became synonymous with hi-end audio and edit set up. Today I have done more than a 100 installations in studios across the city, and I'm also planning to look at the rapidly growing hi-end car audio and home theatre markets."