Suuresh Ramachandran, Founder at Eye-Q Films

Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business?

Suuresh Ramachandran : There was never any great idea. My entire career is built on limitations. I was a mediocre copywriter not getting anywhere in advertising. So I quit. The only thing to do after advertising is Films. And I was desperate to come back to Mumbai from Hyderabad where I was then working. So that was the idea.

I recently read this book ‘Built to Last : Successful Habits of Visionary Companies’ by James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras. ‘Built to Last’ is an examination of 18 visionary companies and 18 other companies which are great too, but not as great as the visionary companies.

Quoting directly from ‘Built to Last’ by Collins and Porras:

Myth 1: It takes a great idea to start a great company.

Reality: Starting a company with a “great idea” might be a bad idea. Few of the visionary companies began life with a great idea. In fact, some began life without any specific idea and a few even life without any specific idea and a few even began with outright failures.

Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by Eye-Q Films

Suuresh Ramachandran :

Who we are and what we do.

✔VIDEO AGENCY: The widest range of Video services under one roof.

✔CORPORATE VIDEOS: Here I am Producer-Writer-Director. Our position is, 'When you want the world's best Corporate Video, we'd like you to think of us.'

✔TVCs and BRAND FILMS: We have award-winning Directors on our Panel, with myself as Creative Producer.

✔EVOLVING INTEGRATED MEDIA HOUSE: Production House, AR,VR, MR, In-film Branding, Sri Lakshmi TeleFilms, Eye-Q Films institute, Eye-Q Films MediCell, Eye-Q Rural, Eye-Q DigitaL, Eye-Q Events, Eye-Q PR, Eye-Q Music, Eye-Q Media, Eye-Q Raj, Eye-Q LRF - CSR

✔DIRECT RESPONSE COPYWRITING: Learning from the masters Claude Hopkins, John Caples, David Ogilvy, Joe Sugarman, Gary Halbert, Gary Bancivenga, Eugene Schwartz

✔IN THE MOULD OF THE BIG 5 STUDIOS, working in and from Hollywood, doing Films completely under our banner, with funding from Corporates in lieu of in-film branding.

Great Companies: What makes Eye-Q Films different from hundreds of other Media Houses?

Suuresh Ramachandran :

There are Media Houses much much bigger than ours. A number of those Media and Production Houses I admire very much. However, even we have a niche. For one, I am quite sure that we offer the largest range of creative video services under one roof. We will never ever tell a client, “This job is too small for us”. Further, in any industry, one can create a competitive advantage by superior turnaround times.

Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face?

Suuresh Ramachandran : Scaling up. Hiring.

Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Eye-Q Films?

Suuresh Ramachandran : We fancy ourselves in the mould of the Big 5 Studios - Universal Studios, Paramount, Warner Brothers Columbia Pictures, MGM, 20th Century Fox - working in and from Hollywood, doing Films completely under our banner, with funding from Corporates in lieu of in-film branding.

I've acquired a sense of content relative to budgets, or a sense of budgets relative to content. E.g. most films of Alfred Hitchcock, at today's costs, can be made inside Rs 20 lakhs or $30,000.

With Films | TV | Advertising | VR AR MR | Events under one roof, you can expect humongous activity at Eye-Q Films.

(Yes, there are 6 names in our list of Big 5 Studios. This is because the popular term is ‘Big 5’ and does not include MGM. For us, MGM is big too, so we include MGM in our list)

Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?

Suuresh Ramachandran : The most important career decision - in fact, I’d go so far as to say that this is not just the most important career decision, this is the possibly the most important life decision.

It’s as follows:

By the time you are 17 or 18, or at least 21-22 years of age, you must decide whether: You want a fixed regular monthly remuneration. Or You are comfortable with irregular income.

If you don’t take this decision properly, I fear and caution that you could keep going from one thing to another all your life. The big decision is not whether you want to be a lawyer, for example. The bigger decision is whether you want to be a Corporate lawyer or you want to do private practice.

1, 2, maximum 3 years are the make or break years after you come out of college, with whatever education you have taken. Wish you the best.