Making inroads into Tollywood

Hyderabad: Born into a middle class family in Vizag, K. Satish initially ‘freelanced’ in Bengaluru after he finished a degree in business management.

The initial days were all about advising real estate companies about how to sell their plots. But the firms soon started picking up on his advise and a few years later, Satish started DS Max in 2006 with just five employees.

Today though, the company is one of the largest in the property sector, employing nearly 8,000 people with a net worth of around Rs 2,000 crore. Satish’s real passion, however, lay in films.

And now that money was not a problem, he approached director S.V. Krishna Reddy to make a film. Now, Yamaleela 2, which also features senior actors Mohan Babu and Brahmanandam, besides Satish, is 80 per cent complete.

“Since childhood I had a passion for films. I would be fascinated whenever I saw the actors enjoy their luxury cars, costly phones, girlfriends and so many other luxuries of life,” says Satish, adding, “When I watched the action scenes and songs in films, I wanted to do the same. But my parents wanted me to study first, so I concentrated on my studies and completed my graduation.”

Satish knew that his celluloid dreams could not be fulfilled without backup or influence. He also did not want to risk someone else’s money and decided to enter the industry only after he had settled in life and had earned enough, which he has.

Before jumping in, Satish did some research and decided that S.V. Krishna Reddy would be the right person to have at the helm of affairs. “My parents and relatives would always watch S.V. Krishna Reddy’s films. He always made films with clean entertainment and most of them were hits,” he says.

And while the businessman in him is not ready to take a loss, he has aesthetics in mind too. “We don’t want to do a film just for the sake of business. We want to produce a clean and message-oriented film. It should be inspiring for others and the audience should feel happy when they watch our film,” says Satish, now a father of two.

His biggest challenge right now is to focus on his business and concentrate on acting at the same time. “It’s mentally and physically very challenging and it’s a big task for me. But with the help of SV Krishna Reddy and others, I have managed,” he says.

Satish feels that acting is much tougher than being an entrepreneur. “To do business is always a mind game. But acting is not like that; it needs a lot of physical strain and you also have to prepare mentally,” he says, adding, “I want to continue in the industry and make good films.”

The millionaire CEO is a down-to-earth person and shows respect to everybody on the sets and those working around him. Talking about acting with seniors like Mohan Babu and Brahmanandam in his very first film, he says, “It’s a good learning experience for me. They teach me about acting techniques. Though I am new to this industry, they treat me like their own family,” says Satish.