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How to recover MONEY from the Sambas and Gabbars of the Industry

By Ashwin Roy Choudhary on 18 Comments / 2493 views

I had an interesting recent episode of recovering payment from a client which I wish to share with folks in this forum.Its a REAL story

It’s a story with 3 leads –  Veer , Samba & Mogambo

Veer ran a business of supplying bullets. One day he met Samba in a Mela (Samba is very fond of Mela’s) who had a requirement of some bullets at very low cost.
Knowing Samba’s closeness to Gabbar (The BIG fish) and with an expectation of greater business Veer agreed.Veer excited about the new opportunity – worked hard, built the bullets and delivered it to Samba.On being asked for the money, Samba disappeared. Multiple pigeons were sent with reminder but none came back. All were killed and kidnapped.

There was a new Mela in town. Veer knew that Samba won’t miss this mela and this will be a good opportunity to catch and confront Samba.As expected, they met however the meet was unfruitful. Samba had his excuses for not paying and quickly left the place.
Fighting Samba was no option as it could further anger Samba leaving a minutest chance of recovering the payment and also a strong backup.

A few weeks passed by – with Veer still looking for a solution. Veer spread his story and misery the Mela.It attracted attention of Mogambo.Mogambo like Kalia boss Gabbar was a very powerful & influential. He was the chief organizer of the Mela and could not see poor Veers sorrow and offered help.

Mogambo send his white pigeon with his message to Samba asking him to pay Veer .Unlike Veer’s pigeons – THIS white pegion could not be ignored. Samba knew Mogambo influence could damage his image in the Melas .After a few gunshots in air , Samba agreed to pay to Veer.

Veer received his money in a week’s time

Some valuable lessons learnt

1) Choose your clients – As a start-up, we entrepreneurs adjust too much working for BIG names and agreeing to all their terms.
Choose your clients carefully, it’s a good practice to just call a few friends in the industry and check the background and payment history of the potential client.

2) Everyone has a weakness, know your client’s – In my case , since it was a company was invested by a celebrity – have a bad repute on Facebook/Social Media would hurt them profusely. I knew the only way to trigger response with FB.

3) If you are not powerful, get help from someone who is –  Here , I needed a bigger goonda .Since social media was my playgroud there couldn’t have be a better match than Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal.
Confession – Here I dint choose the Goonda, the Goonda was kind enough to  proactively help me.

Credits and Characters
Veer – Me (My real name is Ashwin)
Kalia – CEO of the Company
Mogambo – Alok Kejriwal
Gabbar – Owner of the Company (Rich and Influential celebrity in India)
Mela – Facebook
Bullets – Our product ( we make mobile apps )

** Photo Credit – Movies.ndtv.com ,Hindifilmnews.com

Thank You all ,
Ashwin Roy Choudhary , ashwin@bombil.com

** I have intentionally not named the company in this post.

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18 Comments

  1. G for goonda!!! G for gosh!!! G for god help us!

    ashwin…. i had to re-read this over and over again.

    as long as you and mogambo are khush… we are khush as well…!

  2. Hope you enjoyed it 🙂 Have a nice weekend

  3. Hi Ashwin,

    Mogambo Khush hua, wonderful post, a good message to all the start ups.

    Thank you for it.

  4. Hi Ashwin,

    Nicely put story. I am currently facing a similar dilemma. Perhaps I should contact you for advise.

  5. Ashwin, 

    interesting post.

    unfortunately, a lot of entrepreneurs in a bid to get more clients fast, sometimes undercut themselves and allow ppl like samba to exploit them. 

    not getting enamoured by how big your client is a valuable lesson for everyone running a business. 

  6. Good post Ashwin enjoyed reading it and gone through all this in my early days of business. I had experienced the similar situation in US in 2001 and got hold of Mogambo and recovered my money. lesson learned is -never be desperate for business. Na kahne ke jyada paise milte hain.(If you say no you get paid more and that too on your terms). This is tried and tested by me.

  7. Hi ashwin. Very nice read. The subject of your post is exactly what I do…Recovery.I send Expert Legal notices at an reasonable price so you don’t burn your pocket. But that is besides the point. I wanted to ask you and other readers. In such a scenario, where you must be careful about how you ask for your dues, lest you end up aggravating the whole situation, when would a startup consider a legal way? And WOULD a startup consider a legal way in the first place?

  8. Thank You Karan . I am glad you liked it

  9. Thanks Ratnakar – Sure . I can be reached at ashwin@bombil.com or 9769688838

  10. Yes – NOW that I have had a first hand experience , I will be VERY careful dealing with the Samba’s.

    Thanks for reading through and finding it interesting

  11. Sir – You should have shared your 2001 experience.I could have saved myself getting into it.

    A smart person learns from his experience , but a smarter person learns from others experience. 🙂

  12. I have lawyers and solicitor’s in my family and was a free option for me.However I feel ANY legal action is time consuming.For a Start-up TIME is LITERALLY MONEY which is why I never considered a litigation.

    Thanks Sarvesh for reading through

  13. Ashwin you are right but those days Rodinhood didn’t exist. I will list as advisor on Rodinhood as I have 35 years of business experience in various fields business and nonbusiness. You are more than welcome to contact me with any issue and I will be very glad to help. And I agree that a “smarter person learns from others experience”

  14. Happy to help – call me on 98200 82558

  15. I would not suggest a lawyer. I would suggest getting some well known entrepreneurs to intervene

  16. Ashwin, Don’t forget Twitter. It’s as good as FB when you need your client / service provider to respond you. I have used Twitter 2-3 times in getting my service providers respond to my support requests, which otherwise were not getting any responses.

  17. Good Story Writing Ashwin  
    Liked the Credits and Characters 😀
    Hail Mogambo !! – Should Expect more requests for Pigeons flying out of the Mogambo Side after this Post 😛

  18. Forget CSR and philanthropy – Alok has gone a step further and helped. I am just in awe of this man now.

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