In p>1982, 18-year-old Ma Yun failed the college entrance examination for the first time and went to school to make a living. He worked as a secretary, worked as a porter, and later delivered books to a magazine. By chance, Ma Yun came into contact with Lu Yao's masterpiece "Life" when he was helping the chairman of Zhejiang Dancers Association copy documents. This book quickly changed Ma Yun's thoughts. Ma Yun realized from the book that "the road of life is long, but the key points are often only a few steps", so he made up his mind to take the second college entrance examination.
In p>1983, 19-year-old Ma Yun still failed in the second college entrance examination, with a total difference of 14 points. However, inspired by the indomitable spirit of Volleyball Woman, he was prepared to take the third college entrance examination, because his family objected that he had to work during the day and attend night classes at night, but he was determined never to give up.
In p>1984, 2-year-old Ma Yun struggled to pass the college entrance examination for the third time. His score is a junior college score, which is 5 points short of the undergraduate line. Later, because Ma Yun was dissatisfied with the enrollment of his major, Ma Yun was transferred to the foreign language undergraduate major, and he stumbled and staggered into the undergraduate course of Hangzhou Normal University.
Ma Yun, 24, joined Hangzhou Dianzi University as an English teacher after graduating from university in p>1988.
During teaching at Hangzhou Dianzi University from p>1988 to 1995, I taught English part-time in an evening school in Hangzhou, and at the same time helped others with English translation. Resigned as a university teacher in 1995.
In p>1994, at the age of 3, Ma Yun started his business and founded the first professional translation agency-Haibo translation agency.
In p>1995, 31-year-old Ma Yun, who was "the best English in Hangzhou", was entrusted by Zhejiang Provincial Communications Department to go to the United States to demand a debt. As a result, the money didn't reach a point, but he found a "treasure house"-in Seattle, Ma Yun, who knew nothing about computers, went online for the first time. As soon as he learned to surf the Internet, he actually thought of making an online advertisement for his translation agency. At 1 am, he sent the advertisement online. Before 12 noon, he received six email from the United States, Germany and Japan, saying that this was the first webpage they had seen about China. Ma Yun realized at that time that the Internet was a gold mine. I began to imagine returning to China to set up a company specializing in the Internet. Ma Yun came up with the idea of collecting domestic enterprise information and publishing it online to the whole world. He immediately decided to cooperate with friends in Seattle, a world-first B2B e-commerce model, and thus began to have creativity. And named China Yellow Pages.
On the night of returning to China, Ma Yun made an appointment with 24 friends, who are also nominal students of his night school, to introduce them. As a result, 23 people objected, and only one said that they could try. Ma Yun thought for a night, but decided to do it the next morning, even if 24 people were against it.
"In fact, my biggest determination is not that I have great confidence in the Internet, but that I think that doing something, experience is success. You can make a breakthrough, but if you can't, you can turn around. But if you don't do it, it's just like thinking about thousands of roads at night and taking the original road in the morning." When Ma Yun mentioned it, he appreciated his courage rather than his vision.
In April p>1995, 31-year-old Ma Yun invested 7, yuan, and joined his sister, brother-in-law, parents and other relatives to raise 2, yuan to establish Haibo Network, which became one of the earliest Internet companies in China, and the product was China Yellow Pages.
In p>1996, 32-year-old Ma Yun struggled to promote his China Yellow Pages. In many cities without Internet, Ma Yun was always called a "liar", but Ma Yun remained as indomitable as a madman. He reminded himself every day: "The Internet is a 3,-meter long-distance race that will affect human life for the next 3 years. You must run as fast as a rabbit and as durable as a tortoise." Then go out and talk to people about the internet and convince customers. The business is so difficult to carry out. In 1996, the turnover was incredibly 7 million! That is, this year, the Internet gradually became popular.
in March, 1996, due to the disparity in strength of Hangzhou Telecom, Ma Yun finally had to cooperate with Hangzhou Telecom. Ma Yun's China Yellow Pages assets were converted into 6,, accounting for 3% of the shares, and Hangzhou Telecom invested RMB 1.4 million, accounting for 7% of the shares. Later, due to different business concepts, Ma Yun and Hangzhou Telecom parted ways, gave up their own China Yellow Pages, and gave all their 21% shares in China Yellow Pages to employees who started a business together.
This year was 1997, which was the first failure of Ma Yun's entrepreneurial career. Ma Yun was 33 years old.
In p>1997, after leaving China Yellow Pages, Ma Yun was invited by MOFTEC to join China International Electronic Commerce Center (EDI), a newly established company of MOFTEC, which was established and managed by Ma Yun, with 3% of the shares, and participated in the development of the official website of MOFTEC and the later online China commodity trading market. In this process, Ma Yun's btob idea gradually matured, "serving small and medium-sized enterprises with e-commerce". He even thought about the domain name of the website-Alibaba. The Internet is like an infinite treasure, waiting for people to explore, just like the cave that Alibaba opened with a spell.
In p>1999, 35-year-old Ma Yun was fed up with the constraints, stumbling and timidity of working in government enterprises. He refused the invitation from Sina and Yahoo and decided to start a business in Hangzhou. All the team members gave up other opportunities and decided to follow. This year in 1999, this is the second entrepreneurial failure of Ma Yun's life.
on January 15th, 1999, Ma Yun and his team quietly returned to the south.
in February, 1999, the first plenary meeting was held in the home of Jack Ma, a lakeside home in Hangzhou. Eighteen entrepreneurial members sat or stood around the impassioned Jack Ma with a solemn expression. Jack Ma quickly and crazily delivered a passionate speech, "Explore together in the dark, shout together, and you won't panic when I shout and rush forward. You are holding broadswords and rushing forward, and a dozen people are rushing forward. What is there to panic about? " At this "uprising" meeting, Ma Yun and his partner * * * raised 5, yuan. And according to the usual practice, the whole video was recorded. Ma Yun firmly believes that this will have great historical value. At this meeting, Ma Yun said, "What we want to do is an e-commerce company. We have three goals. First, we want to establish a company that has survived for 12 years; Second, we should establish an e-commerce company to serve small and medium-sized enterprises in China; Third, we should build the world's largest e-commerce company and rank among the top ten global websites. From this day on, Ma Yun began to make up his mind to do e-commerce.
Although there is only 5, venture capital, Ma Yun first spent $1, to buy Alibaba's domain name from a Canadian, and carefully registered alimama.com and alibaby.com. They didn't rent an office building, so they worked in Ma Yun's home. At most, there were 35 people sitting in a room. They spend 16-18 hours a day in Ma Yun's house, working like wild animals, designing and discussing web pages and ideas day and night, and lying on the floor when they are sleepy. Ma Yun kept encouraging employees. "When * * * rings, you can't have time to see how your opponent runs. You only have running all the way." He also warned employees that "the biggest failure is to give up, the biggest enemy is yourself, and the biggest opponent is time." Alababa was born in Ma Yun's home. Alibaba was officially launched in March, 1999, and gradually attracted the attention of the media and venture capitalists. After rejecting 38 investors who did not meet their own requirements, in August, 1999, Alibaba accepted the investment of $5 million mainly from Goldman Sachs Fund and $2 million from Softbank in the first quarter of 2, which turned out to be overwhelming. Until it became the world's largest online trade market and the first brand of global e-commerce, it gradually developed and became the Alibaba Empire for Alibaba Group.
It took Ma Yun five years to get in touch with the Internet in 1995 and Alibaba came out in 1999, and it took him two failures to achieve the first stage of success. From the mileage of Ma Yun's first stage of entrepreneurship, we can see such great qualities of Ma Yun.
1. Being unwilling to lag behind, never giving up, three college entrance examinations and two failures only encourage Ma Yun to persevere and must succeed.
2. Keen reaction, clear thinking, and good at discovering and grasping the law of network development. From
China Yellow Pages to Alibaba to Taobao to Alipay to Ali Mama, this point has been verified.
3. Be bold, cautious and indomitable. First, I resigned as one of the top ten teachers in Hangzhou, then
I left China Yellow Pages, which cooperated with Hangzhou Telecom, and China International Electronic Commerce Center (EDI), which cooperated with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. First, I was bold and indomitable, leaving no room for retreat, and second, I was cautious, although I had already brewed a bigger chess game in my heart.
4. Passionate and charming. Ma Yun has left the company that cooperated with Hangzhou Telecom and Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation < P >, and all his employees are willing to give up better conditions and follow Ma Yun to start a new business. The 18 people who started their business in that year still follow Ma Yun's development. Through personal charm and passion, Cai Chongxin, the Asian representative of an international venture capital company, can be attracted to give up his job and follow, and the venture capital invested by Softbank Masayoshi Son of 2 million US dollars can be settled in six minutes.
5. Believe in yourself and analyze rationally. Ma Yun has super confidence in himself. At the first meeting of Alibaba's entrepreneurship, Ma Yun predicted the future and asked for the whole process of photography as a historical witness. Many people say that Ma Yun is arrogant, but Ma Yun said that when he founded Haibo Network, he relied on courage and vision. In the early days of Alibaba's business, Ma Yun asked his partners to "invest with idle money and not borrow money, because there is a great possibility of failure". Ma Yun is crazy and confident, but I believe this is the result of his rational analysis. It is accidental for a person to succeed once, but Ma Yun's continuous development since Alibaba's entrepreneurial success in 1999, we can't say that Ma Yun is only bold and confident, which certainly includes wisdom and reason.
Ma Yun's success is not only because he started his business 1 years earlier than us! Maybe you think that Ma Yun is just in time, and you were born at a bad time. Maybe you think that Ma Yun is well-funded and you are penniless. Maybe you think that Ma Yun is lucky and you are unlucky, but don't forget that Ma Yun failed in the second college entrance examination, worked as a porter, pushed three rounds and worked as a peddler. Don't forget that at the beginning of Alibaba's business, 35 people were crowded into a room. Everyone had to raise funds to start a business, and Ma Yun had to borrow money to get paid. Don't forget that Ma Yun is 1.62 meters tall and weighs only in his early 1 s. At the beginning of the launch of China Yellow Pages, many people said that he was a liar. Ma Yun's entrepreneurial success is no accident, it is the crystallization of wisdom and courage, it is the result of confidence and hard work, and it is the seamless combination of leaders and teams.
What Ma Yun has given us is that Ma Yun said, "If Ma Yun can succeed, I believe 8% of the people in China can succeed." If you dare to think, dare to think, dare to say, dare to do and dare to be the best in the world like Ma Yun, then you may also realize your own Alibaba empire.