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How Alibaba's Jack Ma Became the Richest Man in China
Steve Tobak
English teacher and Internet entrepreneur Jack Ma founded
Alibaba 15 years ago
in his tiny apartment in Hanzhou, China. On Friday, Ma
became the richest man in China
on the heels of the biggest IPO in U.S. and possibly
world history.
With a market cap of $231 billion, the online retailer is
nearly as valuable as Wal-Mart
and bigger than Amazon and eBay combined.
And this is just the beginning. Alibaba plans to expand
aggressively in America and Europe
and has already invested nearly $1 billion in a host of
U.S.-based startups, including Uber,
Lyft, ShopRunner, Fanatics, Tango and Kabam.
Every current and aspiring entrepreneur and business
leader should learn from
how a Chinese English teacher turned a vision, a
group of friends
and $60,000 into untold riches and the world's most
valuable Internet commerce company.
It will no doubt be studied in business schools for
generations.
Start here, go
anywhere. Recognizing the importance of English, young Ma would ride
his bike
to a nearby hotel and guide foreigners around the city
just to learn and practice the language.
His passion for entrepreneurship in many ways
parallels Masayoshi Son who grew up poor, followed his dream to Silicon
Valley and graduated from U.C. Berkeley before founding Softbank. As
chairman of Softbank and Sprint, Son is now the richest man in Japan.
He had vision … and he had help. Ma saw the
Internet’s enormous potential to bridge businesses across China’s huge
population early on.
So he and his wife brought 17 friends together and pooled $60,000 to start the company.
That formed the
basis for the company’s dynamic partnership structure and unique culture
designed
to drive collaboration, diminish bureaucracy
and promote accountability for
long-term growth.
Go big or go home. Even
if crowdfunding existed when Alibaba was founded, I doubt if Ma
would have gone that route. He’s simply not a “dip your
toe in the water” kind of guy.
Instead he and his friends went all in, raising a $5
million angel round, $20 million from Softbank
in 2000, $1 billion from Yahoo five years later, and $1.6
billion from Silver Lake Partners
and DST Global in 2011. That’s how you make it big.
Big problems lead to big opportunities. China’s lack
of brick and mortar infrastructure
has always been an insurmountable hurdle for the enormous
nation’s small business merchants. Alibaba solved that and now accounts for 80%
of the country’s ecommerce –
a whopping $248 billion last year and more than twice
that of Amazon.
Innovation comes
from unique individuals who think and act differently.
Everyone talks about changing the world and making tons
of money these days,
but those who actually do it are exceptional individuals
with breakthrough ideas,
uncommon vision and a passion to do great work.
Disruptive innovation comes from people
who break from the status quo and carve their own path.
Stand on the
shoulders of giants ... but learn from their mistakes. Like Amazon and
eBay,
Alibaba is an Internet commerce company, but that’s where
the similarity ends.
Alibaba does not actually hold inventory or sell goods.
It’s a middleman that collects annual fees and commissions from larger
merchants and advertising fees from smaller ones.
The result is one of the most scalable and profitable
business models on Earth.
What’s in a name?
Less than you think. Apple. Facebook. Google. Microsoft. Uber.
One Kings Lane. Fanatics. Starbucks. Whole Foods. What do
the names and brands of all these companies have in common? Absolutely nothing.
Some are conjunctions or made-up words.
Others are common words or phrases. There’s even a fruit.
It’s what your business
does for customers that counts … not your name or
personal brand.
Jack Ma was sitting in a San Francisco coffee shop when
he thought of how Ali Baba
overheard the secret password of The 40 Thieves
-- “open sesame” -- and unlocked untold riches.
It resonated with his vision of unlocking the potential
of China’s small and midsized merchants. Now you know the secret of how he
accomplished his dream.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237692 September 23, 2014
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