Stories of China entrepreneurs abroad

The entrepreneurial story of American Chinese selling shoes online

Universities began to do business.

Only 32-year-old Tony Hsieh is one of the founders of Zappos.com and the CEO of this online marketing giant. His father Xie Chuangang and his mother Li Xiaolin are both from Taiwan Province Province, China. In his early years, his parents moved to the United States from Taiwan Province Province, and later he gave birth to Tony Hsieh in Illinois. Jia Hua is the eldest of the three brothers. According to his father, Jia Hua has been quick-thinking and independent since he was a child.

Tony Hsieh had a happy childhood. He grew up in San Francisco and was admitted to Harvard University, majoring in computer science. /kloc-get a diploma at the age of 0/9. During his stay at Harvard, Jiahua not only won the computer competition, but also rented a dormitory and opened a pizza shop in his spare time. Although the business in the shop is average, he has accumulated his first business book.

At the age of 2/kloc-0, Jiahua gave up the opportunity to study for a PhD and went to work with her roommate Sheng Jie? Ma Dan joined a company as a programmer. This incident puzzled my friends very much, but Tony Hsieh thought he had a unique vision.

In fact, it didn't take long for Jiahua and Ma Dan to set up the online advertising company LinkExchange. This company has developed into a large company with 200 employees in just two years. 1998, LinkExchange was sold to Microsoft for $265 million. Thus, Tony Hsieh dug up the first bucket of gold.

I almost went bankrupt selling shoes.

1999, by chance, Tony Hsieh met the young Nick? Swaim。 Swaim put forward an idea that no one else had ever thought of: selling shoes online. Swaim said that there is a $40 billion retail market for footwear, of which 5%, or $2 billion, is mailed by reading the order list. At that moment, Tony Hsieh suddenly? Huadian? Yes

Therefore, Tony Hsieh injected $654.38 million into ShoeSite, an online footwear company of Swaim, the predecessor of Zappos. Six months later, the two started to run Zappos together. But Zappos could hardly sell anything at that time. They only spent one day discussing how to make a brand, and finally decided to provide the best service as the development direction. ? At that time, we thought about bankruptcy every day until we borrowed the maximum loan of 6 million dollars from Wells Fargo. ?

No one can imagine that an online shoe empire was born. In 2000, the performance of Zappos reached $654.38 +0.6 million; 8.6 million USD 2001; After that, it increased exponentially every year, and soon exceeded 30 million, 80 million and 654.38+0 billion. Nowadays, according to a survey by CNN, pos accounts for 1/5 of the $3 billion online footwear market. Last year, its performance exceeded $600 million and it had 4 million customers.

Return to deuex for free.

Tony Hsieh's most common sentence is:? I don't want to spend money on advertising, I'd rather spend money on improving customer service. ? Zappos pursuit? Wear shoes when they fit, and change them when they don't? Although it is not the first online store to provide free return and exchange service, Tony Hsieh regards this service as the magic weapon of Zappos deus ex: goods can be delivered to customers in one night; If you are not satisfied, you can enjoy a free return. To this end, the transportation fee of Zappos alone spent $6,543.8 billion last year. In fact, Zappos turned a profit only last year.

Tony Hsieh said this is a? Strategies for retaining long-term customers? . Statistics show that 60% of Zappos customers are repeat customers, and 25% of them are introduced by friends or family.

Buy yourself a pair of shoes every month.

In June 2004, the expanding Zappos decided to move to Las Vegas. ? Swaim and I started talking at lunch, then we made a decision. ? Tony Hsieh said easily. In fact, Tony Hsieh and Swaim often make important decisions within an hour or a day.

Customer service is the concept that Tony Hsieh has always pursued. After all, service quality is the foundation of Zappos.

Zappos has now added bags, gloves, sunglasses and other supplies, because he thinks there is more room for online marketing. In the field of shoes alone, he is confident to occupy the American market of110. Outside of business, he won't treat himself badly. He buys himself a new pair of shoes every month as a little contribution to Zappos.

China people's overseas entrepreneurship: low-key, tough and pragmatic success genes

20 1 1 Blue Book of Overseas Chinese found that most of the wealth of Chinese businessmen in the world is still concentrated in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, but the rise of the rich in China and the rise of China's high-tech enterprises in developed countries are changing the geographical and industrial distribution pattern of Chinese businessmen's wealth in the world.

Be good at seizing business opportunities

Statistics from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council show that there are about 45 million overseas Chinese in the world. From the early 1980s to the mid-1980s, the first generation of Chinese mainland students went abroad. After nearly 30 years of development, China people have accumulated considerable achievements in terms of quantity, occupational distribution and position level, among which there are many excellent entrepreneurs.

Compared with overseas Chinese businessmen in their early years, these China people with the best education have made a qualitative leap and difference in the fields and ways of starting their own businesses. They are obviously more knowledgeable and forward-looking than the' entrepreneurs' of that year, and of course they also have the characteristics of the first generation of entrepreneurs, low-key and pragmatic.

Professor Rao Zhimin from the Department of Economics of Huaqiao University, who participated in the writing of the Blue Book of Chinese Businessmen, told the reporter that these new generation entrepreneurs often invented high-quality products or new services when they started their businesses, or they had an exact understanding of the traditional products and services they would provide, and they were based on market-related knowledge. And what about the first few years after they plunged into a society with a relatively perfect and mature commercial system? Culture shock? After seizing the opportunity, I found and mastered the starting point and path of starting a career in the local area.

For example, when Zhu Jialiang first arrived in the United States, James Chu) 1987, he was penniless, but the brand he later founded was the largest independent monitor brand in the United States, with annual sales exceeding10 billion dollars. The Kingston Company founded by Sun Dawei and Du Jichuan has sales exceeding1600 million USD.

Entering the era of new network economy in the late 1990s, the legendary stories of China's scientific and technological circles have become more and more widely known, from the founding of CA(Computer Association) by the Hong Kong immigrant king, to his great future, and then to the founding of Yahoo.

Wang An, the founder of Wang An Computer, summed up the successful experience and said: It makes more sense than talents. The so-called common sense is to understand the national conditions of the United States and the market situation of the world computer industry, and rationality is to abide by the laws and principles of the development of market economy. ?

Persevere in multiple difficulties

Overseas Chinese entrepreneurs are regarded by Drucker as a new super economic power. It is not easy to start a business, and it is even harder to start a business in a foreign land because it requires a lot of social resources. One of the reasons for the difficulties of overseas Chinese entrepreneurs is that it is difficult to integrate into the local mainstream society. Zhu Min, the founder of Future Labs and WebEx, lived off campus when he first arrived in the United States. Even if he works, he is looking for a job that can get in touch with Americans more, so as to learn more about American culture and thinking.

The biggest uncertainty faced by entrepreneurs is how to obtain venture capital and maintain the survival of enterprises. Zhuang, a member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the State Council Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and a professor at Xiamen University, told reporters that in the early days, in the absence of support from modern banks and large credit organizations, China people mainly got support from relatives and friends. Huayuan Science and Technology Association, a professional association founded by famous Chinese in Silicon Valley, is also providing a platform for Silicon Valley startups to contact and communicate with venture capitalists and successful entrepreneurs, which undoubtedly increases the entrepreneurial opportunities of overseas Chinese in difficulty.