How did Ma Yun find 18 entrepreneurs?

1992 is a very important year in the commercial history of China. At the beginning of this year, Deng Xiaoping's southern tour speech rekindled China people's hopes for reform and opening up. Encouraged by Deng Xiaoping's speech on his southern tour, many people started their own businesses. Later, Chen Dongsheng, the founder of Taikang Life Insurance, coined a word: "92 School" to describe entrepreneurs who started their businesses after 1992.

In addition to Chen Dongsheng, Guo Guangchang, a teacher at Fudan University, registered the company with several of his classmates. Hu Baosen, a civil servant in Henan Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Department, resigned and started a company called Jianye. In the second year, Feng Lun, Pan Shiyi, Wang Gongquan and other six gentlemen founded Wantong; So he became a successful English training teacher, but he founded New Oriental in 1993. Many of them later became friends of Ma Yun.

However, the most famous businessman in China that year was Mou. 1In August, 992, he bought four planes from Russia with several cans of railway wagons and landed at Chengdu Shuangliu Airport, which immediately caused a sensation throughout the country. The eyes of the media were attracted by him.

No one in the world knows a college English teacher named Ma Yun.

1988, 24-year-old Ma Yun graduated from Hangzhou Normal University and was assigned to teach at Hangzhou Institute of Electronic Technology. Ma Yun is famous for his activity in school. In order to prevent Ma Yun from having other ideas, Huang, vice president of Hangzhou Normal University, signed a "five-year contract" with Ma Yun at that time and could not resign from that school for five years.

When teaching at Hangzhou Institute of Electronic Technology, Ma Yun was a lecturer in English and international trade. At the same time, he started an "English corner" near the West Lake, and gradually gained some fame in the translation field. At that time, with the rapid development of the national economy, the number of private enterprises engaged in foreign trade business in Hangzhou gradually increased, and the demand for translation services was also growing. So many bosses asked him to be an English translator. But at that time, he could only work part-time because his "five-year contract" with the old headmaster had not expired.

1992, Ma Yun, who was still teaching at the university, and his colleagues founded Haibo translation agency. This is the first professional translation agency in Hangzhou. Haibo takes the homonym of English "hope", which means "hope". At that time, the translation company was a small shop with only five employees. Ma Yun and his colleagues raised 3000 yuan and rented a house. The rent is per month 1500 yuan. The registered capital of the translation agency is 3000 yuan. The initial stage of the venture was not smooth, and the turnover in the first month was less than that in 600 yuan. Translation agency's employees were shaken by the situation of living beyond their means, but Ma Yun firmly believed that translation agency could go on.

At the same time, he must find a new source of income. Later, it was found that selling flowers and gifts could make money, so Ma Yun took a sack on his back and took the train to Yiwu for wholesale purchase. After that, he divided his office into two parts, one selling flowers and gifts and the other making translation agency. Moreover, Ma Yun often carries big sacks full of small handicrafts and sells them on the streets of Hangzhou. Ma Yun even worked as a drug and medical device salesman for more than a year. Ma Yun used the income from these small businesses to maintain the operation of translation agency.

A new problem has arisen. Since selling gifts can earn three or four thousand yuan a month, translation agency can only earn five or six hundred yuan. Why does he continue to be translation agency? Ma Yun's colleague suggested that only a gift shop and a gift company should be set up in the future, but Ma Yun refused. He stated his point of view: Was the purpose of establishing translation agency to meet the market demand, solve the problem of teachers, or to make money? Since it is for the former, we must stick to it, and when we get through it, the light will come.

1995, after three years of losses, Haibo Translation Agency began to make profits. At this time, the five-year contract has expired, and Ma Yun submitted his resignation to the school. After his resignation, Ma Yun ran full-time in translation agency for some time. After translation agency made a profit, he gradually got on the right track, so Ma Yun asked his colleagues to take care of it and stopped asking about translation agency's specific matters. He began to look for new business opportunities. Today, Haibo translation agency, as Ma Yun wishes, has become the largest translation agency in Hangzhou. Many years later, Ma Yun talked about this entrepreneurial experience lightly: "I felt that there would be demand at that time and it should be successful."

Ma Yun 15 Chuangye Road from Hangzhou to new york

On September 19, 2065438+April, new york, USA, Ma Yun and his team waited in front of the NYSE early. This time, he wore a suit and tie with a smile on his face. Obviously, he made careful preparations for this day. On the way from the hotel to the exchange, he was welcomed like a local famous Broadway star. Among these people, there is a "mixed formation" composed of hundreds of media brought from China by the United States and Alibaba Group, and there are also Wall Street investors who are optimistic about this "IPO feast".

The news of Alibaba's listing was rehearsed like a soap opera for a whole year, from Hong Kong to the United States, until this moment, the dust finally settled.

Entrepreneur ma yun

Ma Yun, 50, and his company Alibaba are undoubtedly one of the most inspiring stories in China. This company, founded in Hangzhou by Ma Yun and his 17 partner 1999, has now become the largest internet and e-commerce company in the world, covering e-commerce, financial management, film and television entertainment, cloud computing and other businesses.

The reason why people pay so much attention to this company is largely because they are inspired by the spirit of Ma Yun. In a country where state-owned enterprises occupy the commanding heights of the economy, Alibaba, a private enterprise, has avoided the edge of state-owned enterprises and achieved worldwide success in the fields of Internet and e-commerce.

After the IPO, Ma Yun told the American Consumer News and Business Channel reporter who interviewed him that he had watched Forrest Gump for more than ten times, and his hero was Forrest Gump. Before I came to new york this time, I watched it again and told myself: "No matter how I change, I am still myself."

15 years, Ma Yun changed from a teacher to a real entrepreneur.

1988, Ma Yun's first job was as a foreign language teacher in Hangzhou Institute of Electronic Technology, and his monthly salary was almost 100 yuan. Unwilling to be lonely, he found many part-time jobs and used his spare time as a tour guide for foreign tourists visiting Hangzhou. The first English corner by the West Lake was initiated by Ma Yun.

1992, Ma Yun and his friends set up "Haibo translation agency" and engaged in translation business after school. However, business is still difficult. The monthly turnover is more than 200 yuan, but the rent is 700 yuan, which can be said to make ends meet. Jack Ma, who really couldn't carry on, had to carry his pocket to Yiwu and Guangzhou to buy goods, sell gifts and wrap flowers. He used the money to support translation agency for three years before he began to make ends meet.

From 65438 to 0995, Ma Yun was employed by a China company that contracted construction projects with American businessmen to collect accounts for him in the United States. According to Sun Yanjun's later description in The Myth of Alibaba, this experience can be described as a narrow escape.

At that time, Ma Yun was kept in the villa for two days by American businessman Philip Cavenna, who wanted to default. Finally, he escaped from detention and even lost his carry-on luggage. In Seattle, he met a fresh online world, which was his first contact with the Internet.

Later, Ma Yun recalled that he didn't even dare to touch the computer keyboard. Who knows how much this thing costs? If it's broken, you can't afford it. What moved him most was that he curiously told his friends that he entered the word "beer" in the search engine and only found American and German brands. At that time, he wanted to use the Internet to familiarize the world with companies in China. "Top Ten Outstanding Young Teachers in Hangzhou" resigned after returning to China and borrowed money to set up "China Yellow Pages", which is one of the earliest Internet companies in China.

1At the end of 1997, Ma Yun and his team developed a series of government websites in Beijing, such as the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and the online China Commodity Exchange Market.

From 65438 to 0999, Ma Yun, who suffered many setbacks, gave up his business in Beijing and decided to go back to Hangzhou to establish an e-commerce website that could serve small and medium-sized enterprises around the world.

In the lakeside garden community in Hangzhou, he and the later famous "Eighteen Arhats of Alibaba" raised 500,000 yuan to start a business on the premise of "not borrowing money from relatives and friends". These include Ma Yun's wife, his colleagues and students when he was a teacher, friends in need, and of course, the elites in the industry attracted by his personality charm.

In July 2003, Alibaba launched Taobao. The following year, Alipay, an online transaction payment tool, was launched.

Ali Ecology and China

Since the beginning of this year, Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Alibaba's board of directors, has been received by Premier China for many times. Together with his company, he is called the representative of private economy in China by the government.

Thanks to China's economic growth and demographic dividend, Alibaba is now a huge "ecosystem".

Alibaba's listing prospectus shows that in the fiscal year 20 14, the total amount of merchandise transactions completed on its platform reached 1.68 trillion yuan, exceeding the sum of Amazon and Yi Bei, the second and third largest e-commerce platforms in the world. The number of active buyers was 255 million, with revenue of 52.504 billion yuan, profit of 23.4 billion yuan and net profit rate of 44.57%.

Investors' confidence in Alibaba and Jack Ma comes from their optimism about China's rapid economic growth. Among all Internet companies, Alibaba has the closest connection with China's real economy. In China, where foreign trade transformation, retail reform, lack of credit and backward basic logistics, every reform is a new high growth point. In the eyes of investors, Ali's business model depends on China's unique "ecosystem", and the company and the country are inseparable.

At the dinner that day, Ma Yun told hundreds of China reporters who came to new york to witness Ali's listing that he would not take all the funds raised overseas back to China Flower, but would actively expand overseas markets and extend Ali's ecosystem to foreign countries.

Yao Yang, president of the National Development Research Institute of Peking University, believes that Alibaba's greatest value lies not in how many online transactions it has achieved and how many users it has, but in its great social value, including solving millions of social jobs, promoting the upgrading of traditional industries and realizing various forms of e-commerce services. Alibaba well interprets the meaning of "social enterprise".

In the eyes of Walter Frick, deputy editor of Harvard Business Review, Alibaba is not only like Facebok, Google or Amazon, but also operates like a century-old giant General Electric. Covering e-commerce, payment, communication, enterprise software, entertainment and many other fields, Alibaba is more like an enterprise group ecology.

Julie Woolf, a professor at Harvard Business School who has studied the global Internet business model for many years, said that there is a dynamic balance between competition and cooperation among Alibaba Group's businesses, and the distributed decision-making of each business department coexists with the overall decision-making of the whole group. This kind of enterprise group ecology is rare in the west, but it is not surprising that it has achieved great success in China. What Ali wants to build is an Internet ecosystem similar to Apple or Google, and e-commerce is just the beginning.

Alibaba's listing will obviously have a significant impact on the domestic Internet structure, China's economy and even the global economy. At present, AliExpress, owned by Ali, has become the largest e-commerce website in Russia; In June this year, Ali also launched the shopping website "11main" in the United States; In Europe, Ali's layout has also penetrated into various countries in the European Union.

The Wall Street Journal recently commented that although Silicon Valley companies dominate the global Internet, after Alibaba's listing, four of the 10 Internet companies with the highest market value in the world will come from Asia, and the balance of the Internet landscape will begin to tilt towards Asia.

Ma Yun and Hangzhou

Beijing, Shanghai, Hongkong and new york all left Ma Yun's entrepreneurial footprint, but only Hangzhou is the base camp of Alibaba and Ma Yun. The first time after listing, Ma Yun announced that there was no immigration plan when answering media questions.

In the air, the lights set each other off; The reflection in the water is swaying, and beautiful music comes from time to time on the waterfront side. The Leifeng Tower not far away is full of colors and light makeup. This is Hangzhou. Since the establishment of Alibaba, almost every online business conference has been held in Hangzhou. When talking about "reasons for loving Hangzhou", Ma Yun said: "Hangzhou supported me and helped Alibaba through the most difficult period. Alibaba will always be Alibaba in Hangzhou. "

Born and raised in Zhejiang, Ma Yun has always been proud of being a Zhejiang businessman. He took Hu Xueyan, the representative of Zhejiang businessmen, as an example and injected "forbearance" and "sincerity" into Ali's blood.

Ma Yun said that what moved him most was when he started his business in his early years. "1995, I came out from the university to start a business. I have a dream of my own, and I have always wanted to fight for it for so many years. Most of the successful entrepreneurs in the 1970s and 1980s were connected or courageous. Many people who did business in the 1980s and 1990s, I think they relied on funds and relationships. If after the 1990s, 265438+. China enterprises have no chance and no hope if they don't win by wisdom, hard work and diligence. I hope there is a media that creates wealth with wisdom through the Internet. "

The scene of starting a business in Beijing from 65438 to 0997 was recorded by CCTV Oriental Time and Space. In the film, Ma Yun sat wearily on the bus in Beijing, looked at the street lamp outside the window, looked dignified, and murmured, "In a few years, Beijing won't do this to me. In a few years, you all have to know what I do, and I won't be so down and out in Beijing. " But he finally left Beijing and returned to his hometown of Hangzhou.

A few years later, in another TV program of Hangzhou TV Station, Ma Yun was full of energy and no longer hesitated. Since then, Ma Yun has become the "godfather of e-commerce in China", interviewed by the media and worshipped by countless entrepreneurs, and his words and deeds have become successful "cheats". Now, whether in Beijing or Hangzhou, everyone knows what Ma Yun does.

In Hangzhou, after 15 years of rapid development, Alibaba has nearly 20,000 employees. With this listing in the United States, these employees of Hangzhou "Taobao City" will also reap huge wealth. According to "265438+20th Century Business Herald", Alibaba's IPO will bring about $4138.5 billion in wealth to employees, and the per capita wealth will increase by $2.069 million, which will create tens of thousands of millionaires.

At this point, Ma Yun's net worth reached $21800 million, making him the richest man in China. Back in Hangzhou, he finally realized his dream of starting a business. Outside Taobao, vagrancy and excitement continue.