Gong Haiyan: I've been trying to get married all my life.

This is a girl who came out of a poor rural family. This is a Hunan girl who has experienced ups and downs but never gives up easily. She was poor since childhood, but she was eager to learn and make progress. However, she was unfortunate. She dropped out of school because of a car accident and began to work to earn money.

She never gave up and returned to school for her dream three years later. At the age of 23, he was admitted to Peking University with the county liberal arts champion. After graduation, he was sent to Fudan University for postgraduate study. She started a dating website with 1000 yuan. After four years of wind and rain, the website is thriving, and she has also gained love on the website.

She is the CEO of Jiayuan, a serious dating website in China, and Gong Haiyan, the "little dragon girl" praised by netizens as "online matchmaker". What drove her to set up a dating network? What's the story behind the website?

At noon in mid-June, in an upscale office building in Chaoyang District, Beijing, the author was lucky enough to meet the legendary "online matchmaker". Gong Haiyan, dressed in casual clothes, fiddled with the computer and greeted him. This is a small office, a fax machine, a notebook computer, a bookshelf and some chairs. During the conversation, you will feel the perseverance in her eyes from time to time through your glasses.

Win the future with tenacity

"I sell popsicles every summer vacation to earn my tuition." A delicate girl, a wooden box full of popsicles, a girl who worked in the fields since childhood, didn't feel how hard it was to walk in the street with a wooden box on her back. In her opinion, she should share the difficulties at home.

1one day in August, 992, it was a happy day for Gong Haiyan. She was very diligent and got the notice of walk admission from the provincial key middle school, but something unexpected happened. Just after that summer vacation, an accident caused Gong Haiyan to break his right leg! Gong Haiyan was selling popsicles when the car accident happened.

For families in Gong Haiyan, it is a glorious thing for their children to be sent to provincial key middle schools, and it is also a rare opportunity for their future development. In desperation, Gong Haiyan's mother chose to give up farm work and take her daughter to school.

Gong Haiyan, who suffered a fracture, was not in general pain. Every day in class, she puts a small stool under the desk and puts her legs on it. Every day, her legs are swollen However, this is the case, and she still insists. "I don't feel bitter, but I am eager to study and look forward to going to high school." Gong Haiyan told the story calmly.

At the end of the first year of high school, Gong Haiyan won the second place in the grade. But she is not happy, because in her mind, the idea of whether she should continue to go to school has been entangled: "It costs money to treat diseases, and the economic conditions at home are not good, so my brother dropped out of school. At that time, there was a lot of pressure in all aspects, so I decided to drop out of school and go home. " Gong Haiyan, who had only studied for one year, chose to drop out of school and began to shoulder the burden of increasing family income with his tender shoulders. However, the admission notice of key middle schools and Gong Haiyan's short high school life of one year and two months were deeply imprinted in her mind.

Farming alone cannot change the family's economic situation. Gong Haiyan chose to borrow money to open a shop. In the first year, she earned more than 7,000 yuan and paid off all the debts of opening a shop for treating diseases. In the second year, the tide of migrant workers rose. /kloc-at the age of 0/8, Gong Haiyan chose to work in Zhuhai and became an assembly line welder.

Gong Haiyan's hidden dream is to "prepare for action". She decided to go back to Hunan to study when she learned that all her childhood friends had been admitted to universities and become "favored children". At this time, she is 20 years old, and the age line for college entrance examination stipulated by the state is 24 years old.

For the first time, among more than 60 students in the class, she passed more than 50, except Chinese. However, she did not give up. She gets up at five in the morning and goes to bed at twelve in the evening. Girls who have been out of school for three years have been admitted to the Chinese Department of Peking University with 1998 in July, and they are the top liberal arts students in the county. After graduating from undergraduate course in 2002, she was sent to the School of Journalism of Fudan University for postgraduate study.

Yours, mine, our marriage Gong Haiyan has been longing for a love of her own. However, during the graduate school, she found that many dating websites were full of vulgar requirements and contents, so she had the idea of "meeting by chance" and wanted to run a serious dating website. "I happen to be a media management major, and this is also an opportunity to practice my hand. Maybe I can meet my other half online." Gong Haiyan said that when she created such a website, it was really an unintentional interest, but she guessed the beginning, but not the end. The success of inadvertently inserting willows into the shade is the later "no turning back."

1000 yuan, a simple webpage made with Frontpage, and the website was established. Ask some single friends to send her the message, "Just like using Word, one by one. Here, put a photo in the upper right corner, then a personal profile, and then leave an email address. First she was a female master of Tongji Medical University, then a male doctor of Shanghai Jiaotong University ... "The website was opened.

800, 1000, 10000 ... the number of websites has increased geometrically, and word of mouth has also made the influence of websites more and more important. Gong Haiyan's love, also quietly came.

On February 17, 2004, just three days after Jiayuan's first meeting with netizens, she wrote a special letter on the Internet: "Neuron, a postdoctoral fellow of Chinese Academy of Sciences, is currently employed as an associate researcher of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Good health, height 173 cm, weight 73 kg, like bodybuilding. Mild personality, optimism, emphasis on spiritual pursuit, traditional virtues and family values. If you think we seem destined, you might as well write about it. I sincerely look forward to your fragrance! "

"After more than a month, he used a bicycle to carry me through the marriage registration, which only cost * * * 9 yuan. Our friends laughed at us because two old houses were on fire. " Gong Haiyan and smiling recalled that this time, Gong Haiyan, who robbed Yue Lao's job, also got Yue Lao's help.

The most romantic thing I can think of is to grow old with you. Open the "Jiayuan" homepage, and the eye-catching position in the upper right corner reads: 20,000 new members are registered every day, and 5.66 million members are registered, of which 6 1 0,000 people have found the other half here. As an online matchmaker, Gong Haiyan often revels in "holding hands with her lover" and letting others "grow old together". When asked what impressed her the most, she blurted out a couple from Singapore and Dalian. They met at Jiayuan and finally got married. When they got married, they made a special trip to thank Gong Haiyan. That simple "thank you" made Gong Haiyan feel more fulfilled.

"I feel that I am doing something that is very meaningful to society. Emotional affairs are one of the most important things in a person's life and should be conducive to social stability. " Gong Haiyan said with a smile. Behind this confident and optimistic woman's smile is her work 1.2 hours a day for seven consecutive days. It is the customer who ran over, the editing, the experience of hosting, and the strength and stubbornness that will cry even if you get the second place. "When you do things, you must do your best." After seeing Gong Haiyan's competitive spirit and dedication, who can say that success is not taken for granted?

I like the spinning leather rope.

For this website, I spent tens of thousands of dollars studying at Peking University as a tutor, and all my husband's money was invested. "I didn't graduate, and he wants to pay me back." Even if Gong Haiyan does find a job after graduation, he is not sure whether he will give up "Jiayuan".

Until March 2005, Gong Haiyan received an email from Lao Qian. Lao Qian is Qian Yongqiang, vice president of New Oriental. In his letter, he said that after a period of observation, he thought that "Jiayuan dating network" had a bright future and hoped that she could concentrate on doing this website well.

A few days later, Qian Yongqiang flew from Beijing to Shanghai. "We talked for an hour in Jinmao Building and didn't sign any agreement. After he returned to Beijing, he invested 2 million yuan on the website. "

With the arrival of funds, the prospect of cooperation is getting brighter and brighter: in June 2006, Jiayuan became the partner of Microsoft China MSN; In August, he became Tom's online partner; In September, he became a partner of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank; 1 1 month, was named as 10 new media in 2006; In April, 2007, he won the Airui New Economy Award.

Seeing these, it is not difficult to see the momentum of website development, but in the face of these, Gong Haiyan is very calm: we are still burning money. The Internet has never been a one-man show, and Gong Haiyan clearly knows that although they have made good achievements now, there is no room for relaxation in the days of "stopping before catching up".

On June 6, 2007, the banquet hall on the third floor of Beijing-Guangzhou Center was very lively. Gong Haiyan and her team held a press conference on jiayuan's successful financing and strategic cooperation with Sina. At the meeting, she announced several financing successes in one breath, started strategic cooperation, and Gong Haiyan, who holds nearly 100 million funds, was in high spirits. On this day, the surface temperature in Beijing was 47 degrees, and the Internet industry in China continued to be hot.

Gong Haiyan said that all that remains to be done is to expand the scale of the company and recruit employees. "There was no money before, and people couldn't come. It's different now. " But she and her team also have a headache. The website is still burning money. Although Gong Haiyan stressed that she has an ideal profit model in her mind, can it stand the test of the market? No one knows that the Internet market in China is full of false propositions and expectations to be proved.

From dropping out of school for 3,000 yuan in medical expenses to holding tens of millions now, this peasant woman who came out of Hunan has gone through a ups and downs road. She said that she was glad that she had not lost after taking so many detours, so she was very satisfied.

Xiangmeizi, who can bear hardships, has not bought a car yet and still lives in a rented house. She said that she had no special requirements for material life. She said she was easily satisfied. She also said that this is the best opportunity in her life and she must seize it.

She is used to running with her husband every morning. She said that she would use physical exhaustion to transfer mental stress, although there were scars on her broken leg. But this is Gong Haiyan. She is strong, confident and optimistic. She is a strong woman.

In Gong Haiyan's hometown, there is a story about a migrant girl who was admitted to Peking University. Guiyan, a dance adapted from this story, is still on, and adults are using her story to inspire future generations. Perhaps the adults in my hometown have greater expectations for Gong Haiyan. ...