Chapter 2 Why Jack Ma founded Alibaba in 1999?

First of all, we will start with the establishment of Alibaba. Alibaba was founded in 1999. What kind of year was 1999 for the Chinese Internet? In May 1997, Ding Lei started NetEase; in April 1998, Zhang Chaoyang started Sohu; in October 1998, Wang Zhidong started Sina; in October 1998, Zhou Hongyi started 3721; in March 1999, Jack Ma started Alibaba; in November 1999 , Chen Tianqiao was Shanda; on November 11, 1999, Singles’ Day, Ma Huateng was Tencent; before Christmas in December 1999, Li Yanhong was Baidu.At present, almost all the most important bigwigs in China's Internet were born between the second quarter of 1998 and the fourth quarter of 1999. This is a great and glorious moment for China's Internet.

There are two very peculiar points in time in China's corporate world. The first one was in 1984.In the 1990s, some very important companies for China’s manufacturing industry, such as Lenovo, Haier, Vanke, Jianlibao, Nande, Kelon, etc., were all born in 1984, so in the history of Chinese companies, we put 1984 The first year of the year is called the first year of Chinese enterprises. The second great moment occurred in the field of the Internet, that is, between 1998 and 1999.The three heavenly kings of the portal era, that is, NetEase, Sohu and Sina, who are called the "old three kings", and the BATs that now rule China's Internet - Baidu, Ali and Tencent, were all born in March 1999. between December.So it's a particularly magical moment -- you can't miss these great moments.

Let's look at these entrepreneurs again.Ma Yun has three most important characteristics among these people. First, Jack Ma is the oldest.He was born in 1964, and among these people, only two were born in 1964, Ma Yun and Zhang Chaoyang, and Ma Yun was about 15 days older than Zhang Chaoyang.The others were basically born around 1970. Second, his education is the lowest.Many of these people are from famous international schools, such as Zhang Chaoyang studied at MIT (MIT), Li Yanhong also studied in the United States, Chen Tianqiao graduated from Fudan University in Shanghai, Zhou Hongyi graduated from Xi’an Jiaotong University with a master’s degree, and Ding Lei graduated from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. .These people have basically graduated from famous Chinese schools, or have studied abroad, and they all majored in electronic engineering and other fields.But what about Jack Ma?He graduated from Hangzhou Normal University, and he majored in English. Among this group of people, he is the one with the lowest education.

Third, the business he was engaged in was the most biased at that time. In 1999, there were two main business models in the Internet field: doing news portals and doing search.Ma Yun was the only e-commerce among these people, so everyone was not optimistic about him at the time, which is why we asked Ma Yun "how do you make money" when we were playing cards in 2000.This is the background when Jack Ma started his business. There is a photo of Ma Yun in the early days of his business. In 2000, Alibaba held a meeting in Hangzhou Lakeside Garden in the early days of its business.From the posture of Ma Yun in the photo, we can know why he liked to practice Taijiquan later. Ma Yun should have been an amateur Taijiquan back then.At that time, Ma Yun couldn't get along in Beijing, so he returned to Hangzhou. His home was in Lakeside Garden, which was located in a suburban junction in the west of Hangzhou at that time. In March 1999, Jack Ma founded Alibaba at home.There are a total of 17 people in the photo who started their business together with Jack Ma, and with Jack Ma himself, there are 18 people, which is often referred to as the "Eighteen Arhats" of Alibaba's entrepreneurship.

Ma Yun said two passages when he started his business, and later his "arhat" friends often said these two passages to the outside world. The first paragraph is his three visions for the future of Alibaba. The first vision, "Alibaba will become an e-commerce company serving Chinese SMEs in the future".After speaking this sentence, everyone applauded together, thinking that this vision is very good. The second vision, "Alibaba will become a company with a market value of 5 billion US dollars in the future."Afterwards, two of the "arhats" told me that when Ma Yun finished speaking, everyone's applause was much smaller.Because Ma Yun’s start-up capital is only 500,000 yuan, and the monthly salary he pays these people is 600 yuan—in 1999, my monthly salary was probably more than 3,000 yuan.They think that just because of us, with a salary of 600 yuan a month, a start-up capital of 500,000 yuan, and still working at home, how can we still be a company with a market value of 5 billion U.S. dollars?Wait until the Year of the Monkey!

When Ma Yun talked about the third vision, everyone began to applaud again—"We want to be a company that can survive for 102 years."—Anyway, everyone will not live to that day, so the applause is good. In fact, Jack Ma was already very vigilant about failure at that time.The 500,000 yuan of his entrepreneurial capital was not his own, but these 18 entrepreneurs - including his wife - put together together.Ma Yun is a major shareholder, but everyone has equity, so Alibaba was a fund-raising company from the beginning. Ma Yun said at the time: "All the money you take out must be idle money. First, you cannot borrow from relatives and friends; second, if this is your food money, then don't invest in it. Why? Because what we have The business we are doing is a very risky business, and the possibility of failure is very high. We must be prepared to accept the worst thing." But at the same time, he said: "Even if Tyson knocks me down, as long as I don't die, I will I will jump up and continue fighting." It can be seen that Jack Ma should have changed his name to Ma Xiaoqiang at that time, because his "Xiaoqiang spirit" is very strong.

This is a scene when Jack Ma started his business. Later, we can see that Jack Ma is actually very lucky. Although he is a typical entrepreneurial "dick", he is also a very, very lucky person. Table 1 Chronicle of Alibaba's early start-up events time story In early 1999, Jack Ma founded Alibaba with 500,000 yuan. At the end of 1999, Goldman Sachs invested 5 million US dollars in "Angel Fund" At the end of 1999, Masayoshi Son, President of Softbank of Japan, invested 20 million US dollars At the end of 1999, Ma Yun established an international headquarters in the United States

Established China headquarters in Shanghai in early 2000 In 2000, Ma Yun became the cover figure of Forbes magazine Table 1 is a timetable of Alibaba's early days. In March 1999, Alibaba was founded. By the end of 1999, Goldman Sachs invested 5 million US dollars in angel funds to Ma Yun. The person who introduced the funds at that time was called Cai Chongxin. Now he is still in Alibaba as CFO. He is the longest-staying outsider in the history of Alibaba.Almost at the same time, at the end of December 1999, Ma Yun went to Japan to participate in a forum.According to Ma Yun, it took him 6 minutes to convince Sun Zhengyi to invest 20 million US dollars in him.Sun Zhengyi was the biggest beneficiary in the global Internet field at that time. For a while, his assets surpassed that of Bill Gates, and he was the richest man in the world for about a week.In other words, Sun Zhengyi gave Ma Yun 20 million US dollars when he was the richest.The sum of the two funds is 25 million U.S. dollars-in the 10th month of entrepreneurship, Jack Ma had this money.

Once you have money, what should you do? At the end of 1999, Ma Yun established an international headquarters in the United States; in early 2000, he established a Chinese headquarters in Shanghai; in the middle of 2000, Ma Yun became the cover character of "Forbes" magazine, and he was the first among all Chinese entrepreneurs to be listed. On the cover of Forbes.Ma Yun became famous in one fell swoop by relying on this cover. On the cover of Forbes magazine in July 2000, Jack Ma was wearing a plaid shirt.A small anecdote is that, in fact, the clothes Ma Yun is wearing are borrowed.Because Jack Ma is so small, the American photographer said when taking pictures of him, you can't even fill the lens.then what should we do?At that time, there was a vice president standing beside him. He was quite tall, about 180 meters tall.The photographer said to him, take off your clothes and let Jack Ma wear them.Because the sleeves of this dress are very long, after Ma Yun put it on, it looked like water sleeves, so the photographer told Ma Yun, you roll up the sleeves.Therefore, it can be seen from the cover that Ma Yun rolled up his sleeves very high.However, with such a posture, Ma Yun became famous in the first battle. He gained a great reputation in the early days of "Diaosi"'s entrepreneurship.