“We need to get used to rejection. We’re not that good. Even today we are rejected.” The owner of these words is the famous businessman Jack Ma. Jack Ma, China’s richest businessman, ranks 63th on Forbes’ billionaires list. This businessman is pointed out as a symbol of perseverance. Jack Ma has been showing the city to tourists who come to his city, to learn English for more than 8 years, doing this job without receiving any fees. Little Jack realized at an early age that knowing English would open different doors for him, and now he is the founder of one of the world’s largest e-commerce platforms. In this article, we shared with our readers Jack Ma, who played a key role in the development of e-commerce in China.
Where is Jack Ma from?
Jack Ma was born under the name Yun Ma in 1964 in the city of Hangzhou, located in southeastern China. Ma had an older brother and a younger sister. When he was only 12 years old, little Ma became fascinated with English and would ride his bike to the Hangzhou International Hotel, 27 kilometers away from his home, just to learn English. Ma introduced the city to the tourists coming to this hotel. He would both guide them and practice his English. It’s hard to believe, but for 9 years, little Ma was traveling 27 kilometers away from his home to a hotel, without any fee, just to speak English. Additionally, contrary to popular belief, Jack is not the real name of this famous businessman. A tourist he met while showing him around the city gave him the nickname Jack, and everyone has known him as Jack ever since.
Monument of Persistence
While he was still young, Jack Ma failed the primary school exams twice and the secondary school exams three times. Then, Jack failed the exam at the university in his city twice, then he managed to enter the English Language Teaching department for the third time. As every student would want during his university years, Jack Ma starts looking for a job. Exactly 4 people were accepted for the position he applied to become a police officer, but he was the only person who was rejected. When KFC, the fast-food chain whose name is known to almost everyone, wanted to open its first branch in China, Jack Ma was one of the 25 people who applied for a job. However, Ma’s luck is not good here either, and he is the only person rejected at KFC, where 24 people were accepted. In addition. Jack Ma applied to Harvard University 10 times throughout his life. As you can think, Ma also receives a rejection response from these applications.
Time to Open Up to the World
Jack Ma guided tourists for more than 9 years, and also he had another hobby. His English level continued to improve and he made pen pals from several countries. Jack Ma, who was a pen pal with an Australian family, visited Australia upon the invitation of this family. This visit sufficiently developed his interest and sensitivity to the outside world. Jack graduated from Hangzhou University as an English teacher. Jack Ma worked as a translator for some Chinese companies as well as teaching English in local schools, he set foot in the United States in 1995. This visit is Jack Ma’s first visit to America and he goes to Seattle, Washington state. A friend shows him how the internet works, but Jack Ma cannot understand what he is saying at first. His friend invites him to search on the internet, and Jack Ma first searches for “beer”. Although beer companies from many countries come up in these searches, he cannot see any companies from China in the searches. After searching for beer, he also searches for “China” but still finds nothing. He turned to his friends and said, “Why don’t we do something on the internet in China?” he asked. As soon as Jack Ma returned to China, he started his first project on the Internet and opened a website for an English translation agency. With the positive reactions he receives from those around him, he understands better that he needs to progress in this business.
Jack Ma’s first enterprise was not the Alibaba company. After learning what the internet was for during his visit to America in 1995, he designed a website together with He Yibing, a computer teacher in China. The general purpose of this website was to publish information about Chinese companies. This website, which Jack Ma described as very ugly, earned these two partners a total of 800 thousand dollars. While doing all this, he didn’t code a line of code and Jack Ma did not even own a computer. Ma bought his first computer in 1997. Throughout his career, Ma brought together the right people for the right purposes and enabled them to move forward with a vision structure appropriate to the requirements of the age we live in.
How was Alibaba Established?
Jack Ma, who realized that the internet is a global service during his trip to America, thinks that he needs to find a global name. While eating at a restaurant in San Francisco, he asks the waitress about the name Alibaba, which came to his mind before. “Do you know the name Alibaba?” The girl said, “Of course, I know. “Open sesame.” he replies. Thereupon, Jack Ma got excited and asked the 20 people he saw on the road what Alibaba meant, and when he saw that they all knew about Ali Baba and the 40 thieves, he realized that that special name must be Alibaba. According to Jack Ma, who found the right name for his company in this way, another reason why Alibaba was a suitable name was that this name starts with A, and no matter who is looking for what, they will be at the top.
Jack Ma founded Alibaba in April 1999 with 17 of his friends with a capital of 60 thousand dollars. The general purpose of this company was to sell products produced in China both in the domestic and foreign markets. Contrary to expectations, Alibaba company did not make any money in the first 3 years, but this did not mean that they were unsuccessful. The company made a big splash in the world and received investments from companies such as Softbank and Goldman Sachs. Towards the end of the 1990s, Jack Ma met Jerry Yang, founder of Yahoo!, and the two exchanged ideas about the development of the Internet. Yahoo! His company bought 40 percent of Alibaba’s shares in 2005 for exactly 1 billion dollars.
Alibaba’s Incredible Figures
Alibaba Group held the world’s largest public offering on September 19, 2014, and the value of the company increased to 227 billion dollars. The strange thing is that when Jack Ma’s company asked for $ 5 million from American Investment Capital in 2001, it was rejected, but in this public offering they generated exactly $ 21.8 billion in revenue. Alibaba’s website is visited by more than 100 million people every day. This giant company includes companies such as Alibaba.com, AliExpress, and Taobao. Jack Ma served as CEO of this company, which he founded in 1999, for 20 years. Ma left his position as CEO at a ceremony attended by 80 thousand people on September 10, 2019.
5 inspiring words from Jack Ma;
1- Today is cruel. Tomorrow is even more brutal. The day after tomorrow is very beautiful.
2- It doesn’t matter if I fail. At least I could set an example for others. Even if I fail, someone will succeed.
3- We will succeed because we are very young and we will never, ever give up.
4- If we are a good team that knows what we want to do, one of us can beat ten of them.
5- ‘If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. And if you are small, you have to rely on your brain and concentrate rather than your strength.”
Thank you for reading!
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