See if you can overcome these ten hurdles like Jack Ma?

Alibaba Group is about to set a global financing record and become the world's largest grassroots entrepreneurship platform. Needless to say, it is unrivaled by any standard. However, as the saying goes, ten minutes on stage takes ten years of hard work off stage. Alibaba and Jack Ma are also typical grassroots entrepreneurs. Who knows the hardships of going from a loser to an "alien"? In other words, Jack Ma is richer than you, but you may not be as miserable as him. In this respect, the world is fair.

1. You have been rejected for job applications at least twice because of your appearance

Almost everyone will be impressed when they see Jack Ma, because he looks like the alien ET. Now everyone, including Jack Ma, can have fun making fun of his appearance. But more than 20 years ago, Jack Ma was worried about his appearance. Not to mention that he took the college entrance examination three times. After failing the first time, his dream was to work as a waiter in a hotel and also to be a policeman, but he was rejected because of his appearance. To put it bluntly, he was ugly!

The problem is, Jack Ma can’t decide what he will look like. This is how the world is: at least he has lost his dream of entering the hotel industry forever.

By the way, he later found a part-time job and delivered magazines to people on a tricycle.

2. Translation agency relies on selling socks to subsidize

Haibo Translation Agency, founded together with his friends, was Ma Yun's first business venture. This first translation agency in Hangzhou faced difficulties from the beginning. The first month's income was 700 yuan, while the rent was 2,400 yuan. What to do? In order to keep the business going, Ma Yun could only rent out half of the translation agency's store to others. He started a second part-time job, carrying a sack to Yiwu to wholesale flowers, flashlights, underwear, socks, and handicrafts to sell - this looked like a boss. But later he had to sell goods door-to-door, including to hospitals and barefoot doctors. Students in the English class also helped him distribute flyers, hang banners, and do publicity at the entrance of the department store. He was looked down upon by passers-by and did not look like a high-end translation company at all.

On the bright side, Jack Ma may have learned about the hardships of small vendors and sales through this process, and gained experience for establishing an e-commerce platform in the future.

But objectively speaking, starting a business is not suitable for people with fragile hearts.

By the way, Jack Ma was one of the teachers with the most courses in Hangzhou Institute of Electronic Engineering at that time, and the above mentioned were all his part-time jobs.

3. How to prove that no one else has seen the Internet - talk about it and do it

The business of "China Yellow Pages" is to put the information of domestic companies on the Internet so that foreigners can find them. But at that time, there was no Internet in China, and no one could see or touch it. It was in the category of "believe it or not". After receiving the customer information, the entrepreneurial team translated it into English and then sent it to the American partner by express delivery to make a website - no boss would believe that they were willing to pay for something they could not see. Therefore, Jack Ma's team not only had to prove that the customer information had been put online, but also had to prove that there was such a thing as the Internet in the world.

Jack Ma didn't understand technology, and all he could do was talk about it. He went out every day to tell people about the magic of the Internet, and even talked nonsense with people at food stalls. The boss didn't believe it, so in addition to printing web pages, he also asked the boss to make a free overseas call to ask relatives and friends in the United States, and let the Americans check it online. In 1995, Shanghai finally opened the Internet, and the "China Yellow Pages" team also provided additional services - long-distance calls to Shanghai and then access the Internet. It took 3 and a half hours to see the photos on the Internet. Jack Ma, who was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot, was ecstatic, and tears of grievance fell.

In many cities without the Internet, Jack Ma is always called a "liar". This is also the original source of the saying that "Jack Ma is a liar".

4. “You should make an appointment for this matter first”

Jack Ma is now the chairman of the board of directors of Alibaba Group, but he was just a "salesman" back then. In the CCTV documentary "Scholar Jack Ma", the thin Ma Yun, with a short haircut and a black shoulder bag, knocked on doors to find people and told everyone he met, "I'm here to sell China Yellow Pages." People with confused and impatient faces "asked" him to leave. One director simply told the reporter that this person didn't look like a good person!

In 1996, Ma Yun went to a state committee in Beijing to promote his business, saying, "China Yellow Pages is a promotion for a state committee on the information superhighway. It puts all of China on computers and lets the world know about China." The reply he got was very impatient: "You should make an appointment first. If you don't, it will be difficult for me to give you a satisfactory answer."

Jack Ma looks exactly like any other salesman on the street, but the rejections and cold stares he received did not change his belief in the Internet. Instead, it became the spiritual driving force for the development of Alibaba's business. This may be the biggest difference.

Even after Alibaba was founded, it was common for employees to be chased by dogs and driven away by security guards when they went door-to-door to sell business.

5. Crying before returning to the south after four consecutive business failures

The Alibaba team had worked on a government project in Beijing for a while, and finally Jack Ma decided to go south to Hangzhou to start a business again. During the 14 months in Beijing, Jack Ma never took the team out to play, and on the last day they decided to go to the Great Wall. At night, in an unknown small restaurant, it was snowing heavily, and everyone drank big bowls of wine, ate big chunks of meat, and cried together. Finally, they sang "True Heroes", and then sang old songs, one after another. This group of men who traveled all over the country avoided the word "parting", which was too heavy for them. Many people don't remember what Jack Ma said that night, nor do they know what kind of life they will face the next day, but that night, the wine was hot, the heart was hot, and the song was hot. Everyone remembers singing "True Heroes" all night.

This also means that this is the fourth time that Jack Ma has failed in his business venture since he turned 30.

6. No one is optimistic. At least there is only 200 yuan in the bank.

In the few pieces of information circulating about Alibaba's investment, they all casually mentioned that it took only 6 minutes to get Masayoshi Son's $20 million and Yahoo's subsequent $1 billion. In fact, more pain is unknown.

Without a luxurious team configuration and no successful American model to refer to, Alibaba was once the ugly duckling of the Internet industry compared with its peers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The Internet has always been known for burning money. Alibaba also faced financial pressure after its establishment. At the most difficult time, there was only 200 yuan in the bank. Once, Jack Ma went to meet an investor in Shanghai, and the other party offered a harsh condition. Jack Ma was not satisfied but hesitated, so he slipped out to ask his colleague in charge of finance, and the news he got was: there was no money in the account. After returning, Jack Ma gritted his teeth and gave up the investment.

If he didn't say it, no one would know how much pain he was in at that time.

At the New York IPO roadshow 15 years later, Jack Ma joked about his predicament: "15 years ago, I came to New York to raise $2 million, but failed. I have never given up in the past 15 years. This time I came to New York just to get more money to take back."

7. The company almost collapsed due to SARS

Although Alibaba often says that SARS made everyone pay attention to e-commerce without leaving home, SARS almost caused Alibaba to collapse.

Because an employee went to Guangzhou to attend the Canton Fair and contracted SARS, the entire Hangzhou was on high alert and implemented the largest-scale quarantine: more than 500 people were quarantined. The mayor of Hangzhou had just come to inspect the day before, and as a result, the mayor and his entourage were also quarantined. Employees from other companies in the same building took their phones, fax machines, and computers and ran away as if they were fleeing. Someone from the company next door rushed into Alibaba and smashed things to vent their anger. Alibaba became "famous" in Hangzhou at that time, but employees did not dare to say that they worked at Alibaba when they went out on the street. They were as scared as if they had seen a tiger. Even after the quarantine ended, they would be treated abnormally and people would point fingers at them when they walked on the street.

During this period, all employees went home, and some companies might have disbanded. But work did not stop. Employees transferred their work calls to their homes, and even the elderly at home developed a habit of saying "Hello, Alibaba" as the first thing they said when they picked up the phone.

Taobao, which was still under confidentiality at the time, was also affected. On May 10, Taobao was successfully launched, but due to the SARS quarantine, the scene was extremely shabby, even desolate - no flowers, no big meals, no spotlights, no cheerful music, no surging crowds. "In the slightly silent bedroom, lying on the bed, Jack Ma faced the ceiling, slowly raised his glass, and devoutly and silently chanted: May Taobao have a smooth journey. However, Jack Ma is by no means alone, because he knows that at that moment, the same ceremony will be carried out simultaneously in more than a dozen residential buildings scattered across Hangzhou."

Therefore, May 10th was designated as "Ali Day" by Alibaba to review the suffering of SARS and express gratitude to the families of employees for participating. Jack Ma also never forgets to remind everyone in his annual Spring Festival email to employees, "On the night of New Year's Eve, at 8 o'clock, we will toast to the sky to express gratitude and blessings as usual."

8. Completely blocked by Elephant

When Taobao was first established, eBay was already the dominant player in the domestic C2C market. In 2003, eBay and Eachnet (merged into one) had a market share of over 90%. Whether it was technology, capital, talent, market share or brand, eBay Eachnet had an overall advantage. It even boasted that Taobao could only survive for 18 months!

Taobao not only fell behind in all aspects, but was also completely blocked by eBay. eBay bought the keyword advertisements about "Taobao" in the search engine. When searching for Taobao, the advertisement "If you want Taobao, go to eBay" appeared. It also put up the slogan "Taobao, open a store, enjoy life" on its homepage. This is exactly an advertising ban. Then, eBay signed a one-year exclusive advertising contract with major mainstream websites. The contract stated that once these websites were found to have any publicity and promotion cooperation with eBay's competitors such as Taobao, they would have to pay a high fine. Even opposite Taobao's office, an eBay billboard was erected. Taobao can only advertise on small and medium-sized websites. What's more interesting is that as long as it advertises on a website for a few days, eBay will exclusively buy out all the online trading advertisements on the website at two or three times the price.

With no other options left, Taobao had no choice but to place advertisements on buses, elevators and subway trains.

Now, Taobao has become the most visited e-commerce website in the world.

9. The donation of 47.447 million yuan to Wenchuan was accused of being only 1 yuan

It was the time of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, and many companies announced donations for the disaster area. At this time, an article titled "Jack Ma donated 1 yuan to Wenchuan, so calm that it makes people's backs cold" was circulated on Tianya and NetEase forums, and widely distributed through QQ groups. The article said, "Jack Ma only donated 1 yuan... 1 yuan is enough to express his attitude... He is evading responsibility... Putting the lives of people in the disaster area in desperate situations, how is it different from indirect violence?"

At a time when the whole country was in mourning, the announcement that "only 1 yuan can be donated, and it is reasonable not to donate" quickly aroused the indignation of netizens, and the forum was filled with words such as "Jack Ma, get out" and "Never go to Taobao again".

All of this turned out to be a complete rumor. At the time, Jack Ma was abroad, and he immediately donated 1 million yuan after hearing the news. Then the entire company, employees, and users took action together, and eventually raised 47.447 million yuan in donations. At this time, the rumor that he "only donated 1 yuan" was a distortion of right and wrong, allowing the competitors who were interested to make a fortune from the disaster.

In addition to direct donations, Alibaba also provided assistance to the Qingchuan disaster area, using the advantages of its e-commerce platform to build a platform for the people of Qingchuan. It also launched the "Ali Volunteer Action", and in the following years, employees have used various forces to station in Qingchuan to provide assistance. This is a long-term cause of "teaching people to fish".

There are two public welfare funds closely related to Alibaba Group. One is the Group Public Welfare Fund with an initial capital of 50 million yuan, which is supplemented and expanded by 0.3% of annual income each year. It is the first environmental protection fund of a domestic Internet company. Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai donated part of their own stocks to establish a special personal public welfare fund. The size of the fund is about 2% of the market value of Alibaba Group, estimated to be between 2 billion and 4 billion US dollars, which is also the largest personal public welfare fund in China.

10. The “Stealing Alipay” Farce

In 2011, the news that Jack Ma stole Alipay caused a lot of noise. Yahoo disclosed that Alipay had been spun off from Alibaba Group, and this news attracted attention from all walks of life. Many commentators accused Jack Ma of forcibly transferring Alipay to himself for personal gain. A well-known financial publisher believed that Jack Ma "stole the day...did not abide by the contract...violated business principles...was wrong in violating the contract principle that supports the market economy, and the consequences cannot be underestimated...may directly affect the trust of overseas investors in Chinese companies, forming a large-scale "Alipay discount." "Some people were indignant that the VIE structure that is widely used in the Internet industry was exposed to the world, and even blamed Jack Ma for the plunge in Chinese stocks due to fraud.

As the incident became clearer, people found that the so-called "stealing" was not true, and the management had discussed the transfer many times in the board of directors, and all parties were aware of it. Secondly, the reason for the transfer was to comply with the regulations of the central bank and to sustainably support the development of Taobao and other businesses. Even after the transfer, the shareholders have been conducting transparent negotiations on compensation. In the end, Yahoo, Softbank, and Alibaba Group reached a complete agreement. Yahoo and Softbank praised that "it will maintain the value of Taobao and let all parties share the profits of Alipay, while ensuring that Alibaba Group can realize the value when Alipay goes public", "built on the long-term and deep cooperative relationship and mutual trust between Alibaba Group, Softbank and Yahoo."

Jack Ma's shares in Alipay are the same as those in Alibaba Group, both less than 8%, which dispelled the rumors that Jack Ma seized Alipay by force.

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"A man's heart is expanded by grievances," said Jack Ma himself. When looking at the achievements of Alibaba and Jack Ma, we must know that the achievements are also built on suffering.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.