Born to a traditional musician family on October 15 1964 Jack Ma was the second child in the family. Jack and his two siblings had a modest upbringing, during their childhood communism were at its peak in the country and the residents were in little or no contact with the Western world however his zeal to enhances aptitude and acquired new skills was evident from childhood from the year 1972 tourism boomed in the city and the spirit of Jack made the most of the opportunity he worked as a tourist guide in exchange for lessons in English. He also befriended a family one of the tourists, and the two continued their correspondence further as pen pals and this pen pal named him Jack as he found his original name a little too difficult to pronounce.
Jack’s education was not all smooth sailing Jack failed in his primary school examinations two times before he got it right. Continuing to middle school he failed graduating exams three times before going through. This was not the end of his failures in the education system. After high school while applying for universities he failed the entrance exams, he wanted to join Harvard University but he got rejected all often time. Eventually, in his third attempt, he joined Hangzhou University and graduated with a Bachelor’s in English. After graduating from college he applied for 30 different jobs and was rejected by each and every one of them. He mentioned in one of his interviews how 24 people applied to KFC and 23 of them got hired and he was not one of them. He even applied to be a police officer but they didn’t even give him the time of the day rejecting him with three simple words saying that you are no good. Frustrated with the lack of solid employment opportunities after graduating in the early 1990s Jack relied on his English to teach at the local university he had attended a few years ago.
Later Jack started a translation service business upon his first visit to the United States in 1995 as a translator Jack got introduced to the Internet. He was shocked after he searched for beer and found no results from China on the worldwide web, which is a country of about a billion people. Jack immediately saw the potential business opportunities of the internet and how it could facilitate the way small and medium Chinese enterprises could do business with the rest of the world. He and his friends then decided to launch a website about China and Chinese products online known as China page that lifted Chinese businesses, and their products but then the same day they began to receive emails from people around the world requesting them to partner with their company. That experience taught him about the power of connectivity, especially how the Internet can greatly impact the global trade essentially for small-medium enterprises however due to lack of funding Jack had to shut down this business he later took up a government job for a short period at the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation.
In the latter half of the 1990s then he also built important connections with influential people that would later impact Jack’s life and business venture one of whom was the founding member of Yahoo, Jerry Yang. Later in 1999 after leaving the government job Jack took a second bite at the internet-based business ventures by grouping eighteen people including himself and his wife and sold them a dream to pound Alibaba with a goal of facilitating international trade for small and medium mentions beasts in China in the early stages of Alibaba.
Jack tried to raise some funds from Silicon Valley which is the tech hub in the United States but he was met with denials and his business model was criticized to be unprofitable and unsustainable by many during that time although not the one to get bowed down easily Jack continued his efforts to raise fines and eventually jack was successful in getting Goldman Sachs and Softbank to
inversed five million and twenty million dollars in Alibaba respectively later as the dot-com boom period came to an end in the year 2000 Alibaba faced serious challenges due to its aggressive
expansion into international markets.
Alibaba then engaged its international expansion strategy after Jack and Alibaba reorganized their operations and made their mark by driving eBay out of China after just a few years, and into a massive conglomerate by acquiring many smaller companies from technology related to logistics and beyond well Jack Ma one of the world’s greatest living examples of entrepreneurship today once a poor lad who survived by guiding tourist Jack left no stone unturned for what he has achieved today.
Jack Ma is an exceptional leader who’s redefined the path of success at the moment.
Alibaba Group is worth over two hundred billion dollars it is fast on its way to dominating the International e-commerce market while Jack Ma and Alibaba are yet to witness many more successful models in the future.
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“ No matter how tough the chase is you should always have the dream you saw on the first day. It will keep you motivated and rescue you from any weak thoughts which stop you from reaching your goal”.-Jack Ma
One Life. Live Boundless
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