Alibaba Founder's "Talking" Capital Builds China's First Internet Business

JAKARTA - Almost all successful tycoons have experienced ups and downs in building their businesses, including Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba. You could say that with the ability to speak English, he succeeded in creating China's first internet business.

Right on this day, September 10, Jack Ma turns 56 years old. He grew up from a poor family in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.

Since childhood, Ma was familiar with struggles. That spirit carried on until he was about to enter college. In an interview he said he had been refused entry to Harvard University 10 times.

Then, even when he was working, he did not escape the struggle. He was turned down ten times at KFC fast food restaurant.

Jack Ma announced that admission in front of the participants of the 2018 International Monetary Fund-World Bank (IMF-WB) annual meeting. "Yes, it really happened. I applied, I was rejected," said Jack Ma.

There is no surrender in Jack Ma's dictionary. He sees success can come from many paths.

After failing twice, Jack Ma finally passed the college entrance examination at Hangzhou Teachers College in 1988. At that time, Jack Ma really hone his English skills.

Since childhood, Jack Ma has been interested in English. He is also used to being a tour guide for tourists visiting Hangzhou. Even the name 'Jack' itself is a nickname given to tourists who have difficulty pronouncing his Chinese name, Ma Yun.

Long story short, his ability to speak English led him to represent the Hangzhou government on a comparative study to the US in 1995. From there Jack Ma became acquainted with the internet and saw the lack of sites made in China as a It was only after he returned to China that he founded China Pages, a Chinese business website and was one of the first internet companies in China.

However he left the company two years later. The reason is strong competition from the communications company Hangzhou Telecom, which has established rival companies.

Launching Britannica, Thursday, September 10, from 1998 to 1999 Jack Ma was the head of an internet company in Beijing supported by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. At that time Jack Ma felt that if he stayed with the government, he would lose his economic opportunity.

Jack Ma then persuaded his team at the ministry to return to Hangzhou with him. That's when he founded the Alibaba Group, and launched a site that facilitates small business deals.

At that time Jack Ma was convinced that the business-to-small-business market had far greater growth potential than the business-to-consumer market had. Small businesses pay a membership fee to be certified as a trusted seller on Alibaba, with a larger fee being charged to businesses looking to sell to customers outside of China.

The business growth is so fast. In 2005 Alibaba caught the attention of Yahoo! who bought 40 percent of its shares. In 2007 Alibaba.com raised $ 1.7 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong.

Earlier in 2003, Jack Ma created a new company, the consumer-to-consumer online marketplace Taobao, which in Chinese means looking for treasure. At the time, the American company eBay, in partnership with the Chinese company EachNet, had an 80 percent market share.

But Ma felt that eBay-EachNet's policy of charging transaction fees to users was a drawback. While Taobao does not charge such fees but still makes money from online advertising and sales of additional services to users.

Jack Ma's intuition proved correct. In 2007, Taobao had a 67 percent market share and eBay handed over majority ownership of its operations in China to Chinese-language media company TOM Group, which created subsidiary TOM EachNet. In 2011, Jack Ma announced that Taobao would be split into three companies: Taobao Market, a trading platform for goods; Taobao Mall which is a shopping portal; and eTao, a shopping-related search engine.

In September 2014, the Alibaba Group made its IPO debut on the New York Stock Exchange which raised US $ 21.8 billion. The IPO was the largest in the US and provided the company with a market value of $ 168 billion, the highest value in IPO history at the time for any internet-based company.

In September 2018 Jack Ma announced he would step down as chairman of Alibaba the following year, although he would remain on the board of directors. Forbes also awarded him the 'Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award' for his assistance to underprivileged communities in China, Africa, Australia and the Middle East. He is also listed as 'Hero of Asian Philanthropy 2019'.

Today Jack Ma is one of the most powerful men in the world and is a global brand ambassador for Chinese business. With a fortune of 42.1 billion United States (US) dollars, Jack Ma is the second richest person in China as of April 2020.