Jack Ma was born and raised from a very poor family in the midst of China’s cultural revolution. His determination and dedication shone from a very young age. As an example of this, as a teenager, he guided tourists for free, all in an effort to improve his English skills.
But, during the hardest times of his life, all he ever faced was rejection after rejection. Without much money or connections in his family, Jack Ma knew that education was the only route that could help him get ahead in life. After high school, he applied to go to college and university, but failed the entrance exam twice. After a great deal of studying, he finally passed on the third try, going on to attend Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute. He graduated in 1988 and started applying to as many jobs as he could. However, after over 30 different job applications he was rejected from every single one of them. Even when he applied to KFC, he was the only one who got turned down out of 24 people. But, these rejections only made him stronger.
In 1995, when the internet was starting to bloom, he was surprised that there were no results on the internet when he searched “beer”. This was what led him to come up with an idea of an online marketplace called “Alibaba”. This is a site that allows sellers to post product listings that other customers could buy directly through the online marketplace.
But even after starting Alibaba, the company had trouble getting traction which almost forced Jack Ma to go bankrupt. So, he convinced 17 of his friends and family to help invest in his vision because he truly believed in his idea. Within a short amount of time, Alibaba started to attract members from all over the world. By October 1999, the company had raised over $5 million from Goldman Sachs and over $20 million from SoftBank, a Japanese telecom company that also invests in technology companies. (Businessinsider.com)
Soon enough, Alibaba became the largest e-commerce store in the entire world.
Today, Jack Ma is the richest man in all of China, with a net-worth of over 31 billion dollars, which includes his 7.8% stake in Alibaba and a nearly 50% stake in payment processing service Alipay.
His story teaches us that we can truly accomplish anything that we put our mind into. He was able to go from what many people considered a “failure” to one of the richest men in the entire world.
Its really Impressive how one person like this fought continuously to get his idea into the world despite the difficult conditions he lived in.
I found this story fascinating that despite the way he got rejected from so many places, one business idea got him to be the richest man in China. It’s clear that he worked hard to achieve his goals.
That is a really inspiring story. I knew Jack Ma was really rich, but I never knew that he struggled so much and got rejected so many times. I guess it shows that you can fail time and time again, but if you keep trying you can still succeed eventually.