What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur ? Is it having an adequate capital, a good business model or requisite skills in relevant areas. according to Jack Ma –China’s richest man, Entrepreneurs don’t need technical knowledge, high IQ or any specialized skills to succeed in Entrepreneurship. In today’s article, we are going to explore and discuss some key factors that led to Jack Ma’s success.
LEARNING AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
Born in 1964, Jack Ma was eager to learn English even from his childhood days. Having spent most of his life in China, this desire was deemed unnecessary by those around him as the official language for communication in china is Chinese (Mandarin). following his passion, he become a reader of Mark Tarwin and used every opportunity he had to learn English. At age 12, he decided to work as a tour guide at a famous hotel and show tourist around and in return, these tourists had to teach him how to speak and understand English. After several years on the job as a tourist, he met an Australian family who were impressed by his enthusiasm. They ended up inviting him to Australia where he learnt about the European way of life and culture.
With the growth of advanced communication systems, the growing of the world into a global village cannot be overemphasized. Foreign markets offer new opportunities for expansion for firms and Businesses. Add another International Language to your curriculum vitae and broaden the opportunities for yourself and business. Various languages growing international reputation includes: French, Chinese, and Spanish. Learning a language requires time and dedication so start today.
FAILURE IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO DO BETTER
Despite the constant improvement in Jack Ma’s English, He had real trouble with mathematics and constantly failed his university entrance exam on more than four occasions. Major universities turned him down several times. He eventually managed to get admitted to Teacher’s collage a 211 class university in china. In 1988 he obtained a degree and found a job as a teacher.
Upon graduating, He was invited by one of his colleagues from the University to Seattle USA, where he experienced the use of the internet for the first time in his life. He immediately took keen interest in learning about the internet and anticipated its role in development some few years to come. Upon his return to china, he founded China Yellow pages which struggled to survive in the market. The company’s office was a single room with a pc with no internet connection.
Accessing internet in Hangzhou was not possible back then. This proved to be a tough challenge for his newly established IT company. Ideally, anyone else would have given up on these circumstance but Jack Ma persisted in his aspirations. He shared his ideals with his friends and convinced some of them to let him establish a website for their businesses. He then took details and information from them, translated them to English and sent it by post to his friend in Seattle who actually worked on developing the websites. Upon completion, pictures of the website were sent by post to china as evidence of the work being done.
Facing challenges is inevitable with Businesses especially start-ups and rising above the competition will require dedication, hard work and persistence.
AIM TO BE THE BEST, NOTHING LESS
Over the next years, Jack ma repeatedly changed his Business model and combined Experimentation with Persistence with a mentality for growth. In 1999, he founded an e-commerce platform for Businesses, The Alibaba Group.
‘First week, we have seven employees. we buy and sell ourselves. The second week, somebody started to sell on our website. We bought everything they sell. We had two rooms full of things we bought for no use, all garbage for the first two weeks-in order to tell people that it works’ -Jack ma recalls
Right from the start he thought big and set for himself very ambitious goals. Shortly after founding Alibaba a he told a journalist
‘We don’t want to be number one in China, we want to be number one in the world.’
His aim was to make Alibaba a global market place and when asked where he finds himself in the next five years he answered
‘Our competitors are not in China but in Silicon Valley. we should position Alibaba as an international website ‘
Aiming for the top will provide you with the motivation and Determination to rise above your difficulties and competition.
INTUITION IS THE DIFFERENCE
The story of Jack Ma illustrates that intuition and openness to new ideas together with the readiness to adopt a new business model is more important than book knowledge. In jack Ma’s words
‘starting a Business requires wisdom and wisdom is acquired through experience ‘
This saying is backed by Entrepreneurial research which also concludes that:
‘Entrepreneurial success is not the results of explicit, academic learning and book knowledge - it is the product of implicit learning process that manifests themselves in intuition and gut feelings.’
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Writer: Joseph Obeng Junior
Editor : Herbert Afriyie
Publisher: Kelvin Mbir
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