Come on, you think I am talking about Alibaba and the forty thieves ?

Picture Courtesy : wikipedia

No, I am talking about Alibaba.com and Jack Ma .

Picture Source : knowledge.insead.edu

I heard of Alibaba.com and Jack Ma way back in 1999 while I was managing 2 companies for a Singapore business man in Brunei. I was very impressed with Ma business model which to me is a brand of its own. He dares to be different.

Please do not get the idea that just because you are in the US with plenty of resources, you are bound to be successful. Listen to what Jack Ma has to say in his interview that was documented in Inc.com.

There were three reasons why we survived. We had no money, we had no technology, and we had no plan. Every dollar, we used very carefully. The office opened in my apartment. We expanded when we raised money from Goldman Sachs in 1999 and then Softbank Corporation in 2000.

I have written a few posts on this blog about dare to be different and create a brand for yourself : How not to be a follower but a leader, dare to be different, Dared to be different . And seems like Ma has something similar to say : “We never copied a model from the U.S., like a lot of Chinese Internet entrepreneurs did. We focused on product quality. It has to be “click and get it.” If I can’t get it, then it’s rubbish.”

You might like to read some of the articles on Jack Ma :

From Inc.com titled : How I Did It: Jack Ma, Alibaba.com

From Wikipedia : Jack Ma.

From CNN : Jack Ma, Chairman & CEO, Alibaba Group, talks to CNN’s Andrew Stevens.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under ZMisc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.