The Inception
Alibaba was founded in a modest apartment in Hangzhou, China, by a group of 18 people led by Jack Ma in 1999, towards the conclusion of the dot.com craze.
After nineteen years, this wholesale online marketplace has grown to become the world’s largest e-commerce platform, rivaling Google, Amazon, and PayPal! What makes Alibaba’s story so inspiring is how the e-commerce platform rose to prominence in less than two decades!
The Story
When Jack Ma visited the United States in the early 1990s, he learned about the internet. China, in contrast to the United States, was yet to embrace the internet revolution. When Jack Ma returned, he chose to venture into the unexplored territory of the internet with the Alibaba concept. Jack Ma launched Alibaba’s online shopping platform with a $ 5 million investment and 17 co-founders!
Alibaba’s online retail platforms – Alibaba.com (B2B) and 1688.com (B2C) – were launched at a fortunate time: China’s consumer internet boom had only recently arrived, and the Chinese market had not been as badly damaged by the dot-com crash as its American counterpart. Other future e-commerce markets, such as India, had only recently begun to investigate the field.
The Association with Other Futuristic Industries
The twenty-first century began on a very bright note for this rapidly growing e-commerce platform, with an investment of $ 21 billion from SoftBank. The money kept coming in after this investment! Alibaba established Taobao.com, the Chinese version of eBay, a year after this infusion of cash! Due to the strong response, Jack Ma expanded his business to include an instant messaging service called Aliwangwang and a third-party online payment site named Alipay. These three industries would eventually coalesce into the Alibaba Group’s current “iron triangle” of e-commerce, logistics, and financing.
Employee Centricity: The Magic Spell
Alibaba was designated the world’s largest and most lucrative e-commerce platform in 2016 after securing a $ 25 billion fundraising round. There was no stopping this corporation with a market value of $ 231 billion! The informal employee benefits strategy at Alibaba has been acknowledged as one of the primary causes of this phenomenal growth structure. The firm has also been involved in shaping and boosting China’s entrepreneur ecosystem, as well as implementing a number of related projects aimed at improving the country’s rural areas.
Alibaba declared in 2010 that it would donate 0.3 percent of its annual income to global environmental awareness and conservation efforts, resulting in a $ 4.71 billion profit. Alibaba has also established the Alibaba Foundation, which is self-funded and focuses on social issues. Jack Ma has come a long way from being a lost and broke boy in China to be a great success overnight!
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