Alibaba has established itself as the big daddy of e-commerce and Jack Ma has become a brand in himself. He is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world.
His e-commerce company, Alibaba, attracts 100 million shoppers a day. You don’t believe it? Yes, it’s true. The company founder, Ma is worth an estimate $20.4 billion.
His journey to success did not come easy for him. Before he became the richest person in China, Ma went through a lot of rejection.
In an interview with Charlie Rose from Business Insider, the businessman revealed that he failed a college entrance exam three times. The rejection story did not end here. After ruling out college, Ma applied for 30 different jobs and got rejected there as well.
“I went for a job with the police; they said, ‘you’re no good,’” Ma told Rose. “I even went to KFC when it came to my city. Twenty-four people went for the job. Twenty-three were accepted. I was the only guy who had to face the rejection, he told the reporter.”
When Ma founded Alibaba in 1998, he had to face bigger obstacles.
Adding more to his troubles, the company did not make profits in the first three years. One of the company’s biggest challenges was that it had no money to make the payments, and no banks would work with him.
Ma decided to start his own payment program called Alipay. The program transfers payments of different currencies between international buyers and sellers.
I spoke to a lot of people at that time about Alipay and they said that it was the stupidest idea you’ve ever had,’” he said. “I didn’t care if it was stupid as long as people could use it.
(With inputs from Business Insider)