Journey To The Limit -- The Entrepreneurial Story Of CEO Ji Qi, A Ctrip Company

The Oracle headquarters, located in Silicon Valley, are three database shaped and imposing buildings located in the northwest of Stanford University.

And Yahoo is not far away!

It is located in the southeast of Stanford University, and is separated from the Oracle street.

1994 September 17th, a weekend like usual, the Yahoo at that time.

It is just beginning. In the Oracle headquarters building, there are two young Chinese people who are feeling the unparalleled impact of the future for the unprecedented experience.

"When I went to Oracle headquarters, it was just noon," recalls Ji Qi, a newly established Ctrip.com CEO. "My Oracle student at that time was just free, and suggested that she would show me something. This is my first contact with the Internet in my life.

At that time, it used a special early version of Mosaic browser. It was up to Yang Zhiyuan's newly developed SearchEngine, which was very, very slow, so the two of us had to wait for coffee while waiting.

But when the information I asked for was finally displayed on the screen, I was really excited. It was amazing! "

The great turning point in a person's life is often determined by miraculous decisions that have suddenly come, but have not attracted particular attention at the beginning.

Those who can directly contact and feel the revolutionary force at the beginning of Internet can not but be said to have been favored by fate.

"I felt a special and fascination for this thing," Ji Qi said. "I think it may have a predisposition to it, and my future life may be related to this thing.

In this way, the two of us were tossing from noon till evening until we had to have dinner, so I reluctantly left my classmates.

East of Oracle headquarters is a lake. In the setting sun, the birds flying on the lake and the beautiful Oracle headquarters building constitute a beautiful and exquisite Impressionist picture. In the flash of Ji Qi's departure, this picture and the ever lingering Internet are forever linked and deeply engraved in Ji Qi's mind.

Shortly after the first stop of the Internet tour, Ji Qi, who worked in Oracle, gave up the annual salary of $100 thousand that Oracle gave him, and went to Yahoo!

And his current status is nearly $one hundred million.

I went back to Shanghai in February 1995 and started my own business.

Ji Qi said, "at that time, the domestic IT field only had system integration investment return rate was relatively high, but because of the impact of the Internet on me too much, so around 1996, I started investing in ISP in Shanghai, so it has become the first batch of people to do ISP in China.

As a result, I didn't make money, and I quit after a year.

Then, in 1997, Ji Qi founded Shanghai synergy technology company, and continued to do system integration business. At the same time, he was observing and thinking about how to renew his Internet dream in China.

"When I first came across the Internet in the United States," Ji Qi said, "at that time, I was intuitively convinced that this is a great opportunity for people, and a place where all the talents can be fully applied.

This judgement, with the passage of time and the development of Internet, has become clearer, clearer and stronger in my mind.

For me, there is no question of whether or not to make such a decision on the Internet. The key is how to do it and whether we can find a suitable entry point.

Such a breakthrough point was discovered by Ji Qi soon.

In February 22, 1999, just after the Spring Festival, Ji Qi couldn't wait to invite his classmates and friends to dinner.

"At that time, we discussed the topic of the Internet, Internet economy, American Internet companies, Nasdaq and IPO for a whole night."

Ji Qi said, "the final conclusion is: we decided to work together in China to provide an e-commerce website for the public to provide tourism services."

Ji Qi is full of confidence in his Internet venture.

"Our biggest strength is that we have a strong team," Ji Qi said. "The senior manager portfolio of Ctrip includes foreign investors, technical experts who have many years of experience in management of foreign companies, experts in tourism, and local business people who are well versed in Chinese customs. Such a combination is difficult for many Internet Co in China.

For example, our chairman, Shen Napeng, is a MBA from Yale. He worked in a series of famous international financial institutions such as Citibank, Lehman brothers and Deutsche Bank in New York. He is a banker with many years of investment experience.

These senior managers, who either gave up their handsome salaries in foreign companies or lost their own companies for many years, joined in the Ctrip business. This shows that they have confidence in the cause, and on the other hand, they have also strengthened my confidence.

After the decision of senior management, Ji Qi formally withdrew from Shanghai Xie Cheng technology company in May 1999 and organized a series of preparatory work such as website development and content construction of Ctrip.

Like all Internet StartUp companies, Ctrip successfully introduced venture capital in a long time ago.

"In September, Mr. Zhang Suyang of IDG Shanghai came to see us once, and made investment decisions a week later."

Ji Qi said.

Investors' confidence is often a good indicator of whether a network company can succeed in the future.

IDG is said to be very optimistic about Ctrip, and hopes to continue to invest in Ctrip in the future.

After the completion of the management team and the successful completion of the first phase of financing, Ctrip finally made its debut in Shanghai in October 28, 1999. In January 10, 2000, Ctrip launched a news release in Beijing.

Ji Qi has been very excited about the progress of his work in the early days. "The Internet will really bring you a lot of things that are far beyond your imagination, so I often have a strong feeling that the Internet is a miracle itself."

Ji Qi said.

The value of life trip finds that Ji Qi, who likes watching VCD and playing video games when he is free, is also very fond of traveling.

"I was born in a rural area. After graduating from the Engineering Mechanics Department of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1989, I went to Graduate School of mechanical engineering and attacked robotics." Ji Qi said, "when I first came to Shanghai, I lacked everything. I had no money, no knowledge, and no culture.

I remember when I first entered the library of Jiaotong University, I even dare not go in: because I never thought there would be so many books there.

After the graduate student, Ji Qi's real pformation of life began to take place.

"Because I was in touch with computers earlier, and I quickly grasped the networking technology, my friends, classmates and people outside came to work for me, so I soon became rich in school," Ji Qi said. "At that time, the first thing after being rich was buying a pager, then renting a house, and so on. By the time I graduated from graduate school in 1992, my wife and I had tens of thousands of dollars in each hand, compared with the people around me, I first felt that life was solid."

Ji Qi, who graduated from graduate school after graduation, was assigned to the computer systems integration company of Changjiang Computer Group, Shanghai.

"I have been the manager of the marketing and sales department there," Ji Qi said. "In fact, the whole department only had two people, including me and my assistant, but our performance was very large, which accounted for 80% of the total turnover and profit of the company.

However, after all, because of the state-owned enterprises, after a period of time, I felt that some of them could not be done.

So in 1994, I left there and went to the United States.

However, at this time, Ji Qizao has been firmly tied to his mind by the idea of starting his own business. The experience of the United States has strongly supported his inner decision.

"To be honest, when I left, I never thought of going to the United States to settle down," Ji Qi said. "I know for myself that to go to America is to open our eyes and look for opportunities.

At that time, in the United States, I took a lot of field trips, read books, worked, worked in computer companies in the United States, and made some money.

We did not have much economic pressure at that time, which allowed me to take a leisurely look at the United States and reflect on my future.

But the secure and steady life prospects of tens of thousands of dollars have not fetched Ji Qi's heart of endless desire and self-confidence.

So after more than 8 months of study in the United States, Ji Qi set foot on the land full of endless opportunities and waited for the opportunity to launch himself on the scheduled track.

Business model: why is tourism?

A good business plan plus a strong executive team is almost the whole of a Internet Co.

Tourism products are similar to financial services, and they are also very high in digitalization.

Different from the retail industry is that the quality of life of tourism services, because its average unit paction price is very high, so it is easy to build a considerable scale e-commerce mode based on this.

According to statistics, China's domestic tourism revenue has reached 239 billion 100 million yuan in 1998, and foreign exchange earnings of international tourism amounted to US $12 billion 602 million over the same period.

With abundant tourism resources, China has been considered by the world tourism organization to be the largest tourist market in the world in twenty-first Century, and tourism has become another sunrise industry outside the IT industry.

However, in terms of operation, the number and profitability of domestic travel agencies showed a declining trend. The gross profit margin was less than 10%, the total market share of the national travel service was less than 5%, and the remaining 95% were individual customers.

"This situation is good for us to provide the corresponding tourism services in the e-commerce mode," Ji Qi said. "Because the characteristics of the Internet make it very convenient and easy to provide personalized services for the" self catering tourists ", and we firmly believe that the popularity of online travel with the main characteristics of customized travel and self service prices will bring us endless opportunities for development and room for growth.

In fact, Internet travel service has become a very mature e-commerce mode in the United States.

Among them, Expedia, Travlocity and so on have also done very well.

"When we design the business model, we should say that we fully learn from the business models of Priceline, Travlocity and PreviewTravle related websites," Ji Qi said. "At the same time, we have launched many practical services including self-help tourism services according to China's local conditions and specific national conditions."

The self service tour launched by Ctrip company is a very characteristic concept and service. It can provide you with an alternative tour route design plan in the established tourism consumption budget and selected specific time periods.

Although it has only been a few months since its establishment, Ctrip has already had considerable revenue.

"So far, our cumulative turnover has reached about 600000 yuan," Ji Qi said. "We expect to achieve 2 million yuan before the Spring Festival, and strive to achieve 40 million yuan by the end of 2000."

The revenue of Ctrip's Ctrip is mainly achieved by booking three leading products, including air tickets, booking rooms and ordering tour routes.

"In the future, we will continue to expand the means of revenue," Ji Qi said. "For example, booking tourist tickets, ordering meals, and selling bookstores will all be the source of our income."

At present, Ctrip has been able to provide more than 1000 guesthouses, more than 800 tourist routes, and more than 30 online services of travel agencies nationwide, and users can also make direct airline tickets online.

Undoubtedly, online travel services will be another hot spot for Internet companies in 2000.

"For us, having more players to join is good for the whole market," Ji Qi said. "We have confidence in ourselves, and we estimate conservatively that we will be able to make profits in about two years, that is, nearly the second half of 2001.

China's online travel market is very large, and I estimate that it will reach 2 hundred million yuan in 2000.

And we hope to get 20% to 30% of them.

In the Internet era, every company shows itself in front of consumers in the same way of screen.

"This is very easy to arouse people's attention.