Ma Yun: The Alibaba Emphasizes Entrepreneurial Values

How to restart entrepreneurship in a mature organization?

This is a difficult problem. Let's take a look at Zhang Zhaoyang's solution.

Whether it's a game company or a search dog, Zhang Zhaoyang has adopted a similar strategy.

One of the core reasons for his doing this is that as a mature and publicly listed company, the spirit of the existing company is in conflict with the adventurous spirit of the start-up company.

Let's take a look at Chen Tianqiao's solution and start business incubation outside the company. He launched the "18 fund" project to invest in the development of boutique national online games and related projects.

The big plan, which began in 2007, did not seem to have achieved great results, nor did it hatch a particularly powerful online game product. It did not add much bonus to Chen Tianqiao's long-standing "platform strategy".

A founder Godfather.

What are the unique secrets of Ma Yun's martial arts? Ma Yun has three great skills:

Trick 1: Entrepreneurial gene - Lakeside Garden

Combing Ma Yun and Alibaba's entrepreneurial gene, lakeside garden should be a key place, where Alibaba was born and Taobao was born.

The lakeside garden does not look beautiful. It is not a villa, nor a senior residence. It is an ordinary residential district in Western Hangzhou.

The exact address is a set of four bedroom houses in the 4 storey residential building of 16 residential buildings in Fenghu courtyard, lakeside garden, 202 units, with an area of 150 square meters. This is originally a new home of Ma Yun. It has been used as the office of Alibaba when it has not yet had time to live.

Later, in a speech, Ma stressed this kind of speech.

I remember at the end of 1998, on the Great Wall, we vowed to create a company that is proud of China and proud of the whole world.

I also thought that when the baby came back to Hangzhou, the lakeside garden was surrounded by four walls. I remember when he called me and said that because he had no air-conditioning, his hands were very cold, and then we moved to Huaxing for the first time.

At that time, I was worried for the first time that Alibaba was not Alibaba.

I fear that we have lost the spirit of the lake.

However, we did well in retaining the culture at Huaxing.

Yesterday when I walked back to the company, I found a large row of taxis downstairs. This reminds me of Hua Xing's taxi drivers waiting outside every night until two o'clock.

All the drivers in Hangzhou know that Alibaba is still working there later.

But now, I am beginning to worry again. The business building is more luxurious than Huaxing. Will the Alibaba change? How far can our flag carry?

Lakeside Garden is also one of the sources of Ma Yun's entrepreneurial spirit. The key words it represents are: emphasizing the spirit of hard struggle. Later, most of the branches of Alibaba should first be opened in residential buildings, which is also a continuation of this Lakeside Garden spirit.

Another key word of this lakeside spirit is to be different. Real entrepreneurs must look at the world in another way.

Ma Yun himself said, "I feel strange for people.

But being different is not what I do, but my instinct. "

Being different is the essential temperament of an entrepreneur, or even the instinct of an entrepreneur.

Only by looking at the world from a different perspective can you discover new business opportunities.

Ma Yun thinks that people start their business all their lives. He even objected to the two venture. "The same batch of leaders has no way to start business two times, because you have been doing business since the first day of business.

How to start a business?

The third key word of the lakeside spirit emphasized by Ma is the spirit of small companies.

Even after the listing of Alibaba, Ma still positioned Alibaba as a small company, but had great social influence.

Behind this small company's positioning is a spirit of pursuit of speed, flexibility and innovation.

With regard to the spirit of this small company, Ma Yun emphasized internally: "my position is that we are a fast developing small company, but have strong social influence.

First of all, we must understand that we are small companies, and they are developing very fast. If we position ourselves as a multinational company and locate as a very strong company, we really are getting narrower and narrower.

People need to know who they are and what makes you successful. Alibaba now, first of all, thanks to the Internet industry. Without the Internet industry, we can not have subversive thinking. The rapid growth of the industry has us, we want to thank China's rapid economic growth, especially thanks to my team. "

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Trick 2: values - why hate? MBA

Ma Yun has been rather "hate" MBA, why?

Ma Yunceng said he had expelled 80% of MBA.

"Either send them back to study or go to other companies. I told them that they should learn to be human first, and when you forget what you have in your books and come back.

If you think you are MBA, you can manage people, you can make irresponsible remarks. That's wrong. All MBA will start with sales after entering our company, and will survive after six months. Our team will welcome you.

Perhaps because of the lesson from MBA when he started his business, Ma had always had a lot of opinions about MBA.

On one occasion, Ma even went to business school, he said, professors always think that they are the best, but I think the business school's customers are who we are, these enterprises, these employers, the voice of enterprises should listen.

Ma Yun has a metaphor for MBA. Maybe the tractor is equipped with Boeing 747 engine, and it can't tear up the tractor.

"I want to adjust MBA's own expectations. MBA thinks it's an elite, and the elites can't do anything together. I sit with MBA. They can spend a year discussing who will be CEO, not who will do it."

Behind Mr Ma's anti MBA remarks is that he thinks there are problems with these MBA's "being human".

In other words, Ma has always stressed an entrepreneurial value, and MBA and this kind of value.

Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, said: an important factor that affects a company's ability to do and cannot do is its values.

We define organizational values as employees' criteria for determining priorities. They judge whether an order is attractive based on these criteria, how important a client is, and whether the creativity of a new product is remarkable or casual.

Few Chinese enterprises attach importance to the practice of values such as Ma Yun. This is a spirit of a large company and a spirit of Evergreen Foundation.

In fact, Ma constantly revised his values, which used to be nine values and later reduced to six values.

There is a widely circulated comment on Ma's values and the Internet. "The values of Alibaba are called six pulse swords.

Three, the sword says: be honest, passionate and dedicated; the two sword says things: teamwork and embracing change; the key to a sword is "customer first".

For example, in the early days of Alibaba, "handstand" was only a unique way of entertainment. Later, Ma died a death order and put the handstand as a "political task", and every employee, both men and women, must learn.

In this regard, Ma has three levels of consideration:

1. you think you can't do it, but you can do it.

Ma Yun believes that if we overcome psychological barriers, we will achieve them.

The thin staff said that the tiny arms could not support the huge body.

Ma Yun said that handstand is the best exercise.

2. you can't do it alone, you can do it with help. This is teamwork.

3. Ma Yun put the inverted handover to the cultural significance of thinking from a different angle. "Everyone should learn to stand upside down, because when you stand upside down, the blood rushes into the brain, and the world's angle is completely different from that of normal times. If you think about the problem, you will find an incredible angle."

Handstand is a way to break the rules and regulations. In order to emphasize this break the Convention culture, Ma Yun can spare no effort.

In 2001, Ma sent four colleagues back to MBA, one went to Harvard and the three went to Walton business school.

Ma Yun looked at them and said, "when you come back, tell me that I have forgotten everything about MBA. If you graduate, if you still have rules, you will not go back to school after graduation.

After two years of MBA, it takes at least half a year to forget what MBA has learned, and that is the real success. "

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Trick 3: a deep understanding of the mainland

Ma Yun is also a representative of local killers.

The rise of rapidly developing economies is the incubator of these local killers. The most important thing is that these local killers are better at winning complex markets, or they are better at creating opportunities in disadvantage.

Companies that win such a market environment will have the following characteristics: understanding these contradictions, holding opportunities for the opportunities they create, and establishing the right business models to solve them.

Many successful western enterprises in the fast developing economies have controlled the huge differences between the local market environment and the home market base.

Ma Yun said: we can win this position because I believe in one thing: the global vision, the local can win.

We design our own business models. We focus on how to help SMEs make money. We never copy American business models.

We are concerned about the quality of products, we must achieve "click, get."

If you can't get it, it's garbage.

For example, Taobao's victory over eBay is that Ma has adopted the strategy of "encircling the cities in the countryside".

In those days, Alibaba made 100 million yuan to build Taobao, while eBay announced that it would put 100 million dollars into the promotion of eBay eBay, while eBay and many portals signed an exclusive contract for nearly a year.

In 2003, Ma Yun delivered a speech at the Taobao staff meeting: "now that the enemy has taken action to kill us in the cradle, we must think of other ways.

There is not a single road leading to Rome.

Chairman Mao can think of creative military theories such as rural encircling cities, and we can also use them.

Isn't eBay controlling the big cities? Let's go to the countryside to strengthen ourselves in the weakest part of the enemy. "

Ma Yun's move is also forced to helplessness, but this force has forced another world. That is the huge spread power of vertical websites, forums and personal websites. It has proved that this "rural" base has made a huge contribution to Taobao.

Ma Yun's deep understanding of the local concept is: embrace change and challenge change.

In 2006, Taobao's "money making" incident caused great controversy.

In order to quell the public anger, look at how Ma Yun changes quickly.

Ma Yun later wrote a post titled "talk about embracing change". Ma Yun appeared in the name of "qingqingyang". He expressed "deep apologies" for Taobao's recent communication with some of its sellers in "making money and attracting treasure".

At the same time, he also reminded the seller as an entrepreneur: "in the face of all kinds of changes that can not be controlled, the real entrepreneur must know how to embrace with optimism and initiative.

Of course, change is often painful, but opportunity is often acquired in the pain of adapting to change.