Alibaba’s Jack Ma’s lessons for African entrepreneurs

[Music] he is one of the biggest names in world business and he came to Africa to give a masterclass on becoming an entrepreneur Jack Ma worth more than 42 billion dollars and listed by Forbes as one of the most influential business people on the planet he was rejected for 30 jobs before coming to his own and founding Alibaba the Chinese based ecommerce giant he was in Johannesburg to tell entrepreneurs hear his story I'm very inspired and moved and touched when I was sitting there listen to all the great speeches thank you my friends thank you my colleagues I mean colleagues entrepreneurs we're lucky that this life we can be together on the way to do something ourselves to do something we believe to do something that we dreamed off last year was my first - trip to Africa before I came to Africa I worried a lot like anybody else this and that this is no good that is no good this is not safe everything that I said no matter whatever you worry you have to step on Africa and feel it and touch it yourself so I came I thought it's too late I why did I came ten years ago Africa is a continent full of opportunities and I was inspired and I said from now on every year I would come to Africa visit the three countries so this is my second trip to Africa and I hope in next 10 15 years I can finish visiting 54 countries in Africa every country and I came with a lot of friends business leaders in China and they said what we can do it so don't do anything come here feel it only when you feel it you will love it when I leave left Africa last year I feel uh something something should be done a lot of things can be done and I asked myself one thing that the day when I study ba ba and I told my team and there is a sentence we remember if not now when if not a mate who write so we said let's come to Africa do something and well this is this is why we came and people say well I forget there's so many problems tell me in the world there is a place there's no problems there's no place in the world there's no province right and people there yet Africa is a poor there's no wealth but I feel this is there's of the best wealth of human beings here you have a beautiful air blue sky and the nature and wide animals these are the richest assets that the whole world of the mind and especially China we are the my blue sky [Applause] you you know that I wish I could have stay here for 20 days and you know for a whole Mouse here and i-i've is--it to the east appear and poles wanna and the south of Berg this time and we already start to plan next year which at what are the countries we want to visit and people say well Africa is too old but I think this this continent it's such a young full of young people everywhere right and when you listen to a listen to the entrepreneurs the II and II founders were named in Hangzhou I said these people the entrepreneurs in the in Africa they are the soup first class in the world I'm not I'm not there I'm sitting from the heart the way they say the dream do believe the action and the passion this this is amazing I think this land is full of chance full of opportunities full of dreams and I think these the other things that you see this land also has a lot of responsibilities I was in Cape Town yesterday we're giving 50 our world's to the Rangers those people protect animals right we we promised we were giving 50 renders a world's every year and these people are the job creators they are the real heroes I said a hundred two hundred years ago people named those people killing animals are the heroes now we should hero those people who protect animals [Applause] and I always believe when everything's ready is too late and does not entrepreneurs do the things before everything's ready right there will be no Alibaba if everything's ready why Jackman you know we've this guy failed again again for so many times failed of examination for university for three times no money and my my father my mother those are very poor people in the root in the cities so there's no chance for us Africa the same today's Africa is much better than 90 years ago when we started Alibaba people was such a terrible speed at that time they were using Internet you know when I started my business 1994 for the Internet I invite a lot of people say jack is telling a lie there is no such thing called Internet I went to register my company and in the company registered in office if people say what kind of a company you want to do I said Hanzo internet consulting company is it there is no such a word in the dictionary they cannot register the company and China was not connect to the internet the day when I registered my company three months later China was connected with Internet so in order to prove that I was not a liar I invite the TV people came to my room we waited of three hours and a half to download the first front page and that was true right and this is say and at that time nobody believed Internet don't buddy believe ecommerce nobody believed China would have e-commerce no logistic no credit cards the same passion people cost asking you now how can Africa Internet companies how can two ecommerce you'd have a credit card you never logistic you know if government support you don't have everything that's the opportunity as entrepreneur we never complain we make other people complain we make our competitors complain we never cry because if cry can solve the problems case of no problem we make competitors cry we make those people who do not believe our dreams cry in my apartment where we started eighteen founders and we aim high we have a dream we say we want to make become the top ten Internet companies or websites in the world guys at that time we are ranking several meaning name who is it won't be number 10 or the top 10 of the world we want to make this company last 102 years and we don't know where is our pay next mouth when you are poor if you have a dreams you never feel poor you know what we are doing so after we never say we will be we will win next year or we win tomorrow we say we will weigh in 10 20 years 19 years past today we are the top 10 websites coming to the companies in the world and 19 years 90 years best today we never think we never expect that Alibaba business I leave about companies just ecommerce without a Lian to financing Alibaba ecommerce our market caps 500 billion US dollars so think about tell me 90 years ago anybody can see a company in China can be the top of tear into the companies of the world or 10 years ago to the years ago anybody can believe a company in Asia could be the top 10 global tech companies in the world so people here believe in Africa in 10 20 years you will have at least a 10 20 f Alibaba companies because if you don't dream if you don't start to work this thing will never happen but if you studied do it you have a chance if not 500 billion 50 billions okay imagine Africa to 1.2 billion people most people young people right I say I heard it from my friend dr. catuey you have got 13 million young people graduate from university looking for jobs these are the resources when Alibaba start to hire people we could not high people at talkes nobody want to join a company strange name Alibaba right and work in an apartment and nobody believe it covers internet so we hire anybody who can walk we don't care right whether you are master degree a Bachelor degree as long as you believe us so they join us we start off with nothing it was true for the first of ten years was tough very difficult days because we cannot find customers we cannot find a good engineers we cannot find any any sort of resources we don't we cannot to get money from the from the banks right so people say well you know in Africa we cannot get lost from them from the banks everywhere in the world banks do not give small business money right so we start to be very careful for every every cent we spend and the day the our first IPO years year 2007 when Alibaba I peeled in Hong Kong year 2007 we are a lot of millionaires in the company and I asked my friend my colleagues alike we have like a 300 people become millionaires and I asked them eh now tell me you become millionaires because you are smarter than the others the people said no no no we even cannot find the jobs because you are hardworking yes we were happy we find more people hard-working than us but they did not succeed one of why they're not smart all the smart people at that time they went to Microsoft and IBM and headhunting companies came to head and all the best guy from us and we are the people nobody cut the head we have no place to go we believe in ourself we believe our dream we work together so I say we are the people because nobody want us I am the person over 30 companies don't want to make right so we are the people get used to be rejected where the people get used to be say no from the other people why people should help you people help you that is unusual people do not help you that is very common you should were to end to be helped so in order to encourage my 817 founders and all the people who join us I said our competitor is very strong at that time our competitor was eBay lot of the eBay guys from graduate from Harvard we are people graduate from the note I don't want even mention but at the university names well nobody but I say if we can wing if we can succeed 80% of the young people in China in the world can be successful because we believe we work a lot of our dreams but they don't work hard a lot of work hard but they don't have dreams entrepreneurs should have word + dreams and this way we can win [Music] [Music] in Africa don't listen to those experts telling you don't do this don't do that tell them Africa needs a future the future has no experts right we entrepreneurs someday we are the experts right so this is what I think and when you wear entrepreneur get used to failure today's the Alibaba you succeed well our company won't last 102 years why a hundred two years because every target every goal we keep our team should be very accurate we were born 1999 last the century we had a one year we want to spend 100 years and plus one year one or two processor e centuries so very accurate we never see we are successful because we are only 19 years old there's 83 years to go so we will never see we're successful we just survived 19 years we are lucky but in the past 19 years we have made thousands of mistakes as entrepreneur don't learn from other people how they succeed learn from how their people fail because a lot of MBA schools that teach you success successful case studies when you read too many successful you think you can be successful no there are a lot of things that you don't know because you know some business school came to Alibaba write a case studies they say yeah this is Alibaba and you say no this is not Alibaba they wanted me to sign after one week study they say this is case study Alibaba I know this is not me they say Jack you don't know you and that's all right I say and next to five years every year there is a case study in Ching hai University I was invited a sitting at the back listen to the MBA schools talk learning about our case study and they always put a competitor competitor in Alibaba who has succeeded for five years all they always agree Alibaba would die the competitor will win but five years all the competitors died so how can you learn from the case study like that learn from the mistakes because the mistake most of the companies I I talk to entrepreneurs most of the mistakes they made are the same most of the successful reasons you don't know their different reasons so when you learn from the mistakes not because you want to avoid mistakes because when you see the mistakes where you have this kind of problems you know how to face it an entrepreneur have a strong heart towards the difficulties mistakes the troubles the failures but should it be a warm and soft heart to your colleagues and to the customers and I think one of the things I want to share with the valley's the six values amount the two values very unique and Alibaba which I think the whole world should think about we put custom number one in pride number to share her number three most of companies in the Wall Street they put a shareholder number one I said each customer is the most important if you serve them well they pay the money and the second important is colleagues why the college get together because they want to serve the customers if they do not a cust serve the customers why we get it together right so if the customer happy in price happy the shareholders will be happy and the next of value I'll share what do is embrace the change in this change of the work keep changing is the best way keep step keep could be successful there are snow there's I remember year 2000 when I tried to raise my money I went a lot of venture capitalists they say Jack give me the business plan I said I don't have a business plan now write something look at the others they were such a thick business plan yeah I spare the whole week right on one piece of paper and they said this is the business plan a book the book is about how to be successful in you know doing their business in e-commerce internation I say how can they write a book China was not even connect to the internet we never change our dreams but we change our self we'll learn from the mistakes from the others and ourselves and change and become successful this is how we did so and also I encourage all the intrapreneurship in Africa do not think about your own country think about a whole Africa think about the whole world if you only think about your own country there's no difference between thinking your own country in your own village the internet connect everywhere and this continent is very simple people say very company I think it's a very simple if you have been to Europe you know how complicated it is they worry too much Ryan our security previously this and that before the business have done is start to put a lot of rules and laws here you have nothing to destroy right so this will the most difficult thing is to convincing a successful people successful people is telling you I don't do this don't do that you know we have experience of this and that we are the people we want to be successful we want to create the future we want to do something that we believed in so I think the very important for Africa is created jobs and the best way to create jobs is to encouraging small business the best way to create jobs is to trust the young people and I talked to the president yesterday evening we should every country in this this world this century should encourage give good conditions tax conditions to the startups not be companies it's and he I'm very happy to hear that he agreed because those big companies they don't need that we startup needed if you take tiny text from those tiny startups it just like a taking the meat of the mosquito legs you're killing the others you did not survive right there this world there are so many great conditions for big companies it is time let's forget policies for startups for young companies and also I encourage in all the entrepreneurs if you want to start a business don't think you will be successful next month or next year think about at least five years because if something can be successful next month why you you have a rich father you don't have to be stirred up right and I by the way don't be discouraged because you have a poor diploma or you know Brad you from a poor university or lower education don't worry about that if you graduate from MIT Harvard you would never be entrepreneur right they can only be the white-collar guys so as entrepreneur you should have the story the strategy for entrepreneurs strategy is time ten years you compete with the other people the vision the world will be there it will be there what kind of customers they need how we can build it up if you'd prepare for five years in ten years if you have a good team and always do before the government do if you're waiting for government you have no chance right well government say there is an opportunity there go that direction because it would be too crowded in there right this is always so SM true premier always ask yourself three questions what do you have what do you want and what will you give up what do you have we'll have nothing right the only things we have a dream would believe we have a team and I believe we have the word time to work hard and what do you want and what do you want you have to ask what the custom want what's the problem of the society what the your customers and what the team want think about what do you have we want and will we give up if you don't want to give up everything you will get nothing a lot of business people they never learned to focus if you start of Lent to be focused on one thing right because learn to be focused just like there are nine rabbits on the ground if you want to catch the rabbit don't change the rabbit change yourself if you want to catch this and get them it finally got nothing so for nine rabbits don't change the rapid change yourself to catch that rabbit and you've got it a lot of things we have to learn it's a great experience to be an entrepreneur life is so cool we become entrepreneur in my life the day I never write a book for myself and I think those people write books are getting too old my life just the beginning the day when I want to write back I want to write a book I'll leave about 1001 mistakes and I won't tell my kids how many tough days I have grown through how many missed silly mistakes I've made and this is the best experience this is because it's easy to be good but it's tough to be bad so the other thing is I think Africa's are two great opportunities lie before us first is digital Africa you don't have such a complicated IT infrastructure today it is very difficult to move in Europe and America because they are such a perfect IT infrastructure you know one of the reason why ecommerce in China grows so fast is China infrastructure of of retail is too bad suddenly ecommerce can we jump up Africa I think it's almost same like China 90 years ago opportunity and you don't have a payment I encouraging all the the government in Africa to launch the payment for everybody have the chance to reach the money it is not that difficult the technology is there as and don't worry about you know there is a security this I tell you a leap a Alibaba payment in the past of 15 years we've been going such a tremendous amount every day now we are fighting more than 500 million transactions we are bigger than visa global mask of global we have a trillions of trillion more than can trillion dollars transaction last year we don't have even one cent mistake any bank tell me that you don't have one cent a mistake in one year we don't for 15 years the technology is there the only things you want your people to be rich you want your piss small business to reach the money [Music]

Channel: CNBCAfrica

Views: 434,680

Rating: 4.8908992 out of 5

Keywords: Alibaba, Jack Ma, African entrepreneurs, Forbes, South Africa, Africa, Southern Africa, Executive

Id: LToLyCg0zeI

Length: 26min 30sec (1590 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 15 2018