Ali won the slogan.

1999, there were 17 young people sitting on the floor in the lakeside garden community, and godfather Ma Yun [Weibo] standing in the middle gave generously and bared his teeth for two hours. He wants to be a world-class Internet company from China, and everyone is secretly rolling their eyes and is in a state of doubt. This is also an incomprehensible future.

Ali Group (hereinafter referred to as Ali) was founded as an enterprise information publishing platform similar to the Yellow Pages, and it was also an online marketplace named "Alibaba [Weibo] Online", which was released in199865438+February, and Ali B2B business officially started operation in1999 June. On this basis, Ali lost no time in launching two fist products, "China Supplier" and "Cheng Xintong", which became Ali's later source of cash flow. So far, it is also the only two products that Ali charges.

18 people cross the river by feeling the stones and look forward to the fruits of hope under the baptism of sweat. However, contrary to expectations, no one can resist this trend. The Internet bubble of 1999-2000 came too fast, and the memory of the crash of Nasdaq (Weibo) is still vivid. The whole internet is cold and bleak, and Ali is also in jeopardy. When there is only 20 thousand yuan in the account, Ali is like a dying grasshopper, running around, talking about ideals and pursuing investment. There is no doubt that Ali is lucky. This is the best time, and opportunities are always reserved for those who are prepared. From 1999 to 10, Ali received the first $5 million venture capital led by Fidelity Investment, and in 2000, it received $25 million financing from Softbank, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Investment and other institutions. Ali walked out of the growth dilemma, survived the cold winter of the Internet, and waited until the two products "China Supplier" and "Cheng Xintong" grew into cows, which brought Ali a steady stream of cash flow.

Fast-growing channels

It is a classic proposition to create heroes in times. The year after Ali was founded, China joined the WTO. In the following ten years, China, as the engine of global economy, ushered in the golden decade development period (12 17.60, 12.80, 1.06%). Under this economic trend, Ali is lucky not to encounter fierce competition in his own B2B field.

The difficulty of survival. At the end of 2002, Ali began to make a profit and the situation was reversed, which means that the Internet company has solved the survival problem. Since the beginning of this year, Ali has gradually developed into a behemoth called "e-commerce empire".

The interference of competition is everywhere. In February 2003, when SARS was raging and the economy was in a downturn, Ali executives secretly convened more than a dozen Ali employees. This private meeting made Taobao [Weibo], and the appearance of Taobao broke the monopoly of C2C market in Yi Bei at that time. At the same time, Taobao also ushered in the crazy strangulation of Yi Bei. In June of the same year in Enemy at the Gates, Yi Bei [Weibo] officially settled in Yi Bei. As the world's leading online trading market for personal and corporate goods, Yi Bei is the ruler of C2C e-commerce, and the two companies have joined hands to talk loudly about eating up China's C2C e-commerce market.

It is no coincidence that free is the best business model in the face of tough competitors. Taobao decided to subvert itself and give up the transaction service fee, login fee and recommendation fee. For individual merchants on the Internet, this is like a pie falling from the sky, just like a vendor canceling business tax and a householder exempting rent. What a temptation. "Free" made the most classic battle in the history of Ali's development. By the end of 2003, Taobao had absorbed about 300,000 registered members, including many old members from Yi Bei.

Taobao is rational, knowing that it is not enough to rely solely on free. How to establish a perfect trading service platform is very important. The value of "customer first" comes as scheduled, and strong service support should be established. For customer service, we should provide better service than free charge; For technology, we should make products that don't need services.

The strangulation of Yi Bei has never stopped, and the systemic risk of this industry is increasing day by day. Taobao bottleneck is coming, and the transaction volume is small and low. Buyers and sellers are in the stage of continuous exploration, and they are also calling for the participation of third-party credit intermediaries to ensure the smooth transaction. However, everyone knows that "seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages". Who wants to take risks? Ebay didn't do it, and neither did other competitors. This is undoubtedly the need of the market and the opportunity of Taobao.

The real change occurred in June 5438 +2003 10. Taobao seized the market gap that everyone avoided, and tentatively released the "Alipay [Weibo]" service. The buyer will deposit the payment into the third-party account provided by Taobao, and then pay the payment to the seller after confirming the receipt of the goods. This undoubtedly greatly reduced the risk of buyers, and both buyers and sellers raised their hands in favor, thus the number of registered members and transaction rate of Taobao increased steadily.

Without exception, when the expansion is unprecedented, it is easy to plant the seeds of disaster.

In 2005, Ali acquired Yahoo China, which shocked the world. This established and internationally renowned Internet company has brought great international reputation and strong search support to Ali. With the help of Yahoo's leading Internet technology, Ali has brought a brand-new shopping experience to hundreds of millions of users and become the "life engine" of China Internet. However, behind the acquisition, Ali replaced $654.38 billion in cash and all the assets of Yahoo China with 40% equity of the group. With the crazy expansion of Ali, the equity game between Softbank China, Yahoo and Ali has been escalating, and Ali has planted the seeds of disaster for himself. At the same time, another question can't help asking how much confidence Ali had in himself at that time, which is an unsolved mystery.

The acquisition of Yahoo China made Ali pay an unprecedented price, and the Alipay incident broke out. The ambiguity and uncertainty of the central bank's third-party payment policy gave Ali an excellent opportunity to fight back. Whatever the truth is, one thing is clear. Ali transferred assets without the consent of the board of directors, but there were few direct beneficiaries. This is a naked breach of contract and a structure of overseas VIE.

Free will not last forever, and Ali needs to make a profit. In 2006, Ali entered the B2C field, and Taobao launched "Taobao Mall", which is a mall prepared for profit. At present, nearly tens of thousands of brand manufacturers have opened stores on Taobao, including international brands such as Procter & Gamble and Unilever, and domestic brands such as Li Ning, Lenovo and Patriot [Weibo]. Taobao is charging merchants a service fee through B2C to ease the pressure of the free model.

After eight years, 18 people in the lakeside community have become "eighteen arhats". In 2007, Ali B2B business was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange independently. In 2007, the establishment of Ali Software was also a step of listing. Ali won the first place on the Internet in China with a market value of $26 billion. These eighteen arhats have all become billionaires. Of course, they are not the only profitable team in the IPO. Alibaba has about 4,900 employees, 70% of whom have become veritable billionaires.

Financial Snow Season and Ali Feng Chun

After going public, a series of large companies in Ali suffered from diseases without exception. The rich gathered at the top of the company, executives left employees, employees left customers, bureaucracy prevailed, office politics came and went, values were lacking, and the passion at the beginning of starting a business was hard to find. When everything goes well, the crisis comes quietly and makes the situation worse. In the global financial tsunami in 2008, the stock market instantly fell to freezing point. Fortunately, the financial winter is just the spring of Ali.

The financial crisis did not crush Ali, and the subconscious sense of crisis brought Ali, who lacked values, back on track. On September 10, 2009, at the 10th anniversary celebration of Ali, eight founders of Ali/kloc-0 resigned from their positions and started from scratch. At this point, Ali entered the era of partners, and on this day, Alibaba Cloud Computing Company was established; It was also on this day that Ali accelerated his journey of ecosystem investment and mergers and acquisitions.

Focus on building an ecosystem. Ali's strategic layout involves four major sectors: logistics, software, services and mobile life. Among them, logistics includes Star Express, Best Logistics and Shenzhen Yitong. Qingtian Technology, Vendio, Auctiva and other software; ; Services include Baozun, Taotaosou, Wang Wan and Word of Mouth. In terms of mobile life, star products such as Sina Weibo, Momo, Gaode Map, tintin map, UC Browser, Meituan and Youmeng are gathered together, and all investments and mergers and acquisitions are focused on building an e-commerce ecosystem to make up for its shortcomings in operation, logistics, software and mobile e-commerce. In addition, the recent marriage with Sina is the lane for business to catch up with the public media platform, and it is also the weather vane for Ali to lead to the political lane.

The full-scale financial crisis in 2008 gave birth to new opportunities. Ali bided his time, fundamentally changed his strategy and paid more attention to the construction of e-commerce ecological chain. From Alibaba's B2B platform to C2C platform, plus Taobao Mall's B2C platform, the original ecological chain was opened by Alipay and Ali Software. The financial crisis completely reversed Ali's ecological chain, taking consumers as the starting point, forming an ecological chain without "C2B2B+S", in which S is service, including distribution, freight and third-party services. Large-scale standardized manufacturing has been abandoned as never before, and manufacturers will customize production according to the wishes of consumers. Ali precipitated a large number of user transaction data in the early stage to understand the preferences of consumers, and based on this. Ali firmly believes in this C2B revolution.

The transformation of business structure has hit the top of the world.

After ten years of hard work, Ali suddenly found that business in the world is still difficult to do. The past economic crisis also showed them that China's economic development model is constantly transitioning to "small but beautiful" and its management model is gradually transitioning from "hierarchical and centralized" to "flat, decentralized and cooperative" in the future. Industrial adjustment and concept upgrading are the only way. It is difficult for a large and comprehensive Ali to accurately satisfy the customer base, and it is also difficult to do so.

In the information age, while building an ecosystem to pursue stability, Ali's active change is the most stable guarantee. In June this year, Ali split its Taobao into three independent companies: Taobao, Taobao Mall and Ceramics. 20 12, 1 In June, Taobao Mall announced that it had changed its name to Tmall [Weibo] to strengthen the positioning of its platform. In July of the same year, Ali's business was upgraded to seven business groups: Ali International Business, Ali Small Business, Taobao, Tmall, Juhua, Ceramics and Alibaba Cloud. At the beginning of 20 13, Ali readjusted the existing business structure of the group and established 25 business divisions. In the future, Ali may continue to try in the process of transformation and change. The Ali ecosystem will be more market-oriented, platform-based, data-based and species-diversified, and finally realize the ecosystem of "one ecology, ten million companies".

Delisting and re-listing

2012 On June 6th, Ali announced that its B2B listed company Alibaba (0 1688, HK) stopped trading on June 8th and officially withdrew from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on June 20th.

Back to five years ago, in June 2007,11600 million Hong Kong dollars was listed in Hong Kong, and its issue price was 13.5 Hong Kong dollars, which rose by 1.9 times on the first day of listing, and then its share price once reached 39.7 Hong Kong dollars, which was the top of its share price. After that, on June 8th, 20 12, the closing price of Alibaba (0 1688, HK) on the last trading day was HK$ 13.44, and its repurchase price was exactly HK$ 13.5, which was estimated to cost about HK$182.52 million.

After five years, Alibaba has returned to its original point. Why? Didn't Ali repay the shareholders?

From a company's big Taobao strategy to small and beautiful ideas, from big platform strategy to small and micro Ali finance, Ali's overall listing is bound to start a new IPO journey, and the overall listing is imminent. Everything is for the IPO with high valuation. Whether Ali's Seven Swords died in less than half a year or the beautiful stories of 25 business groups, whether it is possible to obtain a valuation model that exceeds expectations is what Ali wants. Ali wants to go public when Tmall and Taobao are in full swing. Ali at this time is like Ali's B2B business at that time. Whether it will become a spent force at its peak, whether it will stage the afterglow of the empire again, and whether the future road will be different, no one expected.