An employee earning $12 per month rising as China’s third wealthiest person, Jack Ma is a man of perseverance. With a net worth of $51.5 billion (as of April 2021), his story is a perfect example of a rags-to-riches story.

Widely known as the Chinese business magnet, Jack Ma is the founder and CEO of Alibaba Group, the multinational technology company specialising in e-commerce, retail, Internet and technology. Here are some takeaways from the journey of this billionaire entrepreneur for all the aspiring and budding entrepreneurs.

5 Learnings For Entrepreneurs and Business Owners

You have to start somewhere

Jack Ma was born and raised in a communist Chinese society. Without having a strong financial background or connections, Ma learned that only education can lead him to success. This made him an enthusiast for learning English and ended up in one of China’s local teacher’s institutes.

From making $12 a month at a local university, which was his first job, to creating a net worth of $51.5 billion, Jack Ma has established himself as an influential figure in the startup businesses sphere.

Failure

Jack Ma dealt with a number of failures all his life. Starting from his school days, Ma failed his final exams thrice before passing. He even failed the entrance exams for colleges before getting in Huangzhou Normal University.

Along with his educational phase, his early entrepreneurial ventures were a disaster too. He failed in two of his initial internet ventures and made it in his third chance. Alibaba, his third company, took off and created a buzz in the e-commerce industry with a legendary IPO by setting a world record as the biggest offering in the history of business.

This explains that all these failures didn’t stop him in any way from dreaming bigger rather taught him to value his work more.