YS Learn: How focusing on strengths, hiring the right talent helped Alibaba defeat eBay in China

Share on Share on When Jack Ma co-founded Alibaba over two decades ago, he enlisted over 17 of his friends to work towards becoming the biggest Chinese ecommerce marketplace and expand globally. In its early years, the company focussed on promoting B2B transactions between Chinese manufacturers and international buyers. The idea was to help SMBs in China to get access to global markets. However, this made Alibaba a direct competitor with ecommerce behemoth, eBay. What Jack Ma did was focus on his strengths. He didnࢀ™t launch a massive company-wide effort to develop a website, but he selected six people to…