The father of Chinese e-commerce has never become the richest man in China, but children who count with playing cards do not need to define happiness with their wealth.
Author | Wang San
Edit | Eucommia
Source | TideSight
After 23 years of operation, the former "domestic first e-commerce" quietly withdrew.
Recently, Shanghai Yingshi Information Technology Co., Ltd. announced that due to the company's adjustment of its operation strategy, it decided to stop the operation of the eBay network platform and close the eBay website.
"Before 24:00 on August 12, 2022, eBay will close the trading functions of all goods and shops on the website, and at the same time close the registration, login, recharge functions of eBay users and shut down the website server. ”
Unlike most companies that have been eliminated by the times, eBay is eliminated by "its own people". After the genius founder, who even Ma Yun needed to look up to, sold the company, eBay began a 19-year-long "farewell ceremony". But eBay never waited for the next genius, and neither did the Chinese e-commerce industry.
Among the three giants of China's e-commerce, Jack Ma founded Alibaba at the age of 35 and retired at the age of 55; Liu Qiangdong founded Jingdong Multimedia Network at the age of 30 and retired at the age of 48 and a half; Huang Zheng founded Pinhao at the age of 35 and retired at the age of 40.
But Shao Yibo founded China's first e-commerce website at the age of 26, became the "father of China's e-commerce" at the age of 29, and retired to the jianghu at the age of 30.
As Ma Yun said: "He is the real genius, my success is just stepping on the shoulders of giants, if he did not give up his career because of love, the entire Chinese e-commerce would have been taken down by him a long time ago." ”
01 Teenage genius
Shao Yibo was born in September 1973 to a family of intellectuals in Shanghai. His parents were both secondary school teachers, his mother taught Chinese, and his father taught mathematics, injecting him with numerical talents from both genetic and enlightenment education.
Shao Yibo began to be exposed to mathematics from the age of 3, through the numbers on the playing cards to practice addition and subtraction, 52 cards, all added up equal to 364, 12 seconds to calculate.
Mathematics is an excellent way to train logical thinking ability and develop human brains, so his father created a good atmosphere for him to learn mathematics, he carefully collected a variety of interesting problems to exercise his mind, and asked Shao Yibo to do several times a day to train his thinking in different ways.
The father focuses on training his three abilities: First, to enhance the child's numeracy ability through his own original additive reinforcement training; The second is to open up the child's analytical ability by doing a variety of interesting application questions for the child; The third is to exercise his self-learning ability by letting the children learn the textbooks of the senior grades in advance, for example, Shao Yibo grew up watching the textbooks of his sister who was three years higher than him.
This is not a "cramming" or "chicken baby" education, but an edutainment after a complex design. As Shao Yibo said when recalling this experience: "My father has been educating me, supervising me, and carefully designing me since I was sensible, which was the key to my growth. ”
In the fifth grade of primary school, Shao Yibo won the first prize in the first shanghai three-counting (oral arithmetic, pen arithmetic, abacus) competition, and then he was admitted to the national key middle school - The Second Affiliated Middle School of Hua normal University.
In November 1986, Shao Yibo, who had just entered the first year of junior high school, participated in the first "Hua Luogeng Gold Cup" Junior Mathematics Competition on behalf of the Second Affiliated High School of Hua Normal University, won the gold medal award in the competition gathering 1.5 million national junior mathematical elites, and officially opened the middle school career of "award-winning professional households", and won the first prize of the national mathematics competition for many times, known as the "big head prodigy".
In 1989, 16-year-old Shao Yibo was in his first year of high school at the sophomore high school of The Chinese Normal University. One day, during his early reading, he was called to the office by the class teacher, thinking that he was going to sign up for a math competition again, but the class teacher told him that the admissions office of Shanghai Jiaotong University wanted him to skip classes to go to college.
On the way home that day, Shao Yibo's mood quickly transitioned from excitement to calm and nervous, and when he stepped into the house, he had decided to give up this opportunity, only worried about not getting the support of his parents, fortunately, his parents' ideas coincided with his, and their goals and vision were more long-term.
There is no if in life, the story of the young genius jumping into the university and finally injuring Zhongyong did not happen to Shao Yibo, as he himself said: "Not only mathematics, my total score in other subjects, but also the first place in the national key middle school." ”
(Shao Yibo with his family, second from the left is Shao Yibo)
In 1991, Shao Yibo participated in the American High School Mathematics Invitational Competition twice, and once again stood out in the world-class competition, winning the grand prize with two perfect scores. In the same year, Shao Yibo became the first Chinese to receive a full undergraduate scholarship from Harvard since the founding of New China.
In 1995, Shao Yibo received a double degree in physics and electronic engineering, graduated from Harvard with "highest honors", and of the 1600 graduates that year, only the top 12 outstanding students could enter the "Honor Club", and Shao Yibo was the only Chinese student.
When he graduated from college, 8 famous physics research institutes in the United States opened their doors for him, and all promised him to study for master's and doctoral degrees, and even some research institutes arranged for him to have a mentor who had won the Nobel Prize. However, Shao Yibo gave up the opportunity to continue his academic research, and instead entered the most popular consulting industry in the American business field at that time, joining the world-famous strategic consulting company Boston.
In the two years of working in the Boston company, Shao Yibo experienced many thrilling "business wars", participated in and planned many acquisitions and mergers of large enterprises with high-level decision-makers, was named the "best employee", and re-entered Harvard for MBA with the company's funding of $90,000, and began a half-work and half-study life.
In 1998, Shao Yibo, who returned to Harvard, met Bao Jiaxin. Bao Jiaxin broke the world record in 1995 with a GMAT (Graduate Management Science Entrance Examination) score of 780, and the TOEFL score of 660 was also the highest score in Taiwan at that time. After graduating from the Department of Pharmacy at National Taiwan University, she entered the Harvard Kennedy School.
Bao Jiaxin published many works such as "English Little Witch in USA" during her graduate school years, and the first time the two met was at a book signing party.
At the level of personal feelings, Shao Yibo encountered ups and downs that he had never experienced, Bao Jiaxin returned to Taiwan after graduation, and the long-distance relationship of the past three years was blocked by time and space, nor was he supported by the woman's parents.
In 1999, Shao graduated from Harvard Business School with a Master of Business Administration degree. He had two options in front of him: One was to return to work in Boston and get an annual salary of $150,000 and a "green card"; The second is to debt 90,000 and leave the Boston company.
Shao Yibo did not hesitate to choose the latter, because he felt the changes in China's business field from newspapers, television, and his parents' calls, and joining this change was his original intention of "abandoning school and going into business" when he graduated from college.
02 Founded eBay
Before returning to China, Shao Yibo had already determined the direction of entrepreneurship - e-commerce.
At that time, the three-year-old eBay had developed from an auction website to an e-commerce platform, and Shao Yibo had helped the Singapore government to do market planning for e-commerce, learned more about the compatibility of e-commerce platforms with the Asian market, and saw the opportunities in China's e-commerce market in advance.
People who see the future in advance are usually questioned and confused, and his decision no longer coincides with that of his parents, but fortunately there is also the support of partners.
In the summer of 1999, Shao Yibo made a phone call to his old classmate Tan Haiyin and invited him to return to China to do the Internet together.
Tan Haiyin is a classmate of Shao Yibo at the Second Affiliated High School of China Normal University and Harvard Business School, who entered Shanghai Jiaotong University with the third place in the Shanghai Municipal College Entrance Examination, entered McKinsey & Company after graduating from the bachelor's degree, and obtained an MBA after working for three years.
Similar study and work experience made Tan Haiyin better understand the original intention of Internet entrepreneurship, and she resolutely gave up her job as an Investment Bank in the United States and chose to start a business with Shao Yibo.
According to Shao Yibo's recollection, they rented a private house in Shanghai as an office, and then hired several part-time engineers to build a platform. After two months of struggle, eBay's auction platform was officially launched.
(eBay's first office)
In 1999, it was a monument in the history of China's e-commerce development. Jack Ma founded alibaba, Wang Juntao founded the B2C e-commerce website 8848, and Shao Yibo founded the C2C e-commerce website eBay.
According to incomplete statistics, by the end of 1999, more than 370 e-commerce platforms had been born in China, but with the arrival of the Internet bubble in 2000, a large number of companies have collapsed, and the e-commerce industry has entered an "ice age".
But just four months after its inception, eBay gained the favor of three U.S. companies for its more eBay-like features, receiving $6.5 million in investment. In 2000, eBay received a succession of $20.5 million in investment from Louis Vuitton.
In the era when the Internet has not yet been popularized and e-commerce has entered a difficult period, the ammunition of capital has almost played a decisive role, and eBay's share of China's e-commerce market has reached 80%, becoming the largest e-commerce website in China.
At the same time as his career took off, Shao Yibo's personal ability was recognized, and he finally ended his long-distance relationship, married Bao Jiaxin and settled in Shanghai.
In 2001, Meg Whitman, then ceo of eBay, was stunned by the array of high-rise buildings when his flight was blocked and diverted to Shanghai. The future richest woman is known for her hard work, doesn't have much time to learn about things outside of work, and her perception of China remains stereotypical.
In addition to the shock, the keen sense of smell of professional managers made her realize that the Chinese market is a gold mine that needs to be mined urgently, and it is necessary to sell as soon as possible before others find out.
So Meg contacted Shao Yibo, an alumnus of Harvard Business School, and eBay provided a $30 million investment for the "Chinese version of eBay", obtaining a 33% stake, and later gave a $225 million acquisition offer.
In June 2003, after witnessing the expansion, bursting and reshuffling of the Internet bubble, Shao Yibo decided to close it as soon as it was good, and eBay acquired the remaining shares of eBay for $150 million, which became a sensational Internet merger and acquisition case in the world that year.
According to the agreement between the two parties, Shao Yibo will continue to stay as CEO for 4 years. However, three months after the agreement was completed, Shao Yibo's father-in-law died, and Bao Jiaxin, who was extremely sad, moved to the United States. Unlike the separation of two places when they fell in love, among the factors that forced Shao Yibo to make a decision, in addition to feelings, there were more responsibilities.
Shao Yibo stepped down, sold his shares, moved to Silicon Valley with his family, and left the fledgling Chinese e-commerce industry.
Meg, who took over eBay, couldn't wait to start the "mining" work, gradually cleaning up the eBay management and installing its own manpower. But she only saw the prospects of the Chinese market, but did not see the differences between the Chinese and American markets in time.
eBay started in the United States by auctioning second-hand collectibles, but this is completely unworkable in the Chinese market. Chinese consumers touch the net late, see it as a new thing, like to surf the Internet, choose goods aimlessly, and have no patience to wait for three days to experience the fun of auction.
At that time, China's overall consumer market was taking off, and commodities and daily consumer goods were rapidly transferred to e-commerce platforms, but the shopping habits of pursuing practicality and cost-effectiveness have not completely changed until today, and there is not much market for collectibles with emotional aura.
More importantly, eBay made the mistakes that all multinational companies make, the pace of localization adjustments according to the Chinese market is too slow, and Ma Yun, who has already received funding from Son Zhengyi, has long been impatient.
03 China E-commerce
In March 2003, Alibaba secretly formed a team of 10 people, who were called into Jack Ma's office in turn and accepted a secret task that could not be passed on - to make a website like eBay and enter C2C e-commerce.
After about a month of research and development, Alibaba's C2C trading website Taobao was officially launched.
However, in the face of this "insignificant" competitor, Meg is full of confidence: "Taobao can only last for 18 months at most and will go out of business." ”
At that time, there were three main ways to charge e-commerce websites: one was to charge a service fee of about 2% after the transaction of the goods, and no transaction was charged. The second is that the products uploaded online all involve login fees ranging from 0.1 yuan to 8 yuan. The last one is the various promotional costs that are at the top or at the top.
EBay eBay (the new name acquired by eBay), which occupies 80% of the market share, adheres to the charging model, while Taobao attracts many merchants to settle in through the model of opening stores for free, and even proposes "free within three years" to rapidly expand the market scale.
In 2005, eBay, which did not wait for the "Taobao collapse", finally took a shot and once again adopted the traditional American way of playing, offering a $1 billion acquisition bid against Alibaba, while Ma Yun directly asked for $2 billion, which was difficult for Meg to accept.
According to data released by CNNIC, in 2006, eBay's market share has fallen to 29%, while Taobao's market share has approached 70%.
In 2006, eBay partnered with TOM Online to form a new joint venture. In April 2012, eBay became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the TOM Group, and all of eBay's businesses were spun off and operated independently by eBay.
In 2012, Taobao's market share was as high as 95%, and eBay's share fell to 0.01%.
Since then, there has been almost no news of eBay in the market until the official announcement of exiting the market in 2022.
The root cause of eBay's exit is the dissatisfaction of multinational companies, but on the other hand, such a conclusion is not enough to summarize the capabilities of Chinese e-commerce companies.
For example, there are two key turning points in Alibaba's rise, one is the launch of Want Want, which has greatly improved communication efficiency; The second is the launch of Alipay, which has greatly improved the efficiency of payment and increased the trust of Chinese consumers in online shopping by introducing third-party secured transactions.
For another example, Liu Qiangdong in the absence of soldiers and food to eliminate the crowd to build their own logistics, Huang Zheng saw the vast world of the sinking market in the cracks of the giants, and entrepreneurs in the field of Chinese e-commerce have long completed the catch-up with their American counterparts in terms of mode and technology.
But there is really one less genius in the industry.
When interviewing Ma Yun, the host of "Fortune Life", asked whether Shao Yibo would have founded Taobao if he had not sold eBay, and Ma Yun's answer was definitely not, "Have you ever seen someone who moved the soil on the head of Taiyi?" He was a prodigy, a genius, especially in the Internet e-commerce sector, I only stepped on the shoulders of geniuses to have today's success. ”
Obviously, the person who knows you best is the opponent, and eBay does not want to treat eBay as an opponent, nor can it see the core assets of eBay as clearly as Jack Ma.
After leaving eBay, Shao Yibo moved to the United States with his family, and also lived in France and Hong Kong, living a "sightseeing tour". He is satisfied with this "family year": "It has given me a lot of time to think about life, and I am grateful to have such an opportunity. ”
But he also realized that the lack of talent at a young age is not a truly rational retirement.
At this time, just when eBay sold eBay to TOM, Shao Yibo had thought about returning, saying that he hoped to recall the original management and revitalize eBay's market share, but was rejected by eBay.
As Shao Yibo's partner Wang Huainan put it: "eBay's behavior makes Shao Yibo feel betrayed, and he believes that eBay is not properly running eBay. He can only watch his 'son' being sold cheaply, and the feeling in his heart is difficult to give up, I think many people can understand. ”
In 2009, Shao Yibo first expressed his views on eBay being sold cheaply on social media: eBay, anxious, angry, sad, heartache.
Until 2017, Shao Yibo said in an interview with Southern People Weekly that he had planned to join a consortium to buy eBay back from eBay. He suggested that eBay should spin eBay out of its international business and pay more attention to localization operations, "Even I have found hundreds of millions of dollars and found managers, but eBay does not agree." ”
Shao Yibo believes that the biggest reason for the defeat was that eBay lost a key game in the competition with Taobao at that time - "payment", and there was no hope of recovering from this defeat. After eBay sold to eBay, because eBay did not yet have a payment license in China, it revoked the previous "EasyPay" service.
Shao Yibo said it, but he was already a genius that eBay could never get again.
04 Conclusion
In 2006, Shao Yibo joined Jingwei United States. In 2008, he also participated in the establishment of Matrix Partners China, focusing on early and medium-term investment, focusing on startups rooted in the Chinese market. In the past ten years, Shao Yibo has invested in 12 companies, including well-known projects such as BabyTree, Liepin.com, Find Steel Mesh, and Installment Music. His investment style is deep involvement with the investee company, for example, he is the co-founder of BabyTree.
Since 2016, Shao Yibo has begun to adjust the energy and focus of investment, according to him, to find a way between pure business and pure charity. In October 2017, Shao Yibo published an article titled "Declaring War on Human Suffering" and unveiled a new direction – philanthropic venture capital.
In 2018, Shao Yibo invested 100 million US dollars in his own funds to create the Evolve Charity Venture Capital Fund, which includes the world's largest meditation APP, children's psychological development research, team training courses, etc., all of which are related to "paying attention to the openness and growth of the human mind", not taking profit as the first goal, but taking the benefit of the world as the first element.
The father of Chinese e-commerce has never become the richest man in China, but children who count with playing cards do not need to define happiness with their wealth.