Time flies, and now Gong Haiyan has waved goodbye to the "Century Jiayuan" marriage and love website that belongs to the peak of her life and the fierce competition for several years.
At that time, she was full of yearning and wanted to write her own legendary chapter in the new world of education, but fate played a joke on her, making her realize how tortuous and long this road is.
Looking back, that memorable day - December 24, 2012, when she announced her resignation as CEO of "Jiayuan", her heart was as magnificent as a river and a sea, and she was in a dilemma.
She set her sights on the education industry, with endless expectations, after all, this is a blue ocean market with unlimited potential, as long as there is a suitable business model, it will definitely be able to make a big difference.
So, she didn't hesitate to step into this big gamble. In 2012, she first co-founded the "91 Foreign Teacher Network" with top technical talents in the industry, hoping to introduce a group of outstanding foreign teachers from overseas through the distance education model to help Chinese people improve their English speaking skills.
However, this innovative concept was too avant-garde and soon hit a bottleneck in its development.
In the face of difficulties, Gong Haiyan did not choose to give up. She quickly shifted her strategy to a more mainstream basic education market. In November 2013, she firmly stated: "We will invest 450 million yuan in the next three years to push forward, and we will definitely succeed in five years."
As a result, the much-talked-about online education platform "Ladder Network" came into being.
However, just when she confidently declared that "success will be reaped within three years", the national "double reduction" policy swept like a storm, pouring cold water on this seemingly low-hanging fruit bet.
Online educational institutions were in trouble in an instant, and Gong Haiyan's "ladder network" was not spared.
In this way, every attempt she made in the education industry ended in failure. During this period, the capital chain was broken and financing was in trouble, and she had to sell the shares of "Century Jiayuan" in desperation, completely withdrawing from the marriage and love empire created by her.
The former "No. 1 matchmaker on the Internet", who was once on the world's richest list and had a personal wealth of up to 500 million yuan, has now become history. However, her determination to never give up and move forward bravely has always been as firm as a rock.
Gong Haiyan is still full of expectations for the future, and she firmly believes that as long as she has grand ideals and is down-to-earth, she will one day be able to achieve Phoenix Nirvana again.
Although Gong Haiyan has become a wealthy giant worth more than 100 million, what is amazing is that she is not from a proud family, but from a simple rural family, who has worked hard in a difficult environment since she was a child and insisted on studying.
Looking back, it was the midsummer of 2003, when Gong Haiyan, 27 years old, had just graduated from Fudan University with a master's degree, and was in the stage of confusion and confusion about her future life.
As a knowledgeable older woman, her deepest heart is undoubtedly about the major life event - marital problems.
In that era of strong traditional concepts, being single was not regarded as a way of life to be proud of, but was often questioned and ridiculed by public opinion.
In order to get out of this predicament, Gong Haiyan once tried to register on many dating websites to find a suitable partner, but the results were not satisfactory, either maliciously harassed, or far from her expectations.
When she was extremely frustrated and disappointed with the current situation, a strong determination surged in her heart: why not start a professional and responsible dating site herself, which would solve her own immediate needs and meet the needs of others from a business perspective.
However, while ideals are beautiful, reality is often cruel and unforgiving. As a young man who has just stepped out of school, Gong Haiyan has the ambition of Top Gun but is penniless, and she is caught in a dilemma between money and dreams, and she is simply unable to raise enough start-up capital.
Just when she was in trouble and at a loss, she posted a message asking for help at the school: "May I ask which kind person can generously lend me 80,000 yuan, and I promise to repay it in the coming days in several times the amount."
An enthusiastic netizen with the screen name "Fisherman" took the initiative to get in touch with her after seeing this post and learned more about her business plan. After learning of Gong Haiyan's sincerity and determination, the fisherman did not hesitate to remit 80,000 yuan to her account on the same day.
After repeatedly verifying that the transfer was correct, Gong Haiyan deeply felt this selfless love, and tears couldn't help but burst out of her eyes. With start-up capital, she didn't hesitate to lease a server, register the domain name "Love in the 21st Century", and named it "Jiayuan of the Century".
In order to establish a brand image and make the platform stand out in the highly competitive market, she has strictly set the entry threshold for members: must be single, have a college degree or above, and have the sole purpose of finding true love.
The precise positioning strategy of "gathering like things, people by groups" has attracted a large number of high-quality talents to join in the early stage, thus laying a solid foundation for its future development! Ms. Gong Haiyan, her entrepreneurial dream is to start quietly from a donation of 80,000 yuan.
And the netizen "fisherman" who once gave generously has now realized a huge increase in wealth because of the successful listing of "Jiayuan of the Century", which has finally translated into an astonishing return of up to 80 million yuan! Although the road of entrepreneurship from scratch is full of ups and downs and challenges, the final harvest is fruitful.
In the first year of the establishment of the "Jiayuan" website, Ms. Gong Haiyan personally felt the sweet fruits brought by entrepreneurship. A senior intellectual member named "Neuron" took the initiative to send her an email, expressing his admiration for her and looking forward to in-depth exchanges.
Ms. Gong Haiyan carefully examined the personal information of "Neuron" and was surprised to find that this member turned out to be an outstanding scientist in the field of neuroscience in mainland China - Dr. Guo Jianzeng, a man five years older than her, not only has an outstanding academic background and career achievements, but is also a single like-minded person.
Through frequent email exchanges and in-depth conversations, they got to know each other better. After only half a month, they decided to meet face to face to see if the online lover they had never met really matched their ideal partner.
On February 16, 2004, Dr. Guo Jianzeng walked into Ms. Gong Haiyan's dormitory on the campus of Fudan University with great enthusiasm.
The moment the two looked at each other, they understood everything. It turns out that some fates have long been destined, and we just need to wait patiently. At that time, Ms. Gong Haiyan may not have realized that her original intention of creating this website was only to solve her own problems, but she never imagined that here, she found her true love.
When the "Jiayuan" website was first established, the registered members mainly came from Ms. Gong Haiyan's alumni, classmates, relatives and friends and other people with close interpersonal relationships, which can be said to be a small-scale attempt.
After all, it is not easy for a budding dating website to gain widespread social acceptance, and it needs to go through a long development process.
In February 2004, Ms. Gong Haiyan braved the difficulties and led the team to successfully organize offline dating activities held in Beijing and Shanghai!
Taking advantage of this success, Ms. Gong Haiyan made a bold decision to bid farewell to her career in 2005 and devote herself to the challenging entrepreneurial journey.
During the same period, Mr. Qian Yongqiang, a well-known investor, saw the huge potential of "Jiayuan of the Century" and generously invested 2 million yuan.
With abundant financial support, the development of "Century Jiayuan" is like a bamboo, and it is in full swing. By 2006, the site had reached a strategic partnership with global technology giants Microsoft and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, and the number of visitors and popularity continued to soar, and the number of members exceeded the million mark.
Subsequently, in 2007, it received 40 million yuan of investment from Xu Xiaoping, Wang Qiang and other investors, and also attracted 10 million US dollars of capital injection from American venture capital companies.
At this critical moment, Ms. Gong Haiyan has become a symbolic figure of "the first matchmaker on the Internet". She personally developed an ingenious operating model for the site: all members must be single, have a college degree or higher, and have the sole purpose of pursuing true love.
This precise positioning quickly attracted a large number of elites to join, making "Jiayuan" unique in the highly competitive market environment.
In 2007, the total number of members reached an astonishing 5.6 million, and "Jiayuan" has firmly occupied the top spot in the domestic marriage and dating platform. In the face of such a large user base, Ms. Gong Haiyan knew that she needed to find new growth points, so she boldly tried to get involved in the flower e-commerce business during the Qixi Festival and achieved remarkable sales results.
However, Ms. Gong Haiyan has always maintained a high level of vigilance in the e-commerce industry, believing that it is unfathomable. After all, the main source of revenue for websites is still the advertising business.
Based on her rich experience, she finally decided to enter the field of wedding services to provide one-stop related services for the majority of couples.
In March 2008, with the data of tens of millions of male and female users in her hands, the new "Magpie Network" wedding website came into being, aiming to provide a full range of one-stop services such as wedding dresses, wedding halls, and new house decoration for newlyweds.
It is precisely because of Ms. Gong Haiyan's excellent business wisdom and keen market insight that "Jiayuan" has been able to gradually grow from a trivial entrepreneurial project to a leading enterprise in the domestic marriage and love industry.
As of 2010, its share of the global market has occupied an astonishing 54.4%, firmly locking in the leading position in the industry!