What Drives Entrepreneurship? Insights from Jack Ma's Alibaba Group

This essay critically analyzes the motivational factors that contributed to Jack Ma's entrepreneurial success, focusing on his journey to build the Alibaba Group. It explores the psychological aspects, such as his positive attitude, ability to keep dreams alive, and self-motivation, highlighting how these internal factors shaped his drive. The essay also examines sociological influences, including his family's support and the availability of resources, and economic factors, such as the need for investors and the competitive landscape. Through a detailed examination of these elements, the essay provides insights into the key drivers that propelled Jack Ma towards entrepreneurship and his ability to overcome challenges, offering valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs. The analysis emphasizes the importance of both internal and external factors in fostering entrepreneurial spirit and achieving success in the business world.

CRITICALLY ANALYSE
WHAT DRIVES SOMEONE
TOWARDS
ENTREPRENEURSHIP

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................................3
Entrepreneurial Motivation factors..........................................................................................................3
Psychological factors...............................................................................................................................4
Sociological.............................................................................................................................................5
Economic.................................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship refers as the process of creating, organizing and carrying a new
business or company on small scale. The person who design and organize such kind businesses
known as entrepreneur. A successful entrepreneur always looks for finding something new and
innovative theme or idea which improves lifestyle of people. They give high contribution in
economic development by creating, designing and implementing new business, recruits job,
gives high contribution to influence GDP rate of country. The brief study on Jack Ma who is
successful entrepreneur will discuss which factors motivate him to become great entrepreneur.
MAIN BODY
Entrepreneurial Motivation factors
It is the procedure of transforming a simple person into great businessman who can
develop various opportunities in improving economic development and enhance wealth as well.
There are various factors which encourage desire and curiosity in entrepreneur to gain specified
goal at any cost or condition. It is mandatory for successful entrepreneur that they must have
ability to determine strength and opportunity from external business environment. Motivational
plays effective role to make people a great entrepreneur by fulfilling basic needs i.e. recognition,
esteem and self-actualization and psychological needs (Karimi and et.al., 2017). Entrepreneurial
motivation is classified into factors i.e. internal factors and external factors which leads
motivation in person and creates curiosity to become successful entrepreneur.
Jack Ma is a Chinese business magnate, investor and politician as well. He is a cofounder of
Alibaba group which is highly famous as E-commerce marketing and captures large market
share as compared others. He is prominent business leader and powerful proponent of an market
driven-economy. Jack Ma is a global ambassador for chinses business because he is enlisted as
one of the world’s most prominent people (Machmud and Sidharta, 2016). He is also considered
a role model for new initiated businesses because he ranked second as great entrepreneur in
2017. There are several entrepreneurial factors i.e. sociological, economic discipline and
psychological needs which motivates him to become successful entrepreneur.

Psychological factors
It is internal factor which includes self-actualization, optimize, positive attitude, self-
motivation, education and enthusiasm etc. These factors play essential role because it supports a
person to become great entrepreneur instead of rat racing.
Positive attitude
It motivation factor which encourage individual to become powerful entrepreneur. Ac
positive attitude always supports individual to create constructive thinking which differentiate
them from others and improves their confidence. Jack Ma keeps positive attitude that’s why
currently he famous as powerful entrepreneur. He faced various ups and down in his life like he
has applied for 30 different job but rejected by all (Aligba and Fusch, 2017). In that situation, he
didn’t make himself low after getting rejection again and again. Every rejection got him
inspiration to try in other business to keep hope expected result will get. In final he made own
website along with friends about chine. Thus, they developed an “Ugly” website which was
related to china as resultant got successes by that. It interprets that he always keeps positive
attitude and searching for new opportunity to improve way of living of people. Positive attitude
result can be seen by Alibaba group which is most famous company in E-commerce market.
Keep dream alive
It is another motivation factor which creates enthusiasm in people and make them more
dedicated for achieving at any condition. Dreams are seen by most of the people in the world but
some people unable to keep them alive. Others keeps their dream alive but leaves due to find
hardship in their ways. Still there are some people who imagine dream and keep them alive till
then do not achieve that differentiate them from others (Arranz, Arroyabe and Fdez. Arroyabe,
2019). Jack Ma is one of those people who always keeps his dream alive. Jack has dream to open
a such kind business which is innovative type and improves lifestyle of people and result can be
seen by Alibaba Group. It is more famous company in the E-commerce market. This dream
always creates enthusiasm to transform dream into reality. There is a specific example of Jack
Ma and his wife’s interview where he accept this such as during interviewing his wife said that
he is not belongs to her and said that he belongs to Alibaba group. When the question arises with
Jack then he admits and says he constancy think about Alibaba group like what stuff can make it

more effective and says he keeps the dream alive in daily routine life such as talk about Alibaba,
breath with it, sleep with it and every moment he think about it. By the statement can be
interpreted that he keeps his dream alive. This is the reason to motivate him to become
successful entrepreneur.
Self-Motivation
Self-motivation is another motivation factor which inspires people to become great
entrepreneur. Jack Ma is highly self-motivated which causes he faced hardship to become great
entrepreneur but never leave dream. He gets inspiration from every place like movie stories, 30
time rejection and others. he keeps his nature self-motivating type so that never leave his dream
and always inspire by own instead of others. Jack Ma shares about movies because he loves
movies and learns various tactic form the movie and gets inspiration to become a great
entrepreneur. It interprets he never need any stimulant for motivation because he inspires own by
own, just because of this today he is ideal entrepreneur.
Sociological
It is another motivation factor which plays essential role to inspire a person to become
effective entrepreneur it is external factors which includes family background and its supports,
influences, availability of resources, products demand, technology development, government
policies and information availability. These factors are major factors which motivates a person to
become entrepreneur (Gundolf, Gast and Géraudel, 2017). The reason behind is that factors helps
a individual to find opportunities so they can take advantage of the opportunity by start up new
business. It is important to understand a person must have own power like positive attitude,
education, self-motivation and others then they can elect effective opportunity and gets success
on the other hand, when people does not have these abilities then can’t finds opportunity.
Jack Maa is a very famous and the richest man in China who is worth $25 billion. Jack
Maa had a lot of ideas in his head which could have become a great success in the market is what
is felt and he did not give up on those ideas which is why he stands that this position in China.
Jack Maa always did what was hard and did not fear from losing anything because he had
nothing to himself which is why he successful (Zozimo, Jack and Hamilton, 2017). There were a

lot of obstacles in his life which were related to money and having rejections throughout his life
but he did not give up and so did his family who kept investing in him so that he could stand up
on his own feet. There was a lot of encouragement which Jack Maa got from his own wife who
not just supported all his ideas physically but with money matter also. Jack’s wife invested all
the saving she had with her for life so that she could support her husband and believed in the
ideas he had in life.
There are a lot of people which are not going to help the idea because they knew that jack
Maa had been rejected from a lot of jobs in the past which is why not everyone could trust him
with the unique ideas he had in mind (Callaghan and Sylvester, 2019). Jack Maa had invested
everything in Alibaba which is what encouraged him to put in his personal best in the company
so that he could grow. There was a lot of investment which was done by the family as well which
is why he had to make sure that the company does run. This idea was got to him from United
States when he visited in 1995 and witnessed internet for the first time. There was a lot of
rejection by Jack Maa which could have made Jack Maa a very negative person and would not
have been able to grow in life but he did not give up and his family helped him to improve. KFC
and Police job interviews he was the only one who was not accepted and all the other candidates
were and he was told that he was not that good for the job. He failed in school, did not get
through the University he wanted to get in which was important for him and his career growth.
He got a job of a teacher which was paying him $12 per month which was not enough (Lee and
Song, 2016).
Economic
Economically Jack Maa did not have money to start a company which is why he had to
get a lot of investors in the organization and make them believe in the idea he had for the
business. He was able to convenience 17 of his friends in joining him to start up Alibaba which
is how he got the money for the company (Hsu, Shinnar and Anderson, 2019). There were
people who believed in the vision he had and he was very good as an entrepreneur because he
understood the people and the needs of them. He did not have a lot of money to start the
company which is why he got his friend in this in this unique idea because they could be trusted
and his own wife for the start up to take place successfully. There are a lot of falls and

competition which the organization has had like the competition in 2000 with eBay which is a
very difficult time for the company in the market. But the company managed to overcome that as
well in China because of the country start up (Soetanto, 2017). There was a lot of promotions
and pricing strategy which was used by the company so that they can have a better market for
themselves.
Alibaba is now one of the largest e-commerce online which is because Jack Maa had a
proper plan for that which is helping him grow. It is very important for the people to get out of
the shell and explore different factors and ideas so that they can grow more and there will be
better experience for the future. It is because of the rejections he knew that what were the factors
he needs to improve on and helped him to make decisions for the future. There were better hiring
in the organization on a later stage that was experienced and the company did very well in the
market because of the risks which the company had taken. Jack Maa is having a lot of inspiration
and learning from his life story for the other entrepreneurs which are a very important factor for
the company and the market. The idea popped up for China itself for Jack Maa because no one
had started an e-commerce organization in the country which would be a great idea for Jack
Maa’s Alibaba and that would have got a lot of customers (Chalmers and Shaw, 2017). The
population of the country is high and so will the demand of products be high. The customers
want the easiest way to get their products which seemed like a great idea for Jack Maa to start
this company but investment was required for him since he could not support his own idea
financially.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that it is very important for the entrepreneurs
to be motivated so that they can succeed in life which is going to be very helpful for a long run
of the organization. A motivated leader or management can help the company to have a better
functioning for themselves and a long run in the market. There are going to be rejections in life
but one needs to overcome those so that they can achieve what they want to in life which is a
very important factor for them. As an entrepreneur there are a lot of risks which have to be taken
and if the entrepreneur is scared of failure then they will not be able to grow in the market.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aligba, A.O. and Fusch, G.E., 2017. Entrepreneurial motivations and characteristics of Niger
Delta youths: An exploratory study. Journal of Social Change. 9(1). p.7.
Arranz, N., Arroyabe, M.F. and Fdez. de Arroyabe, J.C., 2019. Entrepreneurial intention and
obstacles of undergraduate students: the case of the universities of Andalusia. Studies in
Higher Education. 44(11). pp.2011-2024.
Callaghan, T. and Sylvester, S., 2019. Private citizens as policy entrepreneurs: Evidence from
autism mandates and parental political mobilization. Policy Studies Journal.
Chalmers, D.M. and Shaw, E., 2017. The endogenous construction of entrepreneurial contexts: A
practice-based perspective. International Small Business Journal. 35(1). pp.19-39.
Gundolf, K., Gast, J. and Géraudel, M., 2017. STARTUPS’INNOVATION BEHAVIOUR: AN
INVESTIGATION INTO THE ROLE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL
MOTIVATIONS. International Journal of Innovation Management. 21(07). p.1750054.
Hsu, D.K., Shinnar, R.S. and Anderson, S.E., 2019. ‘I wish I had a regular job’: An exploratory
study of entrepreneurial regret. Journal of Business Research. 96. pp.217-227.
Karimi, S and et.al., 2017. Testing the relationship between personality characteristics,
contextual factors and entrepreneurial intentions in a developing country. International
Journal of Psychology. 52(3). pp.227-240.
Lee, S. and Song, B. eds., 2016. Never Give Up: Jack Ma in His Own Words. Agate Publishing.
Machmud, S. and Sidharta, I., 2016. Entrepreneurial Motivation and Business Performance of
SMEs in the SUCI Clothing Center, Bandung, Indonesia. DLSU Business & Economics
Review. 25(2). pp.63-78.
Soetanto, D., 2017. Networks and entrepreneurial learning: coping with
difficulties. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research.
Zozimo, R., Jack, S. and Hamilton, E., 2017. Entrepreneurial learning from observing role
models. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development. 29(9-10). pp.889-911.