Date of birth: October, 1971
Graduation institution: Shenzhen University
Major: Computer major
Education: Bachelor degree
Personal experience:
September 1989 to July 1993: Computer major of Shenzhen University
April 1993 to July 1993. EO
Ma Huateng, President and CEO of Tencent, was selected as the most influential business person in the world in 24 by Time magazine and CNN. Not long ago, Ma Huateng was awarded the 4th Bauhinia Cup Outstanding Entrepreneur Award by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Only two Chinese were selected this time, and the other was Li Dongsheng, chairman of TCL. At the same time, Mr. Li is also an independent non-executive director of Tencent Holdings. Other entrepreneurs selected by the world's most influential business people in 24 include Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric Company, Charles Prince, CEO of Citigroup, and Fan Dewei, Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell Group.
attachment: QICQ journey of ma Huateng, the father of QQ!
Ma Huateng, the father of QQ: Playing is also a kind of productivity
February 23, 25 at 1:2
In China, many people may not know who Ma Huateng is, but few people don't know the chat tool represented by the cute little penguin image-QQ. Tencent, founded by Ma Huateng, has changed the communication habits of 1/13 people in China with this chat tool, and has gained extensive international influence. In CCTV's 24 economic person of the year selection, Ma Huateng impressed the judges with his entrepreneurial myth and won the annual cutting-edge award. Among the 25 most influential business people in the world in 24 selected by Time magazine and CNN, Ma Huateng was also on the list.
At the beginning of his business, the company had three full-time employees.
Ma Huateng, who came to Shenzhen from Hainan with his parents in p>1984, used to like astronomy very much, but it was a little far away after all. When the computer appeared in front of him, his life had a new master.
When studying computer science in Shenzhen University, Ma Huateng's computer skills have impressed teachers and classmates. He is not only the nemesis of all kinds of viruses, but also provides a good solution for PC maintenance in the school. At the same time, he often does some practical jokes to lock the hard disk, which makes the school computer room administrator laugh and cry.
After graduating from Shenzhen University in p>1993, Ma Huateng joined Shenzhen Runxun Company and started to work as a software engineer. In 1997, Ma Huateng met ICQ for the first time. As soon as they met, he was attracted by its infinite charm. Immediately registered a number, but after using it for a while, he felt that ICQ with English interface was not easy to popularize among Chinese users. So he thought, can he make a Chinese version tool similar to ICQ?
in November p>1998, Ma Huateng cooperated with his classmate Zhang Zhidong, registered Tencent Computer System Co., Ltd. in Shenzhen, and decided to develop a Chinese ICQ software. Since then, he has embarked on a pioneering journey. It is said that at the beginning, the whole capital of the company was all the savings of several young men, and the whole company had three full-time employees. Initially, Ma Huateng and Zhang Zhidong just wanted to link paging with the network and develop a wireless network paging system. At that time, the main business of this small company of more than a dozen people was to do projects for Shenzhen Telecom, Shenzhen Unicom and some paging stations, and QQ was just a by-product of the company. At that time, in order to make money, Ma Huateng dared to take on any business, such as web pages, system integration and programming ... It is said that there were hundreds of companies like Tencent in Shenzhen at that time, and Ma Huateng and Zhang Zhidong had the greatest expectation that as long as the company survived, it would be victory.
Being exhausted, QQ was almost sold
"First of all, there was a lack of funds, and the funds could not keep up with the software." They often work for a project in they nest. Ma Huateng's business card only bears the title of "engineer". At that time, his main business was only to do projects for Shenzhen Telecom, Shenzhen Unicom and some paging stations, and QQ was only a by-product of the company. This company composed of more than a dozen people is pitifully weak, and the difficulty of starting a business makes Ma Huateng and his colleagues exhausted. Ma Huateng recalled that there were hundreds of such companies in Shenzhen at that time. He only had one wish at that time, that is, the company could survive.
three months after the company was founded, Ma Huateng and his colleagues finally developed the first "China flavor" ICQ——OICQ, which is the predecessor of QQ. However, this chat tool, which was popular all over the country and created great wealth for Tencent, did not bring much joy to Tencent people at that time, because there were several similar softwares in China at that time, and there were not many users. No one was optimistic about Ma Huateng's OICQ.
However, the stubborn chaozhou people, born in 1971, refused to admit defeat. He believed that this chat tool contained huge business opportunities. Ma Huateng put QQ on the internet for users to use for free with the mentality of giving it a try, but even Ma Huateng himself did not expect that this unpopular software developed 5 million users in less than a year. A large number of downloads and the surge in users excited Ma Huateng, but also made Tencent unable to cope, because the number of people increased, it was necessary to continuously expand the server, and at that time, the server hosting fee of one or two thousand yuan overwhelmed the small workshop-style Tencent company. Without funds to update the equipment, the staff can hardly get paid. "We can only use other people's servers everywhere. At first, it was just an ordinary PC, put it in a computer room with broadband conditions, and then secretly put the program into someone else's server to run."
The immediate difficulties forced Ma Huateng to transfer his company to others. However, due to the lack of discussion with many content providers, Ma Huateng made up his mind to leave this "child" who brought him trouble and cultivate it. So he raised money everywhere, and when he couldn't raise it at home, he looked for foreign venture capital. After many twists and turns, everything pays off. Ma Huateng met IDG and PCG Digital. "They gave QQ $2.2 million, each accounting for 2% of the company's shares." With this fund, Ma Huateng bought the company a 2,-megabyte IBM server. "I put it on the table at that time, and I don't want to mention how beautiful it is." Ma Huateng couldn't help but recall.
However, Ma Huateng knows very well that it is not enough to rely solely on foreign venture capital. He began to find ways to make money from customers, because if each user is willing to spend 1 to 2 yuan, it will be nearly 4 million yuan. Once, he found that there was a service for dressing avatars in Korea, so Ma Huateng moved it to QQ. He also found internationally renowned companies such as Nokia and Nike, and put their latest products on the Internet for users to download. All registered users can get their free services as always to meet their instant messaging needs, and if they want to enjoy more attractive experiential value-added services, they must pay corresponding fees. This measure has enabled Tencent to gradually embark on a virtuous circle of healthy development. At present, this business is growing rapidly, and more than 4% users have tried to buy it.
in the first three quarters of p>24, Tencent made a profit of 328 million. In June 24, Tencent successfully went public in Hong Kong, and raised another $2 million. The fragile sapling finally grew into a towering tree.
Ma Huateng: Playing is also a kind of productivity
Anyone who knows Ma Huateng well knows that he has a famous saying: "Playing is also a kind of productivity." It is not only the principle of Ma Huateng's career development, but also a purpose of his development of chat software to find fun from playing and combine the mentality of playing with reality.
For entrepreneurs, fun is important; For QQ users, fun is equally important. Ma Huateng told reporters that QQ has two purposes, one is business and the other is entertainment. In addition to carefully strengthening the communication function of QQ itself, Ma Huateng has always hoped that QQ can develop into entertainment. "Because in the process of QQ development, I found that many people regard QQ as an entertainment tool instead of a simple' online pager', which is also an important factor in the rapid development of QQ." In terms of entertainment, QQ can also incubate and develop a variety of personalized products and functions. Ma Huateng felt that Tencent people didn't pay enough attention to this aspect, so he decided to set users' interests as the company's key development direction.
With this principle, Ma Huateng admits that he is very different from ordinary technicians. He rarely has a strong desire to pursue technology, but thinks more from the perspective of user needs. In his view, no matter how well the technology is done, it will be of little significance if no one uses it. Therefore, he hopes that his QQ chat software can attract more customers with entertainment functions, so that customers can have fun.
In fact, the so-called lack of attention to entertainment functions is just Ma Huateng's higher requirements for himself. In fact, as an echo of QQ's entertainment function, the little penguin head not only changed the communication way of many people, but also created a unique leisure culture.
Lin Yixiang, chairman of Tianxiang Investment Company, once commented on Ma Huateng: "He has changed the lifestyle of many of us. Many people think that QQ is purely a simple way of trading or communication, and this change has actually changed people's lifestyle." Nowadays, QQ products can be seen everywhere on the street, and the cute little penguin image has entered thousands of households. However, one thing that Ma Huateng is most proud of is that Tencent now often receives wedding candy from users, saying that they met and got married through QQ. Undoubtedly, the success of QQ software in online dating reflects the original intention of combining entertainment with practicality advocated by Ma Huateng to a certain extent.
secret of success: focus on things
Tencent succeeded and Ma Huateng became famous. Today, Tencent QQ has more than 16 million users and 7.3 million paid members, and has 13.1 million registered SMS users, making it the first instant messaging operator in Asia and the third in the world.
Some people summed up the reason for Ma Huateng's success, saying that it was too good luck. Ma Huateng concluded that it is the focus on QQ that has made me who I am today.
"He is a dedicated person", and almost all partners in the industry will use the word "dedicated" when they mention this 34-year-old boss. In the past five years, Tencent has been doing and only doing the work of perfecting and standardizing QQ services. It is the only company in China that focuses on online instant messaging.
Ma Huateng spends most of his time on the Internet every day, and his only purpose is to explore new business opportunities in the corners of the Internet.
Business philosophy: "Three Questions to Ask Yourself"
It is said that Ma Huateng always asks himself three questions carefully in business, and these "three questions" accurately reveal Ma Huateng's business philosophy.
Question: Are you good at this new field? Most competitors are interested in business, profit and capital, but they don't necessarily grasp the real needs of customers; Ma Huateng, on the other hand, with a vague but quite predictable understanding of the online market, set up Tencent's shelf with almost paranoid interest and almost fanatical work enthusiasm, firmly adhered to the company philosophy with technology as the core, and extremely focused on technology development and quality improvement, which can certainly be better than his competitors.
second question: if you don't do it, will users lose anything? The experience of being a software engineer made Ma Huateng understand that the significance of developing software lies in practicality, rather than the writer's self-entertainment: "In fact, I am just a person who loves online life very much and knows what internet fans need most, so I develop the most useful things for myself and them, that's all."
three questions: if you do, how much competitive advantage can you maintain in this new project? In the second half of 1999, Tencent became bigger and bigger in the network paging system market, and found a large bucket of "gold and silver". However, it also faced major choices: on the one hand, the paging industry was in decline; On the other hand, the number of QQ users of Tencent has reached 1 million, and it is still growing rapidly. Earlier, QQ only existed as a by-product of the company, and Ma Huateng did not have enough understanding of the huge market value contained in QQ. Moreover, whether technically or financially, he is not sure how much competitive advantage he can maintain. At that time, the strategy adopted by Tencent was "three-pronged": on the one hand, it continued to consolidate the large profits brought by the traditional network paging system; On the one hand, focus more on improving QQ functions and developing new versions; On the one hand, looking for the support of venture capital. Facts have proved that this strategy is correct.