You might have read the news about Alibaba recording $25.3 billion in sales on Singles’ Day this year. ( 2017 ).

The first 15 minutes saw sales of $5 billion.

The first 12 hours saw sales of $18 billion.

It’s a jaw dropping feat. By no means has it been easy. Nor has it been luck. It has been vision + perseverance + customer focus.

Alibaba started in 2009. It’s been 8 years. They set out to try and convert shopping into a sport, into entertainment. How astonishingly well have they succeeded !!!

Needless to say, a lot of work has gone into this journey. It’s a journey that is much more than offering products at a discount.

Alibaba helped 600,000 + stores upgrade their computer systems to become net savvy and transact digitally.

Alibaba has made big bets in technology by investing in automated warehouses, and have worked hard to make Alibaba Cloud withstand the pressure of 325,000 orders a second.

Alibaba connected 300 million strong, middle income earning people of China, with increasing disposable income, with merchants who wouldn’t dream of opening an online store.

A classic example is – A farmer who would sell in a day 100 duck eggs scaled to a daily sale of about 400,000 duck eggs. He couldn’t have ever imagined this nor achieved this without Alibaba.

Ironically, it has created a digital democratic economy, driven by market forces, in a communist country.

Vision + perseverance + customer focus, have paid huge dividends. How much? In this case, about $17.5 million a minute.

Can you dare to be an Alibaba is any area of your expertise? The world is waiting for you.