Ambassador Zhang Ligang: The key to entrepreneurship is the desire for success

When I was 24 years old, I went to Harvard, and in my third year at Harvard, I met Charles Zhang and talked a few times. I can't even remember if he asked me if I wanted to join Sohu, or if I asked him if he wanted someone. But I remember asking him, I didn't do it in the Internet company, did you say I could do it? He asked me if you had ever used the Internet. I said I used it.

He said, that's OK. So I joined Sohu.

I stayed in Sohu for 9 months. Sohu, especially in the early days of China's Internet development, is definitely the leader of the entire industry. At that time, Charles Zhang impressed me the most, he has always stressed that sohu everyone is a crater, have a lot of explosive power. Now the Internet industry, from Sohu to venture out is the most. Air network Ning, Zhou Yun fan, 酷6网 shanyou, Youku Koo, also are the people who come out of Sohu. When Koo joined Sohu, I was just about to leave.

Charles Zhang's entrepreneurial spirit, at that time, really inspired a lot of people. At that time, Sohu is a very entrepreneurial spirit of a company. 1998, 1999, the Internet in China is springing up, money is a dime, the lack of a good background of people. It was not the same as it is now. At that time venture capital investment for you, first to returnees. Take a step back, if you are a famous university graduate also can, if you have done in the Internet company, but also meet these standards, all the money for you to do. I had these conditions at that time, it is easy to take 1 million dollars of start-up funds, then feel that this money is someone else to you, you do it. So soon left Sohu to do Art Dragon.

The Art Dragon was the first company I had established with a couple of partners. In the art Dragon four years, the person's beauty and the ugly side I have seen, also all experienced, lets oneself more mature.

2000, I was 29 years old, Art Dragon was founded eight months or so sold to a U.S. public company. I was about 1 million shares of the art dragon, the price is about 18 dollars. I returned home in 1998.

When I left Harvard, I owed thousands of dollars on my credit card. I do a lot of activities at Harvard, a lot of it is my own money to do, the loss on my credit card. I'm from a person who owes thousands of dollars to a person who has 18 million dollar assets in two years. At the time, it felt like an era of internet bonuses. Goldman Sachs specializes in wealth management to find us, say to buy a betting product. I didn't know what to bet on. It's going to take us two years to sell our stock, when we had a partner who came back from Wall Street and said no gambling. We all said no gambling. Everyone thought the stock was going up, but it wasn't long before the dotcom bust started, and we were just able to sell our own stocks, and the stock price per share fell to less than a dollar. In other words, almost two years or so, I have the stock from the previous 18 million dollars to 1 million dollars. If I were to face the same crossroads now, I would have half the bet and half the guaranteed. Take 9 million dollars to the minimum, 9 million dollars let it rise and fall, at least not lose so miserably. That time, I lost 18 million dollars. At that time, our American parent company was in a state of need, and began to deal with various assets, to sell the art dragon, 2 million dollars in cash to buy the art dragon. Later we had a client to help us buy the art dragon back. When I buy it back, I also change from big shareholder to small shareholder. The stock option was two years, and I went on to do it for two years.

Two years later I am 32 years old. The face is to continue to do in the art Dragon, or to start a business.

That year, three Harvard Medical School professors came to China to recruit students, I asked them to eat and chat, they said you do not leave, simply leave the internet, back to the medical industry. I first thought it impossible, this company was created by me, I can not give up. Then I thought, I was 32 years old, why not? I decided to leave the art dragon.

I read genetics at Harvard Medical School. But in the past more than 10 years, I have never been in the so-called top 500 companies, only in the start-up companies. Later on, it seemed to be close to my educational background, but I didn't do it before. Before I founded Love, I bought a biopharmaceutical research and development company in Shanghai and wanted to feed the company first by selling services.

The company that sells services is Love Kang. Why do you want to love Kang?

About 2003 years of October, I went to the drug fair in Chengdu, before the plane, bought a "fashion health", there is an article on how women manage their health, should be cyclical some of the physical changes and other aspects of the record, regular with their own gynecologist communication. I thought, why should I write it down, why not put it on the Internet? I think I'll just make a website and build an electronic file. 2004, I was in Beijing Jiuxianqiao registered a company, called Love Kang Net.

Love Kang net at the beginning is to sell membership card. After I came back from the United States, I did not go to local hospitals, only to those foreign-related clinics. I went to a Sino-foreign joint-venture clinic in the Hong Kong and Macao Center. Every year to do physical examination, washing teeth, the doctor is over there. Every time a doctor, the clinic can help us from the Union hospital to find experts, the clinic is in charge of the former Union Hospital Dean, he has this resources. I did a love card, to package the package of cards sold in the way of medical resources distribution. The team who dug more than 20 people came to sell the cards, but sold them for one months, and I knew there was something wrong with the business model. The 2005 began to shift, from the Business-to-consumer to business-to-business.

When the art Dragon was not happy, it began to turn into business-to-business mode. An innovative model of the art dragon is that when you call 114 in Guangzhou to ask the Garden Hotel phone number, 114 will ask if you want a hotel. If it is, it will transfer the phone to the Arts Dragon Customer Service center, art Dragon to help it book hotels, from the hotel to get commission, and then part of the 114. Yi Long is to let all bank credit cards, 114 of the hotel to increase the function, resulting in consumption distribution. The art Dragon lives on this hard time. At that time, if we could not live, we would also go to business-to-business, to find business.

The first company to give the list of love and health is GE China. Before the advent of love Kang, these companies in China's staff in dozens of cities nationwide, because the staff physical examination are all over the personnel arrangements, not unified to manage, local reports they can not statistics, China's headquarters do not understand the health of employees, and can not be managed.

At that time, the office had moved from Jiuxianqiao to Soho, with two small rooms. GE China medical director called Wu Jin, also specially ran to our company to have a look. Although relatively small, but we look more flavor. She looked at my background well and agreed to come down. GE is our first customer and introduces all our employees to us. We picked up call center, found a good medical center all over the country, and didn't have to increase the budget, and they handed the whole project to Ai Kang. In charge of Ai Kang's business from less than 1 million in the first year, almost 10 million. Soon, companies like Intel are starting to use our services.

Then came the question, put these lists next, the customer either chooses the three armour hospital, or is the independent Physical Examination Center. Customers do not want to go to the second-armour hospital. If we go to the hospital in the third, we will lose money. If sent to the private medical Center, the medical Center also feel that we are competitors, is two-way, their business robbed, so they do not give us a single, this is the final cause of love to do entities of the fuse. There were two largest medical institutions in the country, one in Beijing and the other in Shanghai. The investor helped me to meet one of the CEO to talk about the cooperation, but the company CEO did not appear, that day they only came to a Vice-President in the corridor to talk to me for half an hour, of course, did not talk about. I'm sure they'll regret it too.

I thought that health checks were just needed in China.

From the perspective of services for large enterprises, the medical institutions at that time can not meet their needs. Ai Kang is an internet company that knows how to meet their needs through a network platform, through an electronic filing system and through a telephone service center. There is a chance that love can create such a business model. I later realized that hotels, guesthouses, including goods are surplus, so it needs Alibaba, art Dragon to help it distribution. But medical services are in short supply and do not need distribution. Later, the internet went offline. From the establishment of the first Medical Center in 2006 to now more than seven years, the Internet as a service platform, marketing tools and internal management means to provide health check-up services, not a traditional medical services company.

In 2007, the health and the Ambassador of Shanghai were merged. The company is losing money after the merger. It was not until 2010 that it took us three years to begin to see the promise of profit. These three years are a groping. After all, before the network company, before the management of medical entities, to undergo a learning process. We formally entered the physical examination industry in 2007, in 2011, the income of the Ambassador of Love and Health ranked first in the industry. We spent four years, learn how to manage the medical center, learn the combination of Internet thinking and entity, learn to chain the operation, so that the industry first.

Entrepreneurship may be different for everyone. Charles Zhang, Ding Lei, including MA, were successful in their first venture and did a great job. I may be doomed to take a few more detours. I don't think I'm the smartest person in the entrepreneur, but I'm certainly one of the hardest working people. The key to entrepreneurship is the desire and perseverance of success, and most people give up in the process.

The relationship between the entrepreneur and the capital, using good is the catalyst, bad is poison. Many Chinese companies, such as 8848, would have succeeded if they had changed an investor. Alibaba has today, but also because there are great investors behind Alibaba. This must be complementary. I think it's important for entrepreneurs to give investors enough trust and confidence, especially in the early days of the company.

Many people think that a few partners create a company, the strength of the team can make the company more powerful. Maybe so, or maybe not. Later, when I was founded, I no longer had partners. I started out as a secretary. Because I have experienced a bitter lesson before, so love kang step by step, choose Senior executives, choose partners are very cautious. We are also very cautious about dealing with investors in order to make the company grow healthily.