The amazing e-commerce success story that provides a powerful new growth model for small business start-ups and grassroots entrepreneurs One of the world’s fastest growing Internet companies, Alibaba and its founder Jack Ma have inspired a generation of young Chinese—not just as a road map to riches, but as a lesson in entrepreneurial individualism. This illuminating guide takes readers inside this global giant of e-commerce and shows entrepreneurs how to build their own businesses from a grassroots vision to a world-class operation. Using Alibaba’s incredible success as a case study, the book identifies the driving forces behind job growth, innovation, and sustainability in the Digital Age. It shows small business owners how to unleash their entrepreneurial spirit, realize their grassroots ambitions, and use technology-driven platforms to grow their companies across multiple markets. The Alibaba Way offers a proven way to survive and thrive. The first book-length case study of the Alibaba phenomenon Alibaba is receiving incredible positive coverage in the media—its IPO is likely to be the largest in the US and one of the largest in the world Dr. Lowry is an expert in Chinese economics with experience in American markets Dr. Ying Lowrey is an Economics Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, and Deputy Director of Tsinghua Research Center for Chinese Entrepreneurs.

This book expands the concept of open innovation from a static strategic idea to a dynamic principle. It details various, underexplored aspects of this concept, including the culture for necessary open innovation dynamics, the difference between James Watt and Steve Jobs, and collective intelligence as a new category of open innovation. It specifically considers open innovation within the context of micro- and macro-dynamics of economics.

In September 2014, a Chinese company that most Americans had never heard of held the largest IPO in history – bigger than Google, Facebook and Twitter combined. Alibaba, now the world's largest e-commerce company, mostly escaped Western notice for over ten years, while building a customer base more than twice the size of Amazon's, and handling the bulk of e-commerce transactions in China. How did it happen? And what was it like to be along for such a revolutionary ride? In Alibaba's World, author Porter Erisman, one of Alibaba's first Western employees and its head of international marketing from 2000 to 2008, shows how Jack Ma, a Chinese schoolteacher who twice failed his college entrance exams, rose from obscurity to found Alibaba and lead it from struggling startup to the world's most dominant e-commerce player. He shares stories of weathering the dotcom crash, facing down eBay and Google, negotiating with the unpredictable Chinese government, and enduring the misguided advice of foreign experts, all to build the behemoth that's poised to sweep the ecommerce world today. And he analyzes Alibaba's role as a harbinger of the new global business landscape—with its focus on the East rather than the West, emerging markets over developed ones, and the nimble entrepreneur over the industry titan. As we face this near future, the story of Alibaba—and its inevitable descendants—is both essential and instructive.

The first in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar company Alibaba.com—known to many as "China's eBay"—and the inspirational story behind the man who created it. A bestseller in China and now translated into English and updated with recent events, Alibaba by Liu Shiying and Martha Avery tells the remarkable story behind the Internet phenomenon Alibaba.com and its founder Jack Ma, a man Barron's named one of the World's Top 30 CEOs in 2008. Ma's rise to prominence presents a riveting story: Despite growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution—in a period of total state control of the economy—he developed the keen entrepreneurial instincts that propelled him to billionaire status and enabled him to build a company outside the usual government channels. These instincts and habits incorporated martial arts training and allowed him to recognize, early on, that the Internet could leverage his company to rapid growth and also transform the way business is done around the world. Alibaba.com, where businesses can buy and sell everything from air beds to zippers, started with a modest initial investment of $60,000 and has grown exponentially since its founding in 1999 to become the world's biggest business-to-business Web site. In 2007 it became the second largest IPO in history (after Google), and Fast Company has named it one of the world's most innovative companies. As a result, smart investors and technology insiders will be keeping a close eye on Alibaba for years to come. Whether you're seeking to understand China's meteoric rise, or just searching for the next Google, Yahoo!, or Amazon, Alibaba is crucial reading.

The Wall Street Journal Bestseller featured in Bloomberg, Fast Company, Masters of Scale, the Motley Fool, Marketplace and more. An indispensable guide to building a startup and breaking down the barriers for diverse entrepreneurs from the visionary venture capitalist and pioneering entrepreneur Kathryn Finney. Build the Damn Thing is a hard-won, battle-tested guide for every entrepreneur who the establishment has left out. Finney, an investor and startup champion, explains how to build a business from the ground up, from developing a business plan to finding investors, growing a team, and refining a product. Finney empowers entrepreneurs to take advantage of their unique networks and resources; arms readers with responses to investors who say, “great pitch but I just don’t do Black women”; and inspires them to overcome naysayers while remaining “100% That B*tch.” Don’t wait for the system to let you in—break down the door and build your damn thing. For all the Builders striving to build their businesses in a world that has overlooked and underestimated them: this is the essential guide to knowing, breaking, remaking and building your own rules of entrepreneurship in a startup and investing world designed for and by the “Entitleds.”

The breakthrough marketing strategy from the world's most innovative advertising agency One of the largest and most successful advertising companies in the world, Dentsu has pioneered a sophisticated new cross-communication strategy--and now it's being revealed for the first time. In a world saturated with marketing messages, making your offering relevant is your biggest challenge. Dentsu's Cross Switch model meets it head on. The Dentsu Way shares proven tactics for getting your message to consumers and creating "scenarios" to move them through calibrated Contact Points to meet whatever specific goal you set. This game-changing book: Explains Dentsu's 110-year history and unique service structure, as well as its broad range of business fields Introduces ten case studies of successful campaigns, which have won international advertising awards at events such as the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and ADFEST Provides nine of Dentsu's newest original tools and analysis methods Gain broader, more meaningful customer involvement and penetrate more deeply than ever into your market by following the Dentsu Way.