Jack Ma reveals the number one mistake start-up founders make

Alibaba co-founder and China’s richest man Jack Ma knows a thing or two about starting small and making millions from ground up. So when he advises start-ups to focus more on value than on money, it’s pertinent to pay heed to this.

“The number one mistake most start-ups make is they always say, ‘I don’t have money. If I had money, I would solve this problem’,” he told a business website.

And money is only one of the many excuses they make, he said. “People always have complaints; people who lose always have a lot of excuses — I don’t have money, I don’t have people, I don’t have technology,” Ma said.


The trick is to focus on creating value instead, he said. “Nobody tells us about creating value for the customers, nobody tells us how they should think about im-proving their products,” he said.