Category：Business / Management

Creating JD.com: Liu Qiangdong’s Personal Account of the Entrepreneurial Journey 创京东

By LI Zhigang

●Conduct in-depth interviews with 258 outstanding individuals of JD to uncover the development course and strategy of JD and Liu Qiangdong.

In 1998, Liu Qiangdong started his business in Zhongguancun, dealing in optical and magnetic products. In 2004, due to the SARS outbreak, JD.com (Jingdong)accidentally shifted to online sales. By 2014, JD.com’s market value had exceeded $40 billion, ranking among the world’s top ten internet companies.

This sounds like a legendary entrepreneurial story, but only those involved understand the hardships of starting a business. When JD.com first transitioned to e-commerce, traditional businesses had bright prospects while e-commerceseemed uncertain. How did JD.com resolutely transform and persist to the end?During times of financial scarcity, what convinced investors to support JD.com? In the face of formidable competitors, what enabled JD.com to surpass them and lead the way? When the number of employees grew to thousands or even tens ofthousands, how did JD.com revolutionize its management? As the company began to regulate development through systems, how did it maintain the startup’s sensitivity to market changes and its quick and powerful execution? Guided by new consumer demands, continuously making groundbreaking business model innovations sounds easy, but how can it be practically implemented?

This book is the first time Liu Qiangdong and JD.com systematically explain the successes and failures and development logic over the past decade. The author interviewed 258 relevant individuals and collected 4 million words of original material. Without avoiding or embellishing, the book tells real and vivid stories about how JD.com, from its accidental entry into the internet to its resolute transformation, has continually maintained entrepreneurial passion, team cohesion, and strong execution. It describes how JD.com has collided, integrated, and firmly moved forward, growing stronger in the process.

Author
LI Zhigang, a business writer, has published several notable works including “Nine Failures, One Success: The Ten-Year Entrepreneurial Journey of Meituan Founder Wang Xing,” “Life: The First Collective Biography of Chinese Business Leaders,” and “Disruptors: New Generation Entrepreneurs in China’s Business Transformation.” He has previously served as lead writer for Bloomberg Businessweek (Chinese Edition), chief writer for Global Business Classics, lead writer for Oriental Entrepreneur, and reporter for Southern Metropolis Daily. In 2014, he founded the Li Zhigang Studio, focusing on entrepreneurial research through articles, books, and other products.