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nomi

When I was young, I had no idea what I wanted to become. I had no money, no clear plan, no strong academic background. And yet, something inside me told me that if I kept waiting for the perfect moment, I would never move. Life doesn’t wait for us to be ready. It moves forward with or without us. When I first learned about the internet in the 1990s, I didn’t even know how to use a computer. I typed the word "beer" into a search engine and saw that no Chinese beers appeared. That one small observation sparked something. I wasn’t an expert in technology. I didn’t know how to write a single line of code. But I knew one thing: if China wasn’t on the internet, someone had to put it there. Was I ready? No. But I started anyway. The problem most people face is not lack of intelligence or resources. It’s the belief that they must be fully prepared before they take action. That mindset creates fear. It gives us excuses. We tell ourselves: "I’ll wait until I have more experience, more money, more time, more support." But if you keep waiting, you’ll be 80 years old still waiting for the perfect day. I always tell young people: start with what you have. When we started Alibaba, we had 18 people sitting in my small apartment in Hangzhou. No business plan. No revenue model. No funding. What we had was trust in each other, and a belief that we could build something meaningful. That belief was more powerful than a spreadsheet full of projections. We didn’t know everything. We made mistakes every single day. But we kept going. Starting before you’re ready means embracing discomfort. It means stepping into the unknown and learning as you go. I failed the college entrance exam twice. I was rejected from Harvard ten times. Every time I failed, I learned something. I didn’t enjoy the failures, but they prepared me. Not by giving me answers, but by giving me confidence that I could survive even if things didn’t go according to plan. Some people wait to start a business until they have a perfect product. Others wait to speak until they feel like great communicators. Some wait to love until they feel like they’re perfect themselves. But progress doesn’t work like that. You don’t become confident by waiting. You become confident by acting, failing, improving, and trying again. Confidence is a result of movement, not a requirement to begin. In China, we say, "The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second-best time is now." If I had waited for conditions to be perfect, Alibaba would not exist. And not just Alibaba—many businesses, movements, and innovations would have died before they were born. Ideas are fragile. If you wait too long, fear kills them. Doubt kills them. The world distracts you. You lose the moment. When I speak with young entrepreneurs, they often ask me, “What’s the first step to success?” They expect a technical answer: build a website, raise funding, do market research. But the real answer is always the same: start. Start with a small step. Start with a small idea. Start with your friends, your room, your broken English, your uncertainty. Just start. You don't need all the answers. You only need curiosity, courage, and the willingness to learn fast. Don’t be scared of not knowing—be scared of not moving. The biggest risk is not failure. The biggest risk is doing nothing. I remember when we tried to raise money in the early days. I went to Silicon Valley. Investor after investor said no. They said, “You don’t have a strong business model.” They were right. We didn’t. But we had something they didn’t see—belief in the future. Belief in the power of small businesses in China. Belief that if we helped others grow, we would grow with them. That belief kept us moving forward. Even when the outside world saw nothing, we saw potential. That’s why starting before you’re ready is not about being reckless. It’s about being bold. It’s about knowing that readiness is not something you wait for. It’s something you create by starting, falling, adjusting, and building momentum. Momentum gives you clarity. Action gives you answers. Many people want guarantees. They want to see the whole staircase before they take the first step. But in life, you will never see the full map. You take one step, then the next one appears. You learn by walking the path, not by staring at it. When I started teaching English, I wasn’t fluent. But I practiced every day with tourists at the Hangzhou hotel for nine years—for free. Why? Because I knew that waiting to be perfect would mean never starting. That habit, that decision to take small steps daily, changed the course of my life.