As a leader in the food delivery industry, Ele.me has been established for 12 years and has become an important part of Alibaba’s local life service company.

So, do you still remember Zhang Xuhao?

The young man who sold Ele.me to Jack Ma for 66.5 billion, how is he doing now?

Turn your "ideas" into cash and start Ele.me. When you feel hungry, you wish that delicious food would be delivered to your door automatically.

Many people think so, and Zhang Xuhao is no exception, but he regards this as a business opportunity.

He also talked with his roommates all night long, planning together to make a software that can order food online.

In this way, these young men started "Ele.me" with 100,000 yuan they scraped together.

However, starting a business is not that easy.

In order to promote it at the beginning, they not only went to student dormitories to "sweep the floors", but also went to nearby hair salons and 4S stores to distribute flyers.

However, after a year of accumulation, their career gradually got on the right track, and in April 2009, they officially launched "Ele.me".

By September 2010, Ele.me’s food ordering service had covered all of Shanghai.

Later, with the rise of smartphones, Ele.me also launched a mobile web ordering platform.

In the era of post-90s otaku culture, Ele.me is undoubtedly at the forefront of the trend and has grown rapidly.

Meituan, which has strong capital, entered the market, and Ele.me’s market share was squeezed. In the same year, Meituan, which had a lot of money, made full efforts to enter the food delivery industry. Because Meituan Food Delivery provided more complete services and functions, Ele.me suffered.

Heavy damage, market share continues to decline.

Faced with the "crush" of capital, Zhang Xuhao's team desperately participated in various entrepreneurial competitions to obtain more financing.

Ele.me has received four rounds of financing in two years, including Dianping and Sequoia Capital. In August 2015, it received another US$630 million in financing led by CITIC Industrial Fund and Hualian.

With these financings, Ele.me has also continued to improve its business, expanding from its original catering delivery business to other areas such as supermarkets and medicine.

By 2017, Ele.me’s business has covered 2,000 cities in China, with 2 million franchised merchants and 260 million users.

Zhang Xuhao's team has brought Ele.me to such a large scale, and naturally received countless applause and looks.

In 2018, Jack Ma invited Zhang Xuhao to discuss Alibaba’s acquisition of Ele.me.

In the end, Zhang Xuhao sold Ele.me to Alibaba for US$9.5 billion (approximately RMB 66.5 billion), and Zhang Xuhao also received 8.5 billion yuan from it.

Many people found it difficult to understand Zhang Xuhao's approach, and some even opposed it in the team. After all, Ele.me's development momentum was booming at that time.

In Zhang Xuhao's view, Ele.me can also develop very well in his own hands, but leaving it to Alibaba can achieve a qualitative leap. The two are difficult to compare, so it is better to let Ele.me develop better.

How is Zhang Xuhao doing now?

After selling Ele.me, Zhang Xuhao did not start a new business. Instead, he stayed in Alibaba as the special assistant to Ele.me CEO and Alibaba CEO Zhang Yong. The rest of the team also chose to stay with Alibaba.

In addition, Zhang Xuhao also set his sights on the investment field and began to look at projects on his own.

In May 2020, Zhang Xuhao ranked 344th on the 500 Rich List with a wealth of 9.20 billion yuan.

Become a member of the "Billionaire Club" in the latest list of self-made rich people born in the 1980s.

In Zhang Xuhao’s team, we can see the shadow of many entrepreneurs. Many people dare to think but dare not do it, and dare to do it but do not work hard enough.

Ele.me’s success is precisely because these young people dare to think and work hard, leading Ele.me to grow all the way.