How Nike Came to Be the World’s Most Recognized Sports Brand

No matter the sport, no matter the human endeavor, total effort will win peoples hearts

Phil Knight

We recommend reading the book “Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the creator of Nike“. Phil Knight founded “Blue Ribbon Sports” on January 25, 1964, along with his track coach Bill Bowerman (at the University of Oregon). The company initially operated in Eugene, Oregon as a distributor for the Japanese shoe maker Onitsuka Tiger (now known as Asics), making most sales at track meets out of Knight’s automobile (a lime-green Plymouth Valiant). “Blue Ribbon Sports” eventually turned into Nike, named after a very popular shoe model they later developed. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his car, Knight grossed $8,000 his first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. The name Nike came to one of the employees (Jeff Johnsen) in a dream. The name also relates back to Phil Knight’s trip around the world as a young man when he was awestruck when visiting Nike: the Temple of Athena in Greece. Nike means victory in Greek, and Athena was worshipped as the goddess of victory.

The book mainly covers the early years of Nike from 1962 up to about 1982, describing in great detail how the company came to be, its struggles and hardships until it really gained traction. Then we jump to about 2008, and the book jumps back and forth between important moments between 2008 and now. It ends off by explaining how the book came to be from Phil Knight’s mental bucket list, as his last idea on the list evolved into this book.

Even though the story is very compelling, the book itself does not come across nearly as captivating as it could have been. It is lacking certain level of gravitas in its storytelling, and it unfortunately comes across as not having a sense of “flow” in it.

During the period from 1962 – 1982 it seems that Knight was quite ruthless, and treated several of his key employees very poorly, showing little to no empathy for their situations. He also comes across as exploiting some of the key employees quite extensively in terms of working hours, frequent moves and daunting duties with little guidance or follow up. Knight also seem to exhibit an almost maniacal ambitious drive in terms of how close he continuously leads to the company to bankruptcy, in the name of growth. Every single cent made, is reinvested in the company to ever increase the size of the next order, and more often than not, to the point that they barely have enough cash to make to the next day. Even though this is surely part of the reason to Nike’s enormous growth and success, it is taken to almost ludicrous and extreme levels during this time period.

Key Points

• Shoe dogs are people who devote themselves wholly to the making, selling, buying, or designing of shoes.
  
• Hire people who are absolutely passionate about your product, and they will immerse themselves in making it better, which leads to innovation and a great company as byproducts/side effects.
  
• Do not tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.
  • His management style was that he let them be and let them do, and let them make their own mistakes because that is how he always liked people to treat him. (This is a good philosophy, although from the descriptions in the book, it does not seem like Knight abided by these principles in the early days of the company)
    
• Focus on culture, stay true to your culture also when you scale.
  
• Invest as much as possible of your income in making the product better and expanding your business (producing larger volumes of your products, more factories, more employees, etc.).
  
• Connect with your customers.
  
• Build personal and strong relationships with influencers in your industry (coaches: both at University, State, National and International level, pro athletes, etc.). They will help in terms of branding and increasing sales.
  
• Explore new markets (China, India, Vietnam).
  
• Produce in low cost countries, while making sure to raise the bar for the industry in terms of wages and worker conditions.
  
• When succeeding with your first product category, expand into new product categories (e.g. from running shoes to basketball shoes, to tennis shoes, to apparel) to broaden your portfolio.
  
• Be focused, persistent, positive and relentless.
  
• Just do it: start before you are ready (there is never a perfect time)
  
• Sell enthusiasm: it is much easier to sell something you truly believe in.
  • Knight believed in running, and that if people ran a few miles every day, the world would be a better place.
  • He believed in the shoes they were making.
  • People sensed his belief and wanted some of that for themselves.
  • Knight realized that strong and deeply held belief can be irresistible.
    
• Resist conformity: parents and society typically push us towards security
  
• Seek a calling, not a career.
  • If you are following your calling, the strain and fatigue will be easier to bear.
  • The disappointments will be fuel.
  • The highs will be like nothing you have ever felt.
    
• “A race is a work of art“
  
• Similar to books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other peoples victories and defeats.
  • “When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete.”
  • “In that convergence, in that transference, is the oneness that the mystics talk about.”
    
• No matter the sport, no matter the human endeavor, total effort will win peoples hearts.

To complement the book, we also recommend watching the movie Without Limits (1998). The movie covers the short, but extraordinary life of the renowned runner Steve Prefontaine and his relationship with legendary coach Bill Bowerman, who co-founded Nike with Phil Knight. For a certain period of time in the 1970s, Steve was one the main faces of Nike. Prefontaine was one of the key characters in the 1970s that inspired the American “running boom“, which was also key to the growth of Nike as a company. The strong bond and tight relationship between Prefontaine and Bowerman truly comes across in a wonderful way in this movie. It also clearly shows how meticulously they were working to continuously improve the running shoes by testing and iterating on the shoe designs, while being fueled by their innate passion for running.

Trailer of the movie Without Limits