Shoe Dog summary

Shoe Dog- A Summary

“Like books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other people’s victories. And defeats. When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

Life is growth. You grow or you die.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog

• Everything starts with a crazy idea: Phil Knight was 24 wondering what he was going to do with his life he had no clue as to what he wanted to do and was feeling like he was going nowhere. He loved running though he made sure that he kept running even after he failed to make it as a pro(he was one of those athletes who was good but never good enough to become a professional, even I can say that I am). His love for running was always there and during one of his runs, he remembered one of his crazy ideas that he had at Stanford during his entrepreneurship class presentation where he presented the idea of him buying cheap and high-quality running shoes from Japan and then selling them to the American market as he knew the quality of the Japanese shoes were far superior to the shoes sold in America. His crazy idea consisted of travelling the world and while travelling he also wanted to check if his idea of buying Japanese shoes could work. So he went to his Dad who only worshipped one thing and that was respectability, so the biggest task was to convince his Dad to loan him a grand on top of the savings of 1500 dollars made by Phil Knight from the army and a few part-time jobs. From there Phil Knight went on to Japan found an amazing shoe company named Onitsuka and with some help setting up a meeting where he presented the potential of Japanese shoes in America he made up a company on the spot named blue ribbon a company which did not exist and he pulled off a deal to represent Onitsuka in America. He then went on to travel the world as well he went to countries like Greece, India, China, Italy, etc. All in all his crazy idea just needed to be tried and from there onwards whatever happened it would either be a big success or it would fail and he would have learnt something new so all in all it was a success.

• Importance of honesty while doing business: Nike had many times come to the brink of shutting down but one of the reasons for their success was that they were completely honest about their products and they truthfully marketed them this helped them in getting salesmen to pick their shoe up and sell them as they never marketed dishonestly. Even with their creditor Nissho, they maintained a good relationship because Phil was always honest about the situation and as to why they needed the money. Even when they had a problem with Onitsuka and a legal case they simply told their side of the story.

• Culture: Nike or rather blue ribbon was started by a runner and the first person he went to was his coach in college named Bowerman. Bowerman was highly respected in Oregon and was one of the best track field runners’ coaches in America so Phil went to him to show him the shoes from Japan Bowerman liked the shoes so much he decided to become a partner with Phil which even Phil Knight admitted to was probably the best business move. Bowerman was the first to join Blue ribbon and Phil continued to hire only runners with whom he was acquainted for a long period as he knew they would love the shoes so much that they would give it their all. Nike had built a company which was different to corporate America there were a lot of athletes who worked at Nike and they wore the clothes they wanted and were able to express themselves freely to Phil as it was more of a workspace of friends instead of the usual office space where the environment is hierarchal and it was not easy for employees to work in a way to maximize efficiency.

• Perseverance and will: Nike was on the brink of shutting down so often that it is honestly baffling how they are one of the best companies in the world with an amazing brand value. Phil Knight had barely had a year without facing a big problem whether it was related to Onitsuka not delivering shoes on time or them finding someone else to represent them in the USA or the legal battle they had after the creation of Nike. Even after that, they had so many problems related to their creditors and their factories there were so many times that Nike had small problems which could have caused them to go bankrupt if they were not solved. They even had a big problem with a legal battle in which they were given a bill of 24 million from the USA customs for all of their shoes but they fought that battle out as well and they succeeded. Phil Knight is probably one of the only persons who could withstand so many problems that he constantly had to solve. He always had help because his employees were his closest friends and they also stood by him in tough times(there were a lot of them). His perseverance and will to keep fighting for Nike and believing in the dream of expansion was according to me a huge reason for their success.

• Luck factor: Nike is also very lucky in a lot of things. One of the luckiest things is the fact that Bowerman joined blue ribbon so early. Bowerman helped create the famous waffle sole which was a hit. Also considering the amount of debt they kept taking and the problems they had with their banks and other creditors, fortunately, Phil Knight found Nissho who completely invested in Nike as they believed in the company and its potential(hence they found a long-term creditor).

• Debt & Reinvestment: One of Nike’s reasons for so much debt was the fact that every single penny of profit they got they reinvested everything to drive more growth. This helped Nike in building its shoe empire faster. Even with blue ribbons for every shoe, they sold the profits were used to order more from Onitsuka to keep selling more this made it a little hard to take more loans as the company did not have a lot of cash in hand. Phil Knight soon understood this and started keeping a little bit more attention to that fact but his main and simple idea to drive growth was to massively reinvest their money and proceedings back into the business. This caused them to reach millions in sales but the company was still in a position to potentially shut down if their creditor Nissho or a few others did not pay them money to cover expenses. Nike always had a huge debt amount due to the reinvestment approach and they always needed money for reinvestment even when Nike reach around 10 million in sales they were giving away their profits to their creditors as they needed to pay them. Nissho arguably their biggest creditor must have given Nike tens of millions but they stuck by Nike and Phil because they believed in the company. I would say the company was so close to extinction because of its debt. If they did not have so much debt they probably would have not had so many tough situations but then again they might not have had the same growth as they had to make them such a big hit in such a short period.

• Innovation: After the Onitsuka breakup Nike were manufacturing their shoes. While they were in their partnership with Onitsuka they helped Onitsuka a lot with the designs and upgrades that were made by Bowerman and some of Phil's other employees. The first Nike shoes that came were different from every other shoe that was there in the market in a few ways. Their first shoes were not the best but they caught everyone's eyes as they were put in an orange box which looked bright and sleek this made their boxes stand out. Their shoes kept getting better they kept raising the bar and they let geniuses like Bowerman and Johnson work in the way they wanted to and this caused Bowerman to make amazing shoes with amazing designs for the company. Nike the name and the famous swoosh logo were not liked by Phil Knight at the start but they turned out to be iconic. Nike was always up to try innovations like the air max even though it failed at that time as it was not the best implementation of the idea, Nike was way ahead of its time with shoes, especially the air max they were revolutionary shoes.