Book notes: Shoe Dog
Shoe Dog is the story of Phil Knight and the founding of Nike through the first 12 years of its existence. It’s a great entrepreneurial story, one that I would recommend to anyone starting a business, because of how honest it is about the journey.
As an outsider, one thing that seems to surprise first time entrepreneurs is how much time they spend solving problems that are both existential and completely unrelated to the company’s core mission. Knight spends the better part of a decade fighting through pushing through challenges like balancing his startup with his day job, finding a bank willing to fund his growth, and personnel issues before he finally gets to the point where he can say: “the problems were never going to stop, I realized, but for the moment we had more momentum than problems.” I think this is a good frame: do you have more momentum or problems?1
Another thing I appreciated about this book was getting to know Nike before it was dominant. All my life, Nike has been the premier sportswear brand. I had no idea that it began life as Blue Ribbon. Or that it started out importing another company’s shoes, basically taking advantage of outsourced production. Or that it only launched the Nike brand when its production partner tried to go around it to distribute in the United States.
One final story from the book: the name almost wasn’t Nike. Knight’s most trusted lieutenant had observed “that seemingly all iconic brands—Clorox, Kleenex, Xerox—have short names. Two syllables or less. And they always have a strong sound in the name, a letter like “K” or “X,” that sticks in the mind.” Despite this insight, he very nearly named the company Dimension Six.
1: A benefit of having an executive team of distance runners: they have a high tolerance for pushing through pain towards a goal.
2022-06-13