The book that I chose to read was Shoe Dog, by Phil Knight.
I decided to pick this book because what I had previously learned about Phil
Knight. When the Gator Basketball Team played in the PK80 tournament a few
years ago, the announcers interviewed Phil Knight and I really admired his
story. What surprised me the most was how he had, what I think of as the
typical entrepreneurship story. I guess I thought that he had this one of a
kind start to his entrepreneurship story. He had hard beginnings but worked through it. He first sold track shoes out of the back of his car. Obviously,
that doesn’t sound like an extremely successful business. I most admire his
hard work. He really had to grind through the tough times. What I least admire
is that he started off alone. I understand that he may not have had a choice,
but I wish he would have gotten his coach to start off with him rather than
wait until he started the business to get his track coach to be his business
partner. He did face adversity but not really failure. He was constantly
begging the banks for more money to be able to import shoes from Japan.
Obviously, his beginning of selling shoes out of the back of his car was
adversity too.
Some competencies that I noticed was that he surrounded
himself with a good group of people. He had a solid team around him with
different viewpoints to keep the business running. I personally believe that if
you don’t have people with different mindsets, your business will fail. I also
think that he had the intuition to pick good athletes to wear Nike shoes.
Michael Jordan being the big one.
One thing that I found confusing was the business always being strapped for cash. I understand that they couldn’t really invest much because they had to keep reordering shoes, but I guess I would have thought they would have made more profit.
If I were able to ask Phil Knight two questions, I would ask
him:
If Blue Ribbon failed and there ended up being no Nike,
would you have gone back and done it again? Did you enjoy the process?
If someone has an idea that they don’t think will be
successful but are passionate about it, do you think they should they still
pursue it?
I think Phil Knight definitely enjoyed the hard work. He was
definitely one to pursue his passion so if he didn’t like the hard work, I
think he would have done something else. I certainly share that opinion. I like
the hard work and the grind.
