13A Reading Reflection No.1

Shoe Dog: Phil Knight and Nike

1) Read About the Entrepreneur

• What surprised me about Phil Knight is that he took a trip to Japan after his graduation from grad school, and on this trip he met a guy who ran a shoe company called Tiger running shoes. He secured the distribution rights for the western USA in this meeting. This was surprising because he got a foot in the door on this business on a trip on the other side of the world.
• One thing that I admired about Knight was that he started selling these shoes out of a van. He started from scratch and then ultimately ran Nike into being one of the biggest brands and companies in the world.
• One thing that I least admired about Knight was That he used his power to get people hired at University of Oregon. He knew they relied on his money and donations to the athletic department so he got who he wanted for AD hired.
• Yes he did encounter many adversities early on. It is hard to build an apparel brand with so much competition and a lot of brands having a hold on the market. He had to wait over a year to get the first samples of the Tiger shoes and had to get another job as well as being turned down for sales in Nike. There were times when things got tough for him, but Knight fought through them and saw his business becoming one of the top in the shoe and apparel business. Starting out with shoes he took over that market and then continued into other clothes.

2) Phil Knight took a risk when he quit his job as a CPA to run Blue Ribbon Sports which ultimately became Nike. He was tenacious in getting that interview meeting with the Tiger Running Shoes owner and became diligent in working to sell those and continuing to improve the Nike business. HE showed knowledge in getting top quality shoes made for not very much as he would have them be made in other countries even though that subject is controversial. H made this company worth billions after starting in a van.

3) What was confusing to me was did he work for Tiger Running shoes to ultimately leave that to start his own shoe company or was his original intent to continue to work for them and be a higher up with their company.

4) I would ask Knight what makes an athlete the most desirable to use as an endorser. Nike has a lot of the top athletes ever endorsing their equipment and did he originally go all in the top names or try to get lower level guys first. Another question I would ask him is " When you enlisted in the Army right out of college, Did you ever see yourself becoming the CEO of the top sports brand in the world?" Knight enlisted right out of the University of Oregon and I wonder if he always thought of running a company or going in a total different direction.

5) I think Phil Knight;s opinion of hard work was that it is needed in order to have greatness. HE is involved with sports and sees the work his athletes put in to become the best in the world. He started up from nothing and worked his way to making billions of dollars for him and his company. Hard work is vital to the success of businesses. Yes I agree with this. You need to work hard to be successful in anything. Talent can only get people so far, hard work takes that talented person to the next level.