Shoe Dog by Phil Knight: Thoughts on the book
In our Slack workspace, around this time last year, a colleague posted that he liked reading a book called Shoe Dog, written by Nike Co-Founder Phil Knight, about the humble beginnings of Nike.
I searched for it on Amazon, and when I was about to order the book, the books like Homo Sapiens, The Lean Startup, Steve Jobs, and Atomic Habits laughed at me for keeping them on the shelf without turning a page. Hence, I didn’t order and decided to complete all of these books first and then purchase Shoe Dog.
Cut to July 2022, I was coming from Bengaluru to my hometown on a train, and a person was seen with a pile of popular non-fiction books like Psychology of Money, Atomic Habits, Homo Sapiens, The Magic of Thinking Big, etc., selling them at 50% discount. I couldn’t refrain and purchased two books — Shoe Dog and The Magic of Thinking Big. Even though I had read the latter already, I wanted to have that book on my shelf.
I started reading Shoe Dog the next day. Since I’m slow at reading English books, I completed the book in two months, turning a couple of pages every night before going to bed.
Phil Knight, the author, shares anecdotes and stories during the founding of Nike. The book starts soon after his Stanford graduation and ends at Nike’s IPO, making him a millionaire.
The Story
Phil’s family is affluent, and he’s an athlete aside from a brilliant student in Accounting. After graduating from Stanford, he goes on a world tour, covering Asian and European countries, learning about their cultures, suffering in some places, and wanting to be something different to provide the best quality shoes to athletes.
He starts off selling shoes imported from Japan, incorporates a company called Blue Ribbon, and partners with his coach Bowerman, a famous athletic coach in America. They sign an agreement with Japanese shoe manufacturing giant Onitsuka to sell their track shoes in certain regions in the states.
With Bowerman’s constant experimentation of making the shoes better and a fantastic salesman and all-rounder friend Jeff Johnson, the sales of the shoes create record sales every quarter. Still, they run out of cash since they re-invest all the money into placing orders to Onitsuka.
Phil also mentions his two love stories, one a failed one during his trip to Japan, followed by a successful one with Penelope. He falls for Penelope when she’s his student at a university he works for as a faculty while working for Blue Ribbon in the evenings during the early days of starting Blue Ribbon.
There is a back and forth between banks and hostility from Kitami, a manager at Onitsuka, making him search for alternative manufacturers in Japan. This leads to a breach of contract, as argued by Onitsuka, leading to a court battle between Blue Ribbon and Onitsuka.
The story, at times, is thrilling because Phil and the team encounter more significant challenges every passing day, and they work hard with shoestring budgets to make the ship afloat in this shoe business.
Blue Ribbon partners with multiple factories and rebrands itself to Nike, a name suggested by Jeff Johnson at the neck of the moment when they bounce random ideas for naming their company to the publishers so that the prints are on time with the name of the brand.
Since Nike doesn’t hold cash reserves in the bank and re-invests everything in the business, the banks withdraw support. With no other resort, Phil reaches out to an investment firm, Nissho, which opens the doors to multiple manufacturers in Japan and other countries, thereby cutting ties with Onitsuka before the court battle starts.
With the cash influx from Nissho, Nike ventures into other verticals apart from selling shoes and becomes a sportswear company becoming a popular name in the masses, taking on the incumbent players like Adidas.
The story has many ups and downs, but most of the time, it’s about money, managing the team, and coordinating with external partners. Phil ends the book giving a high point of Nike going to IPO, making him and his team members millionaires.
Thoughts
The book has a narrative and an excellent story to tell aside from the lessons of running a startup in the retail market in the United States.
As an athlete, Phil compares running a startup to running on the field. There are many challenges, and he bounces back every time with a solution, having no idea about the approach when the problems strike him.
The book also mentions hiring the early team at Nike (then Blue Ribbon) and his relationship and attitude towards his early employees. At times, I felt that Phil wasn’t a good leader we can have in the current millennial generation since he was mostly unresponsive to the concerns of his employees, especially Johnson, his first full-time employee.
Reading this book has been a great experience, particularly when it mentioned Jeff Johnson, who did everything in his power for the company, even suggesting the name Nike.
Every night before going to bed, I read this book, and it felt complete for the day if I turned at least one page of the book, learning about a day or a situation of the early days of Nike.
His colleagues — Johnson, Woodell, Strasser, Hayes, etc.- are the real heroes in the building company because they shared his vision of seeing every American Athlete wearing the best pair of shoes and tried hard to get there. I believe every leader in the current startup scenario wants employees like Jeff Johnson, who’s always present to solve the companies’ problems and doesn’t negotiate much about the compensation he gets.
Phil mentions he is grateful to his coach, Bowerman, who provides his advice in making the shoes, constant experimentation on the shape and size, and making his students wear and test them out. He’s an essential partner, a great mentor anyone can get!
Among all the key moments of Nike mentioned in the book, I like that Phil made it a point to sprint every day, irrespective of the nature of the day. This was keeping him sane all those days, I believe.
This book doesn’t talk much about the customers and their interactions with them. It focuses more on internal things like hiring and dealing with the employees, running on tight budgets, coordinating with the partners and suppliers, and being resilient when random shit hits the face.
I enjoyed reading the book since it doesn’t explicitly mention “lessons” per se and leaves it to the reader to make out what the author presents from the story of Nike. I don’t want to spoil the reading experience of the book. Still, I was on a high when I read about the parents of his employee, Woodell, loaning Blue Ribbon when the company was running out of cash and mentioning, “If we can’t believe in the company my son’s working for, who else will?” A sweet moment which made me happy.
Towards the end of the book, Phil talks about the unfortunate accidental death of his eldest son, Matthew. He presents his thoughts on the similarities and differences between him and his sons.
He also writes about what his ex-colleagues were doing at the time of writing the book, about Bowerman, and hiring Strasser’s daughter for a role in Nike. It’s slightly emotional to complete this book since I felt like I was travelling with Phil and his team throughout the 60s and 70s in their initial struggle in operating this company.
The book has simple English, the storytelling is simple, and it flows without much effort for an irregular reader of English literature like me. I’d definitely come back to this book later in my life, hear those conversations, observe their actions, and cheer them again during crucial moments. You have my respect, Phil and team!
I completed reading this book last month and mentioned it in a paragraph or two in my August Monthly blog. But my friend Tim boy asked me to share my thoughts on this book, so this got published. Thanks for asking, Timothy :)
