Phil Knight, the legendary founder of Nike in his book discusses about his journey of building one of the most successful companies in the world, Nike. Success is not a chance, its result of audacious vision executed with perseverance and grit is the key message of the book.
A presentation made at Stanford inspired himself, so much that it became the only motive of his life to make it successful. Your dreams may sound interesting to you only and not necessarily to others. His father, was sceptical not only for his immersion to the business, but also the product that he chose to deal with. After all, he was a respected man in the small society and he did not want his son to be a shoe dog. Bowerman, the trainer was not only his teacher but a passionate coach for many budding runners. Phil's purpose was driven by making products which would bring efficiency and ease for the runners.
When it comes to experiencing life, there is nothing closer to the knowledge and understanding of the world other than travelling. He planned of travelling the world before plunging in the business. Japan was hitting the path of successful industrialization post world war. The country had become an epitome of quality manufacturing. He traveled to many countries and learnt a lot about culture, tastes and preferences, gaining perspectives of life.
Phil took the job in a consulting Company and simultaneously also started giving shape to his dream. He started his Company from the garage. When it came to naming the Company, he went to his garage and saw ribbons tied and instantaneously the name Blue Ribbon emerged. He borrowed some money from his father as seed Capital. His garage became his store room. He would work and simultaneously meet the sports coaches to promote the Tiger shoes (Sourced from Japan as trade partner). As the volumes increased he requested his sister to take up the job of accounting. She eventually became the first employee of his Company.
It was becoming difficult to manage both the job and business as volumes grew. However, Phil was always on the brinks as his business was completely operating on borrowed money. He wanted the size of business as big, that it could have at least afforded to pay his salary before he took jump full time in business. His friends gradually joined him with idea of expanding the business. While building his team, his criteria was not the qualification but attitude. Everyone joined in the team to contribute to the vision of making it grow.
He met Penny and proposed her to marry. It was dual load of responsibilities suddenly on him. On one hand he had growing business with no equity and other the family and new home. He had joined Blue Ribbon with a salary of $18000 for himself. With that, he had to build his own house and family. The problem of more growth, less capital hounded him all the time.
His relations with Tiger Shoes started withering leading him to meet other manufacturers in Japan and acquire more brands. When his Japanese partners came to know of it, they filed a case against him. In the battle he had lessons on how to build and scale the partnerships. He won the case. For capital, he chose another Japanese partner, Nisho Bank. The capital and growth conundrum continued. Growth was phenomenal including a web of partners. Brand name Nike was chosen as new name with an objective of having a strong brand identity.
Innovation in comfort and quality continued for Nike. To address the low capital issue, the team started mulling over the idea of an IPO. In 1980 they planned for the IPO. But before they could have hit the market, came another blow. This time it was a penalty levied on them for $25 Million by Customs. This almost punctured their confidence. Realizing this was work of his competition he built strong inroads and lobbying apparatus in Washington. The department wasn't ready to listen to his arguments on how competition had played against him.
Finally, the settlement was done in 1/10th of the penalty levied. Though, he did not want to agree, for no fault of his. But he had to settle and move on and focus on his IPO. The conundrum of high growth and low capital continued. His focus now shifted to web of factories that he had to set to ensure the supply was uninterrupted with growing demand. Bowerman, his coach, mentor and first partner bowed out and took retirement from the active business at the same time, which emotionally dragged him down but couldn't impact his mighty will to surrender. Finally the run up to the IPO started. The IPO was a super success and NIKE became a success story. The success of IPO was certainly not limited to resolve of capital and growth conundrum but it also impacted those who bet their money on Nike. It was in a way the payback to those who believed and entrusted their faith in the future of NIke.
The design of Nike Campus reflects True tribute to those who were part of journey. This is Nike way of tribute to those who were part of this gigantic organisation which did not only change lives for the people in journey but consistently pushed the envelope for the customers, the sports-persons and otherwise in making their lives better with the product.
Final words from Phil are that it's Perseverance, Grit and Gratitude is what it takes to shape your dreams in reality. It's the ability to get up in the eyes of failure and rise. It's the purpose which overshadows every odd that you face in living your dreams. It's a classic story of dreaming big and aligning the building of resources bit by bit. It's trust and motivation of people to stay the course by aligning to larger objectives than simply chasing wealth. It doesn't take experts to create an institution, it's their motive. Doing bit by bit. It's not resources, it's execution.