I just finished Phil Knight’s memoir, Shoe Dog. If you do not know who Phil Knight is, a quick Google search will reveal he is the co-founder of Nike.

The book is incredibly entertaining. Phil had a burning desire, his Crazy Idea, as he called it, to sell shoes. In one of his final semesters at Stanford he wrote a research paper about shoes. He argued that Japanese running shoes would take off, just like how the Japanese had made deep cuts in the camera market, a market that was dominated by the Germans.

This research paper turned into an obsession. A single pointed focus in 1962 led Phil on a journey filled with ups and downs. This journey would eventually lead to the official creation of Nike in 1978 and then going public in 1980. 18 years from research paper to publicly traded company.

In the beginning Phil took a trip around the world, seeing all of this Earth’s wonders, then stopping in Japan to fulfill his burning desire. He met with a Japanese shoe manufacturer who would supply him shoes in America. The company he formed was called Blue Ribbon. I encourage everyone to read the story of Blue Ribbon, which eventually became Nike, because there are so many twists and turns. It’s a story that makes you want to keep turning the pages and it is beautifully written.

Throughout this book, the biggest takeaway I found was almost all of Nike’s problems in the beginning stemmed from a lack of capital. They were growing, but their banks were putting a limit on how much they could borrow to purchase inventory. They never had any cash on hand, and the banks back then did not like that. Each go around, Phil would request a larger loan amount to order more inventory so he could fuel his growth, but the banks kept fighting him tooth and nail. It was a constant struggle. Even though they were doubling in sales year after year, the banks deemed their venture as risky. No cash in hand, big problem!

Phil fought through this, found creative ways to solve his problems and in the end, decided the only way to solve his cash problems was to go public. He and his team were opposed to this for years. They thought going public would tarnish the culture they worked so hard to implement. They thought going public would turn them into a corporate sell out. It was only until the very end, when they absolutely had no other choice, did they decide to make the move to go public. What a move that was…

As an entrepreneur myself working towards making my mark in the Tooling Manufacturing industry in America, this book made me double down on my beliefs. Double down on my commitment to keep going. Never stop. Make it happen. Problems will come, but solutions also will present themselves.

I highly recommend anyone, entrepreneur or not, to read this book. It will give you a newfound appreciation for Nike and also is a great story to read.

Here are some notes I took from this book:

PAGE	NOTE
Page 4	…Find some prodigious, impossible dream that seemed worthy, that seemed fun, that seemed a good fit and chase it with an athletes single minded dedication and focus. Like it or not, life’s a game.
Page 5	Let everyone else call your idea crazy. Just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there… Whatever comes, just don’t stop
Page 56	Belief is irresistible. Phil Knight could not sell encyclopedias nor mutual funds, but he was great at selling shoes. That’s because he believed in running. He believed these shoes were better to run in. Belief
Page 61	You must forget your limits. You must forget your doubts. Your pains, your past. You must forget that internal voice screaming, “Not one more step.” And when it’s not possible to forget it, you must negotiate with it. “Yes, you raise some excellent points, but let’s keep going anyway.”
Page 117	In 1968 Phil was spending early mornings, late nights, weekends and vacations at Blue Ribbon. There was no balance, he wanted more imbalance. He wanted to dedicate every minute of everyday to Blue Ribbon
Page 124	“…I didn’t want to work for anyone else. I wanted to build something, something I could point to and say, I built that. I made that. It was the only way I saw to make life meaningful
Page 139	Hover between optimism and pessimism, never committing to either
Page 254	Fear of failure will never be our downfall. Not that we thought we wouldn’t fail. We had every expectation that we would. Be when we did fail, we had faith we would do it fast, learn from it and be better for it.
Page 355	The cowards never started and the weak die away. That leaves us.
Page 364	Any building is a temple if you make it so.
Page 366	Lebron James pulls Phil Knight aside and said, when he first signed with Nike, he didn’t know much about the history, so he’s been studying up. He asked if Nike was born in 1972 – Phil says, “Yes, I suppose…” Lebron then says he went to his jeweler to find a Rolex from 1972. Lebron hands Phil the watch and on it it’s engraved, “Thanks for taking a chance on me.” Phil thought Lebron wasn’t much of a chance, it was a sure thing but taking a chance on people – he’s right. You could argue, that’s what it’s all about.