The reader's edition
Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike: the summary
Phil Knight is the co-founder of Nike, which began in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports, a partnership with his former University of Oregon track coach, Bill Bowerman. Shoe Dog is his memoir of the early years, told year by year from 1962, when he set off for Japan with what he calls his Crazy Idea, to the company going public in 1980. It is less a manual than a confession: a record of doubt, debt, luck and the people who kept the company alive. The problem that comes back every year is cash, because sales kept growing faster than the banks would lend. The stories include selling shoes from a car at track meets, long letters from the first employee, a sole made in a waffle iron, a bitter break with a Japanese supplier, and a trading company that stood by Blue Ribbon when the banks would not. Read a chapter at a time, with a printable action book at the end.
- Phil Knight
- 2016
- 4 chapters
- 5 min read
- 9 takeaways
This is HourLife's reading of Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike, in our own words. It is not a substitute for the book.
Chapter 01
Before you start
The book in a minute
Tap a paragraph to highlight it. Turn pages with the arrows, the arrow keys, or a swipe.
Phil Knight is the co-founder of Nike, which began in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports, a partnership with his former University of Oregon track coach, Bill Bowerman. Shoe Dog is his memoir of the early years, told year by year from 1962, when he set off for Japan with what he calls his Crazy Idea, to the company going public in 1980. It is less a manual than a confession: a record of doubt, debt, luck and the people who kept the company alive. The problem that comes back every year is cash, because sales kept growing faster than the banks would lend. The stories include selling shoes from a car at track meets, long letters from the first employee, a sole made in a waffle iron, a bitter break with a Japanese supplier, and a trading company that stood by Blue Ribbon when the banks would not.
Below are the 9 ideas HourLife readers vote up most, each in our words with a note on what it asks of you, and then the steps that put them to work.
Chapter 02
What readers keep
The takeaways
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1
HourLife takeaway
Nobody hands you permission for a crazy idea, so start before you feel ready.
Knight had no company when he sat down with Onitsuka in Japan in 1962. Asked whom he represented, he named Blue Ribbon on the spot. The company existed because he had already said it did, and he spent the next years making that true.
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2
HourLife takeaway
Growth does not pay for itself. It eats cash first.
Blue Ribbon sold nearly everything it ordered and was still always broke, because each bigger order had to be paid for before the shoes sold. Its banks kept telling Knight to slow down. A good year can cost more cash than a bad one, so plan for it.
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3
HourLife takeaway
Choose partners who are strong exactly where you are weak.
Bowerman brought what Knight lacked: a coach's eye and an inventor's itch. He took shoes apart, rebuilt them and tried them on his runners. Knight sold, kept the books and found the money. Neither could have built the company alone.
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4
HourLife takeaway
A believer who writes too much is worth more than a polished hire who says nothing.
Jeff Johnson, the first full-time employee, sent Knight letter after letter full of customer notes, ideas and complaints, and Knight rarely wrote back. Johnson kept selling and building anyway. He is also the one who came up with the name Nike.
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5
HourLife takeaway
Good ideas often start as tinkering at home, not as a plan.
The waffle sole began in Bowerman's kitchen, when he poured rubber into a waffle iron looking for a lighter sole with more grip. It was a mess before it was a product. Leave room in your week for odd experiments.
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6
HourLife takeaway
A name or a mark does not need to feel perfect on the day you choose it.
The mark came from Carolyn Davidson, a student at Portland State, and Knight was not sure he liked it. The name Nike was picked against a deadline, from a short list nobody loved. Both earned their meaning through years of use, not through a perfect launch.
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7
HourLife takeaway
If one supplier holds your whole business, build a second option before you need it.
Blue Ribbon depended on Onitsuka for every shoe it sold, and Onitsuka began looking at other distributors. Knight quietly lined up other factories and a brand of his own. When the break came in the early 1970s, the company had somewhere to go.
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8
HourLife takeaway
Trust built in good years is credit you can draw on in bad ones.
When the banks pulled back, the Japanese trading company Nissho Iwai kept financing Blue Ribbon. That support rested on years of straight dealing between people, and it held when the numbers looked frightening.
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9
HourLife takeaway
The finish line can feel smaller than the run that got you there.
The book does not end on a victory lap. Looking back, Knight dwells on the friends he lost and the time he did not spend with his sons as much as on the public offering. The people beside you on the run are the part worth keeping.
Chapter 03
Put it to work
Your action book
Do the setup steps once, then keep the habits going. The setup changes your week; the habits keep it changed after the first good one.
The download puts this whole reading and a printable action book in one PDF: the setup checklist, then a page of real calendar days for each habit, starting on the day you choose.
Set up once
Write your crazy idea in one paragraph
Write what you want to build, why now and why you. Keep it short enough to read aloud to a stranger in under a minute.
Name your Bowerman
Write down one person who knows the craft better than you do. Send them a short note this week asking for an hour and one honest critique.
Draw your cash line
List money in and money out by week for the next two months. Mark the week you would run short if things went twice as well as you expect.
Find your second supplier
Name the one tool, client, platform or supplier your project cannot live without. Find one alternative and make first contact this week.
Give the idea fixed hours beside the day job
Knight kept paid work in accounting for years while Blue Ribbon grew. Decide how many hours a week your idea gets and put them in your calendar.
Keep it up
Log one small step every day
Write down one concrete move toward the idea each day, however small. If you miss a day, start again the next morning without making up for it.
Answer the people who write to you
When someone on your side sends ideas or questions, reply within a week. Johnson kept going without answers; most people will not.
Check the books every Friday
Spend twenty minutes on cash in, cash out and what you owe. Growth problems show up in the numbers before they show up anywhere else.
Chapter 04
The last word
Before you go
Pick one step from the action book and do it today. An idea from a book starts to count once it changes what one ordinary day looks like.
A crazy idea survives on small steps, honest partners and enough cash to reach next week.
That is the end of our reading. Where to go from here, or go back to the full Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike page.
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