Business With A Swoosh, Revisited

Recently, I stumbled upon a brief but amazing book review on LinkedIn by tech thought leader Linas Beliunas. He’s the country manager in Lithuania of the payment solutions platform called Flutterwave.

Seeing his post about the book “Shoe Dog” reminded me of a similar review I wrote back in 2016 as a writer with the Sacramento, California-based Comstock’s Magazine.

Here’s what Linas had to say about the book (reprinted with his permission): 

👇🏼

Finally finished reading 'Shoe Dog' by Phil Knight 📚

It's an amazing book worth everyone’s time. Some of the lessons I found really insightful

1. Start before you are ready

When Phil Knight started Nike (first called 'Blue Ribbon'), Adidas and Puma were already giants in the sports world. Nike, on the other hand, was just a crazy idea in Knight’s mind and he couldn't get it out of his head. Today, Nike is worth 3 times more than Adidas & Puma combined! 

2. Fail fast because wisdom is an asset

"It was worth shooting for. If Blue Ribbon went bust, I’d have no money, and I’d be crushed. But I’d also have some valuable wisdom, which I could apply to the next business." — Phil Knight

The message here is at the end of the day, you won’t fail if you simply refuse to give up. There's always another day when you can try once more.

3. You can work 9-5 and still be an entrepreneur

For the first 5 years of the company, Knight had to work full-time – mostly as an accountant – because the company didn’t have any resources to support him and his family. So he used nights, weekends, and all other spare time to get Nike up and running.

Year one revenue in 1964 was only $8,000. Year two revenue was $20,000. In 2020, Nike did $37.4 billion in revenue.

All in all, it's a really inspiring story about the path to business success and all it took to build one of the most iconic brands on the planet. If you are a business founder, then this is a must-read!