Shoe Dog

Description

After traveling abroad, Phil Knight decides to pursue an unconventional business idea: importing affordable Japanese athletic shoes for American runners. In 1962, using money borrowed from his father, he begins selling shoes from his car under the name Blue Ribbon Sports. The memoir follows that improvised operation through the risks, cash shortages, setbacks, sacrifices, and early successes that eventually transform it into Nike. Knight places particular emphasis on the close-knit group of partners and employees who join him, bringing a shared love of sport to problems the young company often seems unlikely to survive. Rather than presenting growth as a smooth sequence of inspired decisions, he recounts entrepreneurship as a prolonged test of persistence, relationships, judgment, and willingness to stake security on an uncertain mission.

Themes