Phil Knight - From a poor student pretending to be a director to a billionaire owner of a shoe empire NIKE

Philip Hampson Knight (aka Phil Knight) is a billionaire, co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc. He served as chairman of the board of directors and CEO of this corporation for many years. In February 2021, Philip Knight was ranked 24th by Forbes magazine among the richest people in the world, with a fortune of US$53 billion. The world-famous Nike shoe brand has a very famous "Just Do It" slogan, but few people know that behind it is an interesting start-up story based on the lie of founder Phil. Knight.

In 1962, founder Phil Knight was about to graduate from Stanford and was looking for ideas for his thesis. As a university long-distance runner, Phil came up with the idea of importing shoes from Japan with the same quality as Puma or Adidas, which were very popular at the time. After graduating, Phil is still obsessed with the idea even though he doesn't own any shoes and has only seen a few Japanese shoes worn by soldiers who were held captive by the Japanese during World War II. about.

Understanding that he needed to take advantage and connect with Japanese manufacturers before it was too late, Phil planned to travel to the land of the rising sun despite having no experience in the shoe business. As described by the billionaire later, he only had the idea and started to implement it without any careful preparation.

In November 1962, Phil traveled to Japan and began his journey to discover the shoe industry. In Kobe City, he visited an Onitsuka Tiger shoe store and the quality of the shoes was so good that Phil decided to import them to the US. Right now, however, Phil Knight is a college graduate, with no capital or ownership of any companies or industry connections. But taking advantage of being an American, Phil introduced himself as the director of a shoe distribution company and wanted to talk to the owner of Onitsuka. Even the name of this distribution company was made up by Phil and he offered to be Onitsuka's representative in the US. Ironically, this offer was accepted despite the fact that Phil had nothing in hand and Onitsuka had little interest in the international market.

In 1963, Phil received the first batch of 12 pairs of shoes imported from Japan and he started selling them in his own car at any sports track he could go to.

Realizing that this kind of business was going nowhere, Phil turned to someone who knew more about sneakers than he did, former coach Bill Bowerman, who had coached him at the university. At that time, Bowerman was quite famous in the American sports world, having coached many Olympic athletes.

Immediately after being introduced, Bowerman fell in love with shoes imported from Japan and wanted to collaborate. In January 1964, the two founded Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) - the forerunner of Nike, Inc. with a $1,000 fund. The entire amount was used to order 300 pairs of shoes. Thanks to Bowerman's connections, their first shipment sold out within three months. Right in the first year, BRS achieved sales of $ 8,000 and the company began to hire employees to operate. By 1965, BRS's revenue reached 20,000 USD and opened a branch business.

While Phil Knight was busy with business, Bowerman revolutionized the BRS. This man was instrumental in bringing running into the United States. In 1966, Bowerman wrote a book about running that sold over 1 million copies. Naturally, BRS was one of the first companies to promote running shoes in the US. In addition, Bowerman also regularly removes shoes imported from Onitsuka to improve, see how they are made and add different materials and parts to bring efficiency to the shoes. Gradually, Bowerman began to pass notes on to Onitsuka so that they could manufacture shoes according to his improvements.

In 1968, the Olympic Games held in Mexico helped BRS successfully promote The Cortez product line designed by Bill. In 1969, BRS achieved sales of $300,000. However, the attraction of The Cortez line caused BRS to sell out while Onitsuka in Japan did not increase production. The company only wants to meet domestic demand, then send what is left over to the US.

Understand that if they want to expand, Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman need to get rid of the label of just being a distributor. Both took advantage of The Cortez's design to produce themselves. This is completely legal when the contract with Onitsuka ends. Fortunately, the time-out was 1972, right before the Munich Olympics.

First, Phil Knight started to design the logo and change the name of the new shoe brand. An employee suggested calling it Nike - the name of the Greek god of victory. As for the logo, Phil went to a nearby university and paid $35 to a design student he came across to create the inverted comma it is today.

In Japan, instead of quietly looking for partners, Phil Knight recruited manufacturers across Japan to supply designer shoes for Nike. Since then, Nike's journey has been mostly growth. They became the largest sports shoe company in the US in 1989 and even spread to the world thanks to smart marketing strategies and outsourcing models to take advantage of cheap labor.

1984 - Nike signed a contract with Michael Jordan - a famous basketball star and launched the Air Jordan shoe series. In 1987, Nike released an ad for a new Air Max shoe in association with the Beatles' music campaign.

1988 – The first "Just Do It" campaign launches with an advertisement featuring the 80-year-old running icon Walter Stack running across the Golden Gate Bridge. In 1996, Nike signed a contract with Tiger Woods - the world's legendary golfer. In 2002, Nike bought the surfwear company Hurley and "liquidated" Converse in 2004 for $309 million. By 2015, Nike became the official distributor of the NBA. Today, Nike not only sells shoes, but also offers sports apparel and accessories for both women and sports. From a small shoe distributor, Phil Knight created the most famous Nike empire and became a startup legend in the sports industry.

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