A good friend recently recommended Shoe Dog, the story of Nike, written by its founder, Phil Knight.
Knight tells a riveting tale. We all know how the story ends, but this doesn’t impact on learning how Blue Ribbon Sports (renamed Nike in 1978) got to where it is today.
The parallels to founding and growing a recruitment business are there to be seen – Knight is able to convey the fear, frustration and exhilaration of building a business that will chime with entrepreneurs of all types.
What the book also conveys is how hard it is to build a truly successful company – particularly if you’re not a natural business leader. It took Phil Knight 14 years and a lot of wrong turns to get to the point where the business was even called Nike. It is these 14 years that are really interesting and well worth hearing about.
Shoe Dog (a term that refers to people “who devoted themselves wholly to the making, selling, buying or designing of shoes”) is a textbook on the immense challenges and potential rewards of entrepreneurship. It’s also a bloody good yarn – especially if you listen to the audio version.
