Reading Reflection No. 1

1) Entrepreneur: Phil Knight in Shoe Dog

• What surprised you the most?
• What surprised me the most was how small Knight really started when he first began his shoe business.  The fact that his sales began out of the trunk of his car at random track meets around the area, and rapidly turned into something bigger really wowed me.

• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?
• I think one of the most admirable things about Phil Knight's story is that from the very beginning he didn't try to keep his start-up hidden.  He went out immediately and found someone he could work with, someone who would help him grow the business as a whole.  He wasn't worried about the potential short-term profit he would make from the shoes, he wanted something bigger for the long-term goal.

• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?
• I least admired the whole part where Knight didn't support his family and his two sons as much as he should have during the growth of the business.  While a business may be your income and your passion, in my opinion family should always come first, and that is something I will make sure to do when I have a family of my own.

• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?
• In the initial stages of his business, the biggest adversity I think he had to face was chucking through those first years of selling out of his trunk, while working another job.  It is hard to grow something if you aren't able to focus a lot of your time on it.  I also think he faced adversity when it came to the decision he had to make to break away from his original business, and start Nike on his own.  For all he knew, this could have doomed him, but he took the risk and succeeded.

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

• I noticed that Phil Knight had a great understanding of his market.  One of the biggest reasons why many start ups fail is that they don't know their target market, which results in low sales, and zero growth.  He started his market small, and was able to expand it much further past track later on once he had a greater sized market.  
• I also believe he was very determined and detail-oriented in everything he did.  When it came to the struggles he faced in the first start-up with Mr. Onitsuka, he powered through the struggles for as long as he could before he was too determined to reach his original goals to where he had to step away from the original partnership.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

• One part that confused me was that once his business was solidified and making billions of dollars, why he was still very for foreign factories.  For someone with as much money as him and as his company, I am confused as to why he didn't try to move more factories into the U.S.  A smart man like him knows how much U.S. citizens need jobs, and this would be an easy way for him to help the country, while also showing improvements in his factory conditions compared to some overseas.

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

1. The first question I would ask him would be "If you could go back and change anything in the process for how you got to this current place, what would you change?"  The reason I want to know the answer to this question is while he did open up about some of the regrets he has, I do think there is more from a business standpoint that he is holding back that he would either have found to have helped with his company, or with his personal life.
2. The second question I would ask Knight would be "If it weren't for Bill Bowerman, do you think Nike would have ever become a shoe company?"  The reason I want to know is because many small decisions that we make in our lives by telling someone something, or sharing an idea, can turn out to be life changing for millions of people.

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

• I believe Phil Knight thinks very highly of hard work.  As explained in numerous occasions throughout Shoe Dog, Knight was very persistent and determined to achieve his goals for the company.  Whether that meant working hard to find the little details to become better, or working hard to build up the courage to put yourself before others.  I ultimately believe he would say if it weren't for all of Nike's hard work, they wouldn't be where they are today.