27A: Reading Reflection #3

1) The third book I read was Nike founder Phil Knight's autobiography, "Shoe Dog."

I think the thing that surprised me most about Knight's journey was the fact that in the beginning, he was constantly fighting debt in his attempts to bring Blue Ribbon, and then Nike, to reality. He worked tooth and nail to find more investors and loaners to keep the family going. The thing I admired most about Knight was that from the beginning of the book, he explains the prototypical path that an entrepreneur is supposed to go through. This person is uncannily smart, coy, strategic. But Knight was, from his perspective, none of those things. He assures the person that every entrepreneur has their own individual path that will likely be totally different from society's expectations. There was nothing about him from the book that I did not admire. However, we've all heard the rumors of Nike using children in sweatshops in the past, and I do look at him less admirably with that in mind.

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited?
His constant perseverance was definitely noteworthy. He found that Japanese cameras were cheaper and of higher quality than their more popular German counterparts, and he saw that the same thing could be said about sneakers. He knew this would work, and he kept trying until it did.


3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.
Nothing in the book was really confusing to me.


4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?
- If you had to go back and change one thing about how you ran your business in the beginning, would you and what would you change?
- Who was your inspiration or mentor growing up?


5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?
Knight is definitely one of the hardest workers I have read about. He had unparalleled perseverance and gumption, and is the sole reason why Nike is what it is today.

Comments

  1. VictoriaApril 9, 2019 at 4:45 PM

    I did not read this book but your interpretation makes me wish I did. I love reading about hard workers that really make it. I think his story of success would be very inspirational. I am tempted to keep our reading list and work through it this summer. I think a lot of the books give us some great insight to those entrepreneurs struggles and successes. I think the entire book list gives us a lot of information and great ideas.

    ReplyDelete
  2. laityn russellApril 10, 2019 at 5:02 PM

    Hi Fede,
    I agree that perseverance is indeed noteworthy, continuing to work to where he wanted to get. It is concerning that nike uses children in sweatshops and I find it interesting that that topic was not at all addressed in the book. I too would be interested in knowing who his mentor is as I believe this would give some really good insight on his motives and core values.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ChrisApril 12, 2019 at 10:33 AM

    I also did not read this book but may after reading your post. I think that it is fascinating that a company as big as Nike struggled in the beginning. There are similarities to Elon Musk’s journey to success. I too didn’t find much un-admirable about the entrepreneur I read about, but I do agree using child labor certainly qualifies.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Alex FastApril 15, 2019 at 6:05 PM

    I didn't read this book, but after your post, I might. I believe that perseverance (but with a realistic viewpoint that ensures your not wasting your and others time) is one of the most important qualities in people. Nearly every successful person, whether they be entrepreneurs, scientists, inventors, heros or anybody else who's life and contributions will survive long past they do, did not get to where they were without perseverance. Great write up!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

24A: Concept

Opportunity What are the forces or changes in the environment creating this opportunity? Alongside college tuition, the price of college textbooks has risen four times faster than the rate of inflation over the last ten years. This is most likely due to the oligopoly of textbook publishers in the United States, most notably, Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin. How is this market defined geographically and demographically? Most of the market in need of a service like this is located in the United States. For now, we will focus on students at the University of Florida in Gainesville. In terms of demographics, most who would need this would be lower-income students, including minorities. How are customers currently satisfying this need? And how loyal are they to whatever they use now? For now, students are using the school bookstore, where books are offered at full retail price. For some older books, they are available to rent at a relatively lower cost. Other students, particula
Read more

25A: What's Next?

Existing Market Person number one said they think I should expand this idea to graduate and doctorate programs, as they suffer even more than undergraduates when it comes to textbook prices. Person number two said we should look to providing the service to the entirety of the Florida public university system. Person number three said we should look to using our proprietary service to help high schools as well. They said their high school’s textbooks were old and tattered, and schools could save money by digitizing their books. New Market. Currently, the way the business is set up, we would be marketing towards schools, as they would then offer the service to students. We could provide this service to customers directly, maybe as a book subscription service, similar to what Nook or Kindle does. By being a central location for people to access any book they want, similar to Spotify or Apple Music, publishers and customers can both benefit. If it worked for music streaming, why couldn’t i
Read more

8A: Solving The Problem

Opportunity: University of Florida teachers often cast an enormous burden on students by requiring expensive textbooks distributed by massive book publishing corporations. I want to create an annual subscription service for textbooks. The service would be created and subsidized by the University of Florida, that allows students to view and read the required textbooks for their courses. The University has an endowment of over $1.2 billion, so this would be a drop in the bucket. The University already has an “opt-in” system for specific textbooks, but students are still required to pay the full price of the book. If the University offered an optional flat price for all students, let’s say $250 for the year added to cost of tuition, I’m sure many students would opt in to this option for the ability to read digital copies of required textbooks. If students want hard copies of the book, they can buy it at full price, but if they want to save money, they can use this book subscription servic
Read more