Founding a Company on a Lie and Making 60 Trillion Won (feat. Nike)

“Lies, Debt, and a Reckless Run”

A Young Man Running Through the Fog Dawn, 1962, Oregon. A 24-year-old young man runs alone through the thick fog. Neither his prestigious Stanford MBA diploma nor his CPA license could make his heart race. His mind was dominated by only one Crazy Idea. “Just as Japanese cameras beat German cameras, couldn’t Japanese running shoes conquer the world?”

All he had was travel expenses borrowed from his father and preposterous guts. The world called him unemployed, but he called himself a ‘Shoe Dog’ (someone obsessed with shoes). With an empty wallet and a burning heart, his reckless first run begins.

“The cowards never started and the weak died along the way. That leaves us.”

A 24-year-old unemployed man fresh out of Stanford. My room was cluttered with the remnants of a trip around the world. I asked my father for money to buy a ticket to Japan. The reason was simple. Just as Japanese cameras swept the world, wasn’t there potential for Japanese running shoes? I didn’t know back then that this vague curiosity would completely upend my life.

📍 Location 1. Hayward Field, Oregon: Bowerman’s Laboratory

Address: University of Oregon, Eugene

My coach, Bill Bowerman, wasn’t just a director. He was a mad scientist. He would sneak into the players’ locker room and steal their shoes. A few days later, those shoes would reappear, shredded to pieces. He dismantled and reassembled perfectly good shoes to make them lighter.

“If you take 1 ounce (28g) off a shoe, you save 55 pounds (25kg) of energy over a mile.”

He ground down heels and tore off leather for the sake of 0.1 seconds. I grew up watching that obsession. Business isn’t done at a desk. That fanatical obsession to cut even a single second off someone’s record — that was the beginning. That is how he became the spiritual pillar and co-founder of Nike.

📍 Location 2. Kobe, Japan, Onitsuka Conference Room: The Biggest Lie of My Life

Address: Kobe, Japan

The Onitsuka executives asked, “Mr. Knight, where is your company located in the US?” My heart felt like it was going to explode. I didn’t have a company. My room was my office. At that moment, I blurted out some nonsense without thinking.

“Blue Ribbon Sports in Portland, Oregon!”

It sounded plausible. It was a name I made up looking at a blue ribbon hanging on my bedroom wall. They nodded and offered a handshake. I wiped away my cold sweat and signed the contract. That night at the hotel, I looked at the ceiling and laughed. “I guess I really have to build a company now.”

📍 Location 3. Green Plymouth Valiant Trunk: Rejection and Sold Out

The first order of 12 pairs arrived. I loaded them into my car trunk and visited sports goods stores. The owners didn’t even give me a glance.

“Kid, the world doesn’t need any more track shoes. Beat it.”

I changed my strategy. I drove to the track stadium. The athletes were warming up. Instead of shouting, I opened the trunk and just showed them the shoes. “These are similar to the ones Coach Bowerman modifies.”

The athletes flocked around me. “Do you have my size?” “Let me try them on.” That day, I returned with an empty trunk. It wasn’t my product that was rejected; I had just chosen the wrong place.

📍 Location 4. First National Bank: The Red-Lined Account

Address: Portland, Oregon

Sales doubled, but the bank account was always in the negative. I ordered shoes as soon as I made money. The branch manager shouted as if he were grabbing me by the collar. “Your equity ratio is a mess! If you don’t pay off your debt immediately, I’ll process you for bankruptcy!”

Every night, I juggled funds to stay afloat. With no money for staff salaries, I begged the bank teller, sweating profusely. “Just one day, please delay the clearing for just one day.” The image of a great CEO? Don’t make me laugh. I lived for 10 years with the mindset of a fugitive being chased by creditors.

📍 Location 5. Parents’ Basement: A Pit of Noise and Dust

Address: Portland, Oregon

Our first office was the windowless basement of my house. When I shouted at the wall, my sister upstairs would stomp her foot to signal me. The first employee, Jeff Johnson, typed away on a typewriter all day, covered in dust.

One day, my father came down and shouted. “Get these damn shoe boxes out of here! I can’t live with the smell!” We buried ourselves in the pile of boxes, ordered pizza, and giggled. It was cramped, hot, and noisy, but in that basement, we talked as if we owned the world. “We are going to crush Adidas.”

Epilogue: Wildness Created by Scarcity

The record of the first days was not a glamorous success story.

It was the humiliation of being treated like a peddler while selling other people’s shoes from a car trunk, the blood-drying nights tormented by debt collection, and the smelly struggle in a dusty basement.

But Phil Knight proved it. You don’t need perfect capital and a proper office to do business.

Rather, that desperate ‘scarcity’ and ‘hungry spirit’ were the real nutrients that grew the giant called Nike. He didn’t stop. The wildness to sprint toward tomorrow while being chased by creditors — that was the prelude to the legend.

Source: Shoe Dog

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To our dear readers,

Hello, this is Editor Daniel.

Thank you for watching over us with unexpected affection during this time. Thanks to your interest in my humble writing, I was able to write these travel logs happily every moment.

I plan to take a brief hiatus for personal and team reorganization, as well as to plan future content. I will try my best to return with even better content that meets your expectations, just as you wait for us.

I hope you have a warm year-end for the remainder of 2025. And, Happy New Year.

Thank you for loving The Trail.

- Sincerely, Editor Daniel -