by: Geoff Ficke
Seneca “The Younger”, the great ancient Roman philosopher famously observed, “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable”. The intent of his words is clear. Knowing where you want to go is the essential prelude to planning how to get there. Unfortunately, many people go through life without a plan or a goal, and those people usually end up right where they start from.

Most families have a set vacation time to relax and undertake various forms of leisure together. If the family plans a camping trip to a state park in another state, they will typically make reservations, reserve tickets for campsites, service the car, budget anticipated expenses, inspect and inventory their camping gear, organize provisions and print out a map with driving directions to their destination. This is a simple vacation plan. Very few prudent families would simply gather everyone up, hop in the car on a whim, take the first highway and drive aimlessly hoping to stumble in to a national park and hopefully be able to secure a campsite.

The logistics of moving the family, safely, securely, with reasonable comfort and insuring enjoyment at the park is the reason we would plan the trip. Who wants to waste valuable vacation days on a poorly planned and executed travel experience. This simple illustration of how a family would meticulously plan a vacation in order to insure a fun time and great memories can be transferred to the planning essential to starting a new business.

A successful business startup always is predictive in the planning that is designed and executed to build the foundation of the enterprise. Proper research of the targeted consumer demographic and market category will be exhaustive. All sources of supply and inherent costs will be identified. The product or service that the new Company will provide will be properly priced, readily available, supported with a strategic marketing plan and a comprehensive branding program.

Like the family planning a much needed vacation, the entrepreneur, driven to be successful, will leave no stone unturned in seeking knowledge and advantage that will be key to achieving preordained goals. He will not take shortcuts. He will not make guesses. He will detail the basis utilized to construct each assumption that buttress the conclusions he uses to write the business plan.

The failed entrepreneur is usually a dreamer. Like the disorganized family stumbling into “vacation surreal”, this impostor thinks he can game the system. He does not believe that he needs to research his targeted marketplace, if he can even identify his real demographic target. He guesses at his actual costs based on incomplete information and an unwillingness to perform the crucial due diligence required to identify the best source of production. He believes that because “Cousin Joey” loves his idea, the consuming public will as well.

The “Dreaming Entrepreneur” is a fellow we see all of the time in our marketing consulting business. Planning is for others. He doesn’t believe in the need for a business plan. He guesses at costs, lead times and component availability that are essential for any successful business to know cold in order to meet and exceed goals.

There is no magic bullet or elixir that entrepreneurs can access in order to insure they will succeed. However, there are things they can do that will absolutely insure failure. A key lesson for any person seeking to launch a new product
or new business is to take every precaution to minimize negatives that can be reasonably controlled by planning, research and performing due diligence. You can mitigate the chance for failure by properly vetting all contingencies. You will insure failure by sloppily moving forward without properly knowing to which port you are sailing.

by: Geoff Ficke
I grew up in the 1950’s playing basketball hour after hour on city playgrounds. The public courts of the day were nothing like those found today in most American towns. There were no lights, a steel, kidney-shaped backboard (ugh!) with bent rims, occasionally a steel chain net and no lines painted to properly delineate the free throw line and out of bounds. The surface was often rough and cracked. You had to know where the ball would give a true bounce and where you could lose control because of the uneven surface.

But we played on for endless hours in all weather. The worst nights were when there was no moon to play by. We had to quit play early on those nights. Every Christmas I would find a new Voit basketball under the tree. It was a glorious site, sparkling, hard, looking just like a ball you would see the pros play with on television. I could not wait to get the presents unwrapped, finish the never ending holiday breakfast, get to Mass and, then, finally, get my new Voit to the courts.

The only other sporting good product that came remotely close to the joy of seeing my new ball every year was when I bought a new pair of Chuck Taylor Converse All Star shoes. Back in that day, Chuck’s as they were universally called, were the gold standard of sports shoe. You could buy black or white Chuck’s. There were cheaper knock off brands of athletic shoes, but though we were poor, no kid in our neighborhood would hit the court in anything but a pair of Chuck’s.

Chuck Taylor Converse All Star’s were a pretty basic affair. The shoes had a cloth, flexible, soft upper construction. The upper was glued to a layered rubberized sole. There was an iconic round logo glued to the outside of the shoes letting everyone rest assured that these were real Chuck’s. The designer of the shoes was the former star basketball player and coach, Chuck Taylor.

Until the mid-1960’s Chuck’s remained the shoe of choice for all levels of basketball players from Pee Wee to professional. At about this time a new development in the evolution of athletic performance enhancement came to market. This new product changed the way athletes train and play, the way sports were funded and athletes were paid and revolutionized modern personal care and entertainment habits.

Bill Bowerman was a decorated World War II hero. After the war he returned to his native Oregon where he became one of the great track coaches of all time at the University of Oregon. His squads won national championships, his athletes won numerous national and Olympic championships. Bowerman created numerous training techniques that he utilized to pull more speed, endurance and confidence out of his athletes. He always was looking for an edge.

In 1962 Bill Bowerman took a trip to New Zealand, and almost unbelievably, was introduced to jogging which was popular in that island nation. Before this time, jogging as part of a healthy exercise regimen was virtually unknown in America. He returned home and published a small 100 page book titled “Jogging”. It sold over one million copies and started the jogging craze in the United States.

In any endeavor where achieving great speed is the goal of the activity, the enemy of maximum performance is weight. Race cars go faster if they can be made lighter. Bowerman was passionate about improving athletic performance. It was this passion that pushed him to design and launch one of the great consumer products, and brands, of all times.

In his home workshop, Bill Bowerman was a constant tinkerer. While seeking to craft a novel performance running shoe, he had the idea to impound his wife’s waffle iron and use the griddle to score the soles of prototype training shoes he was experimenting with. He seared the rubberized soles with the waffle iron and found that by removing sections of the rubber, the shoes were more aerodynamic, lighter weight and provided substantially more grip than the available shoes of that day.

The iconic Cortez running shoe, still popular to this day, was born. Athletes were ecstatic with the fit, comfort and added speed that the Cortez shoes provided.
Coach Bowerman approached a former runner athlete of his, Phil Knight, with a proposition. He would design and test the shoes, if Knight would handle the business side of a new enterprise. They sealed their deal with a handshake and Nike was born.

For many years the Nike brand has been synonymous with the growth and commercialization of sport at all levels, internationally, domestically, amateur and professional. Athletes, coaches, professional teams and universities sign multi-million dollar contracts to wear Nike gear and display the famous “swoosh” branding logo on their uniforms, footwear, balls and sport bags. Nike retail stores are in most shopping malls.

Sponsorships pioneered by Nike have resulted in the explosion of televised sporting events. New sports such as beach volleyball and extreme sports have boomed and penetrated sports fans consciousness. Basketball has spread from an American centered game to enjoying huge international growth largely because of Nike sponsorship deals and in country marketing. Almost inevitability, when sporting history is made, or records broken, Nike is involved either in marketing the event or providing athletic enhancement products.

Nike is a multi-billion dollar corporate success. There is almost no sport, organized or recreational, that does not feel the tentacles of the Nike reach. The brand is one of the most recognizable in the world. For years the Company has been considered one of America’s best employers in annual worker surveys. The State of Oregon and the University of Oregon have received munificent benefits from the generosity and immense profitability of Nike.

Bill Bowerman was not seeking to build a financial fortune when he inadvertently did so by achieving his real goal of seeking more speed for his athletes. His Cortez shoes were the “alpha” product that became the cornerstone for building one of the world’s great brands. He died in 1999.

Coach Bowerman was a war hero, athlete, coach and teacher, beloved by each of the students and athletes that came under his sway. His legacy is burnished every time a recreational jogger dons Nike shoes and shorts to make a run, or the University of Kentucky basketball team takes to the court in Nike uniforms. The benefits that society continues to enjoy from his creativity and passion will make each of our lives richer for as long as Nike successfully expands sporting opportunities and seeks more performance benefits for its products.