You’ve seen the Swoosh. It’s everywhere. From the feet of elite marathoners in Nairobi to the middle school hallways of suburban Ohio, that little curved checkmark is basically the universal symbol for "just doing it." But if you’re asking who started the company nike, the answer isn't just a single name on a dusty incorporation paper. It was a weird, desperate, and brilliant partnership between a track coach who was obsessed with weight and a middle-distance runner who had a chip on his shoulder about Japanese imports.
Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman. Those are your guys.
But honestly? Calling them the "founders" makes it sound way too clean. It wasn't clean. It started as a company called Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964, and they didn't even make their own shoes. They were basically just a middleman for a Japanese brand called Onitsuka Tiger. Knight was selling shoes out of the trunk of his green Plymouth Valiant at track meets. It was a side hustle that got out of hand.
The Accountant and the Mad Scientist
Phil Knight was a Stanford MBA grad who also happened to be a decent runner at the University of Oregon. He had this crazy idea—literally, his grad school paper was about it—that Japanese cameras had killed German cameras in the market, so why couldn't Japanese running shoes do the same to German shoes (meaning Adidas and Puma)? He traveled to Japan, cold-called the executives at Onitsuka, and bluffed his way into a distribution deal.
He needed a partner with credibility. That’s where Bill Bowerman comes in.
Bowerman was a legend. He was the head track coach at Oregon and a man who would literally tear apart his athletes' shoes to see how they were made. He was obsessed with stripping away every unnecessary ounce. If he could make a shoe one ounce lighter, he figured he was saving a runner from lifting hundreds of pounds over the course of a mile.
They each chipped in $500. That’s it. A grand total of $1,000 to start what is now a multi-billion dollar empire.
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Knight handled the spreadsheets and the logistics. Bowerman was the R&D department. It was a classic "business brain meets creative genius" setup, though at the time, they were mostly just trying not to go broke.
The Waffle Iron Moment that Changed Everything
If you want to know who started the company nike and how it actually became "Nike," you have to talk about breakfast. Seriously.
By the early 70s, the relationship with Onitsuka Tiger was falling apart. Knight and Bowerman knew they had to start making their own gear. They needed a grip that worked on the new artificial tracks being installed around the country. One morning in 1971, Bowerman was looking at his wife Barbara’s waffle iron.
He wondered: What if you flipped the pattern? What if the "studs" were made of rubber and pointed outward? He literally poured liquid urethane into the waffle iron. He ruined the iron, obviously, but he created the Waffle Sole. This wasn't some high-tech lab experiment. It was a guy in a kitchen messing around with chemicals and kitchen appliances. That grit is exactly why the brand took off. They weren't just selling a product; they were solving a problem that Bowerman saw on the track every single day.
Why "Nike" and Not "Dimension Six"?
Here is a bit of trivia that Phil Knight probably hates: he didn't even want to call it Nike.
When they were preparing to launch their own line of shoes in 1971, they needed a name. Knight's first choice? Dimension Six. Honestly, it sounds like a bad prog-rock band from the 70s. His employees hated it. The name "Nike"—after the Greek goddess of victory—came to their first employee, Jeff Johnson, in a dream. Knight wasn't even sold on it. He famously said, "Maybe it'll grow on us."
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They also needed a logo. They hired a graphic design student at Portland State named Carolyn Davidson. They were in a rush. Knight told her he didn't "love" the design, but he was under a deadline. He paid her $35 for the Swoosh. Thirty-five dollars. To be fair, he later gave her a significant amount of stock that eventually became worth millions, but at the moment of creation, the world’s most famous logo was a "good enough" solution for an accountant in a hurry.
The Pivot from Track to Culture
A lot of people think Nike just became a giant because of Michael Jordan. That’s a huge part of it, but the foundation was laid earlier.
The 1970s "running boom" was the perfect storm. Suddenly, everyone was jogging. It wasn't just for athletes anymore. Knight and Bowerman capitalized on this by positioning Nike as the brand for everyone who moved.
- They signed Steve Prefontaine, the rockstar of the running world.
- They leaned into Bowerman's "everyone is an athlete" philosophy.
- They took the company public in 1980, making Knight an instant multi-millionaire.
But the real magic happened when they realized that shoes weren't just utility; they were identity. When they signed Jordan in 1984, they weren't just selling basketball shoes. They were selling the ability to fly. They were selling defiance.
The Dark Side of the Growth
You can't talk about the history of Nike without mentioning the controversies. In the 90s, the brand became the poster child for "sweatshop" labor. Phil Knight was hammered in the press. This is a crucial part of the story because it forced the company to change how it operated.
For a long time, the answer to who started the company nike was associated with corporate greed. Knight had to step up and admit the company needed to do better. They became leaders in labor transparency because they had no other choice if they wanted to survive. It’s a reminder that even the biggest giants have to evolve or die.
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Knight stepped down as CEO in 2004 and as chairman in 2016. Bowerman passed away in 1999. Today, the company is a massive machine, but it still tries to keep that "Oregon underdog" spirit alive, even if it's now the biggest dog in the yard.
What You Can Learn from the Nike Origin Story
If you’re looking at this story and wondering how to apply it to your own life or business, here’s the reality:
Start with a side hustle. Knight didn't quit his day job as an accountant for years. He sold shoes on the weekends. You don't need a massive VC round to start; you need a trunk full of inventory and a plan.
Find your "Waffle Iron" partner. Knight was the logic; Bowerman was the soul. If you’re a numbers person, find a creator. If you’re a dreamer, find someone who can manage a supply chain.
Don't overthink the "perfect" brand. The name "Nike" was a last-minute backup. The logo was a $35 rush job. Perfection is the enemy of the launch.
Actionable Next Steps for the Curious
If you want to go deeper into how this empire was built, there are a few things you should actually do:
- Read "Shoe Dog" by Phil Knight. It’s honestly one of the best business memoirs ever written. It doesn’t read like a dry textbook; it reads like a thriller about a guy who is constantly on the verge of going bankrupt.
- Visit the Hayward Field at the University of Oregon. If you’re ever in Eugene, go see where Bowerman coached. You can feel the history of the "Pre" era and the birth of American track culture.
- Look at your shoes. Not just the brand, but the construction. See the influence of Bowerman's obsession with weight and grip. Almost every modern athletic shoe owes a debt to that ruined waffle iron from 1971.
The story of Nike isn't about a corporate board meeting. It's about two guys in Oregon who really, really cared about how a shoe felt on a cinder track. That’s it. That’s the whole secret.