A 1962 trip to Japan sparked the idea

Knight traces Nike's origin to a solo trip around the world he took after business school, during which he visited a Japanese shoe manufacturer, Onitsuka, known for its Tiger running shoes. On something close to a whim, dressed up with an invented company name to sound legitimate, he pitched himself as a distributor for their shoes in the United States, despite having no company, no capital, and no real plan.

He describes the pitch as more bluff than strategy — he improvised answers to questions about his fictitious company on the spot, yet the Onitsuka executives agreed to send him samples. This small, almost accidental opening became the entire foundation of what would become Nike.

Knight frames this not as visionary foresight but as a case of being willing to act on a half-formed idea rather than waiting for a fully developed plan, a pattern that recurs throughout the book.

Takeaway: sometimes the opening move that starts everything is closer to an improvised bluff than a polished plan — the willingness to act matters more than certainty.