3 Sports Brands that Capture the Essence of “Overnight Success”

Years of work, a bit of luck, and lots of patience

When we think of successful brands, we think of billions of dollars, international recognition, and fancy ads. We rarely think of how they started.

It sounds obvious but every “big brand” started small. The story often goes something like this: a founder got frustrated with a given problem and wanted to create a better solution for it. And so their journey begins.

Several years (sometimes decades) later, their business gains exponential popularity and everyone starts to talk about OVERNIGHT SUCCESS. The following three stories are about the forgotten part of success stories.

Nike

Nike was born in 1965 under the name of Blue Ribbon Sports. Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman were its founders. Phil was a mid-distance runner and Bill was his track and field coach.

They imported high-quality and low-cost running shoes from Japan until the collaboration ended in 1971. The duo looked for a replacement and found a decent fit with a Mexican manufacturer that was endorsed by Adidas. They needed a new name and went for “Dimension Six,” which was deemed unspeakably bad by most of the company’s fifty employees.