Garages & Waffle Iron Shoes–What’s Your Story?
By tsufit on Mar 4, 2009 in Branding, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Inspiration, Marketing, Publicity, Start-ups, Storytelling, Success, Uncategorized
Just got an email from an interesting guy, Tim Roux, a branding strategist (and author–check out his novel–Girl on a Bar Stool)
living in Belgium. He runs the UK marketing consultancy Mud Valley. We all love stories about how entrepreneurs invent stuff in their garage (heck, Guy Kawasaki even named his venture capital company Garage).Tim happened to mention a story I hadn’t heard yet…
Apparently Nike founded invented the Just Do It! shoes with his wife’s waffle iron. Bill Bowerman, co-founder of Nike, was a University of Oregon track coach who coached several Olympians. He was looking to make a lighter more flexible shoe for his athlete. According to The Independent, Bowerman took to the garage (no surprise there…) with some latex, leather, glue and his wife’s waffle iron, and the rest…, light-soul-shoe-wise, is history.
While we’re on the subject of garages, it’s kinda cool that I’m writing this post on my HP computer which had its origins in David Packard’s garage– a garage credited with being the birthplace of Silicon Valley. Check out Brian Solis’ great photos and story.
What’s your story?
Thanks for sharing these stories. I related to all of them in a personal way. My family loves waffles; in fact, my husband makes them every Saturday as a tradition with our kids (now teenagers – and still loving the waffles!). I didn’t know this tidbit about Nike shoes; what fun.
I used to work for HP (14 years there), and the HP Garage is a great symbol for what two people can do, starting in the humblest of places. It is now considered the “birthplace” of Silicon Valley.
Finally, Brian Solis is great; very kind and open. He was gracious enough to be on my panel last year at Blogworld, and we discussed social media and customer loyalty. I highly recommend him and his work!
Thanks for the smiles, Tsufit.
Becky Carroll | Mar 26, 2009 | Reply