5 Factors That Characterized Adidas at the Start

Image Source: Wax Wane

1. Passion. Adolf Dassler (Adi) was an enthusiastic sportsman who had passion for extreme sports. Adi even built his own ski jump. Adi was a runner as well and this enabled him to spot a gap in the sports market: the need for more quality sports shoes. In starting your own business, you must make sure that you begin something that you have strong passion for.
   Adolf’s passion also came from the fact that he grew up in a sports shoemaking family. His father was a cobbler who also made sports shoes and so, Adi saw it as destiny to follow in his father’s footsteps. If you want to start a clothing line or a food business, whatever your idea may be, make sure it is something you have good passion for and a solid knowledge of. When all else fails, it is your passion that will ultimately keep you going.
2. Improvisation and Creativity. Adidas started small; many people forget that. In his early days, Adolf improvised a lot and still had to be creative with his products. Adolf would scavenge for whatever items he could find in order to make shoes. He used parachutes and army helmets. Adolf’s sisters would cut patterns out of canvas. This was during the First World War. Despite having to improvise, creativity and hard work kept Adolf in business and soon enough he was hand making, along with his employees, 50 shoes a day.
3. Clarity of Vision. Right from the very beginning, there was a clear vision of what Adidas was to achieve. Adolf Dassler wanted to make the perfect running shoes. This vision was guided by 3 principles: produce the best shoes for the job’s requirements, protect the athlete from injury and ensure the product lasted. Adolf didn’t just jump into business simply because he had what seemed like a brilliant idea, he carefully crafted his vision and made it clear from the beginning. This vision still drives the company till date and is seen in their slogan: ‘Impossible is nothing’. As you’re starting your business (or might have started already), you must clearly define what you want to do with your idea and where you want to be in 5, 10 or 15 years from now.
4. The Right Partnership. Adolf partnered with his brother Rudolf in 1924. Rudolf had a background in Sales. Their roles and responsibilities were clearly spelt out from the moment they joined forces. Rudolf was in charge of the marketing side of business while Adolf stuck to designing shoes. And both did their jobs well. Eventually, Rudolf left the company- to start his own which became Puma- but not until they did great things together. Their partnership flourished. By 1928, the company was already making shoes for Olympic athletes. The Dassler shoes were worn by Jesse Owens- the Berlin 1936 Olympic star- and around 200,000 pairs of shoes were ordered that year. It is important to have the right partner or partners in business. You can’t do it alone and so you must have the right people by your side. Do not partner with people based on sentiments but based on quality and skill competence. Make sure your partnership is solely with those who will improve you and the business. Just because Adolf partnered with his brother doesn’t mean you should do so too.
5. Dreaming Big, Starting Small. Adolf Dassler dreamed big. From the start, he wanted to make running shoes that would be used at the highest level in sports. However, he understood the need to start from somewhere. He dreamed big, but he also worked very hard from scratch. Just a year after joining up with his brother Rudolf in 1924, he filed his very first patents: one for a running shoe and the other for a football boot. Adolf was a perfectionist and so he tested his shoes by himself. Many people have been caught up in dreaming too big that they forget the need to start doing something from small levels. They wait for spectacular or very huge opportunities and forget that the biggest idea started from somewhere. The greatest organizations usually seem small when they first begin. As Les Brown said: ‘you don’t have to be great to start but you have to start to be great’. Start executing that idea you’ve been incubating today. You never know how far it could take you.