Adolf Dassler: The Leader Behind Brand Adidas Success

 

 

These entrepreneurs are unable to concentrate on any of their businesses and are hoping that one of them will succeed. Ownership of one profitable and successful business, rather than a number of failing businesses, is what defines your economic success.

Don't Partner with the Wrong Investors!

Entrepreneurs should understand that their investors are more than just affluent backers before starting a firm. A company's first set of stockholders will make or break it. Despite not having seen a prototype, these people believe in the company's potential. Businesses will communicate with shareholders after getting initial capital, who will evaluate the company's growth and viability (a local blacksmith's son who plays a pivotal part later in the story) He made a significant observation that would later serve as the cornerstone of his success as a result of his exposure to such a varied range of sports: he noted that all athletes wore essentially the same shoes.

 

In the late stages of World War I, Adolf Dassler was forcibly drafted into the German Army, preventing him from immediately turning his sports shoe idea into a business. When he returned to Herzogenaurach in 1919, Germany was experiencing postwar economic devastation. Jobs were few, but Adolf was determined not to let his dream die, so he converted the back of the house into a laundry shed converting the Dassler home into a shoe factory He supplemented his income by fixing locals' footwear using the shoemaking skills he had acquired.

This provided him with the necessary finances and time to design his first pair of specialised sports shoes. Spiked running shoes for track and field competitors were one of his first creations, and they were a brand-new concept for the sport at the time. The local blacksmith, Fritz Zehlein, Adolf's childhood sports buddy, furnished them with hand-forged metal spikes.

The Dassler Brothers Shoe Company is established.

Adolf's production methods were as inventive as his shoe designs. He attached a leather milling machine on a bicycle that the company's owner rode The first employee to solve problems created by an intermittent power supply.

Adolf's older brother Rudolf Dassler joined him in the business, and on July 1, 1924, they established their firm as 'Gebrüder Dassler, Sportschuhfabrik, Herzogenaurach' ('Dassler Brothers Sports Shoe Factory, Herzogenaurach'). By 1925, their one-room workshop had grown to three employees, who were producing leather football boots with fastened studs and spiked track shoes. The brothers moved to a larger building in Herzogenaurach, where they invested in infrastructural machinery and expanded their production, as the German economy strengthened.

Adolf Strives for Olympic Glory

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the World Cup of Football (soccer) and the Olympic Games were the two most major worldwide sporting events. The Dassler brothers believed that getting their shoes on the feet of athletes would help them succeed and establish the quality of the Dassler product. At the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, Adolf offered German marathoner Lina Radke a pair of his spiked track shoes, and they became their first success. Lina set a World Record in the 800m because it was the first time women were allowed to compete in the event.

The special needs of the athletes with whom Adolf worked inspired his innovative technology in sports shoes. To guarantee the item was the best it could be, he included testing and feedback as part of the design process.

He soon built a contact with the German National Track & Field squad through Coach Josef Waitzer. This partnership not only provided valuable feedback for product development, but it also insured that many German athletes would be wearing Dassler shoes at the Olympic Games. The Dassler brothers' marketing technique was outstanding at a period when no athletes had expert sponsorship.

They were so successful with German athletes at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics that they decided to bring the concept to a wider audience for the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

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