Kevin Plank – Creating Under Armour
Kevin Plank shows how entrepreneurship can be started from something pretty basic. He played college football at the University of Maryland, and he didn’t like how his cotton shirts would get covered in sweat during practice. So, he decided to fix the issue by making a shirt made from synthetic material that would wick away sweat to keep athletes feel better. He eventually created Under Armour in 1996.
One thing that stands out to me about Plank is that his business idea came from a problem that he had personally experienced. He didn’t start by trying to make a big sports company. He was trying to make a better shirt for himself and other athletes. After creating several prototypes, he had guys on his team see how the shirt felt. Most business people didn’t think he could go against the major athletic companies, but he continued working on his idea.
The coolest thing about Plank is that he started the company while he was still young and his business idea was connected to something he already knew about. He was an athlete, so he knew the problem that other athletes were having. He also used his connections from college to help get the business started. For the first two years, he ran the business out of his grandmother’s house and worked with a business partner from school.
Plank’s story shows that businesses doesn’t always have to start with a huge, completely original idea. Sometimes it can start by seeing a problem and finding out how to fix it better than what is currently available. His story also shows the importance of actually testing an idea and getting feedback instead of just assuming that it will work. That is probably the biggest lesson I can take from his story and apply to my own thinking about entrepreneurship.
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I found it very interesting that Plank thought about making the shirt for himself and other athletes rather than just the business as a whole. He definitely had a great resource to test his prototype on since he had the whole UMD football team. It is also interesting that he started his business in his grandmother’s house which shows that you can start a big idea from anywhere. A fun fact that I have about Plank is that his daughter went to my high school and was in my class!