Rivalry

The Dassler Brothers did.

Adi and Rudy Dassler were brothers who grew up in a small German town. They did everything together … including starting the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory in their mother’s laundry room … Adi was the craftsman and Rudi the salesman … and things went great for many years … especially after a famous athlete won 4 gold medals at the Olympics wearing Dassler shoes .. but it wasn’t to last … after 25 years together adi and Rudy had come to intensely dislike each other … so much so they split the company in two … with Adi keeping the original factory and Rudy opening his own operation across the river. And the intense rivalry split the town in two … but it also did something else … it sharply focused each company on trying to beat the other through innovation, design, distribution and marketing. The intensity was so great that it propelled each brand to be famous worldwide.

Today, over 70 years later the two separate companies founded and named after each brother sell over $30 billion a year in athletic footwear combined … and the names for each company came from the first few letters of each brothers first and last names … Adi Dassler .. Adidas … and Rudy Dassler … Ruda … which Rudy didn’t like so much so he changed it to Puma because it was easier to say.

Adidas and Puma are great ideas because sometimes to be successful you need an arch nemesis to focus your efforts … even if the arch-nemesis ends up being your brother!