Howard Schultz’s Remarkable Starbucks Journey

Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, faced numerous challenges in his life before
building one of America’s top coffee houses, Starbucks. Howard Schultz was born in 1953 in
New York in a low-income family. His parents worked long hours to support the family. As a
young person, Howard joined the sports club in high school and played football, basketball, and
baseball. He excelled in sports and got an athletic scholarship to Northern Michigan University.
Howard’s father was a poor employee who was never promoted to well-paying positions (Inspire
Yourself, 2020). In College, Howard took his studies seriously and received a bachelor’s degree
in business and marketing. After graduating, Howard returned to New York and started working
for the Xerox Corporation. He worked at the Xerox Corporation for some time before joining
Hammerplast, which mainly dealt with Swedish housewares.
Howard Schultz’s first interaction with Starbucks was in 1981 during a business trip to
Seattle. After liking Starbucks coffee, Howard decided to meet with one of the company’s
owners, whereby he offered to sell them Hammerplast coffeemakers and asked if he could work
at Starbucks. Luckily, a year later, Howard got hired as a marketing director for Starbucks
located in Seattle (Inspire Yourself, 2020). During this period, Starbucks had about twelve other
premises where they sold their coffee beans and other products. After a trip to Milan, Howard
came up with the idea that steaming beverages was the wave of the future. He had a hunch that
what he had seen in Italy could be applied to America (Koehn et al., 2014). Despite this new
proposition, Starbucks owners disagreed on whether to implement Howard’s idea, making him
venture out independently. Some Starbucks partners opted to invest in his idea, and he opened
his coffee bar in 1984. Despite the small size of his café, his coffee by the cup idea was a
challenge to Starbucks. With determination, Schultz opened a second coffee bar café and bought

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out all the partners who had opted to leave Starbucks. Remarkably, after buying out the partners,
he merged his cafes and Starbucks and formed the Starbucks Corporation.
From the beginning, Howard Schultz had wanted to make Starbucks a widely recognized
brand and export premium coffee to the East Coast. Howard’s plan succeeded since Starbucks
coffee bars became famous among consumers during the late 90s and 2000s. As much as the
expansion was crucial, Howard ensured that the quality of the coffee bars was maintained, which
was a major source of his success (Koehn et al., 2014). With determination and strategic
planning, Howard Schultz created Starbucks Corporation, which offers numerous customers
quality coffee bars and other related products. Recalling how his father was harassed by his
employers, Howard embraced a diversity and inclusivity strategy that ensures all employees are
represented in the firm’s decisions. As the CEO of Starbucks Corporation, Howard Schultz
increased the number of locations globally to about 15000 (Koehn et al., 2014). In 2008, Howard
closed some stores and devised a suitable strategy to secure avenues of growth, which involved
acquisitions of a bakery chain. He also oversaw changes in Starbucks and introduced the instant-
coffee brand, which is today famous around the globe.

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References

Inspire Yourself (2020, Dec 5). How Starbucks became a $100B success story [Video].
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9UYbJ2xMTI
Koehn, N. F., et al. (2014). Starbucks coffee company: Transformation and renewal. Harvard
Business School. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=47471