Road to Success

You’ll see why sometimes it’s who you know in business.

Before Howard Shultz turned Starbucks into the global powerhouse it is today — people were drinking sh*t coffee.

When Schultz joined Starbucks in the early 80s, they had three stores that sold grounded Indonesian coffee for you to take home and make yourself.

Soon after joining the company, Shultz was inspired by a trip to Italy.

He noticed the sense of theatre and community around the coffee shops, which made him realise that Starbucks was not in the right part of the coffee business.

The real business and opportunity were integrating the coffee and the destination to create a sense of community in the store.

Shultz felt that he could bring the same ambience to the United States and that serving coffee in an open and welcoming environment could be refreshing for the people.

What a brilliant idea.

He raced home to talk to the founders of Starbucks about his experience.

They rejected the idea.

And continued to reject it for almost two years.

So as any good entrepreneur would, Shultz left and started his chain of Italian coffee shops.

Unsurprisingly Starbucks founds itself in financial difficulty, and the founders came crawling back with an offer for Shultz to buy the company.

Jerry Baldwin, the founder of Starbucks, gave Shultz a 90-day exclusive offer to raise $3.8 Million.

After about 60 days, Shultz raised about 50% of what he needed before getting a call from Baldwin.

Jerry Baldwin: “We have a competitive buyer,”

“One of your investors from Il Giornale has shown up and offered me $4 million cash with no due diligence.”

Shultz’s heart sank, and his excitement was short-lived, as he recalls:

“I remember that moment as if the world had just ended,”

“I knew who it was. At the time — there were three business titans in Seattle — and he was one of them. … I didn’t know what to do.”

When Shultz broke the news, his attorney tried to help and told Shultz to stop by his office so he could meet the firm’s senior partner, who Shultz had never met before.

The firm’s senior partner was Bills Gates Senior.

In complete contrast to his son, 6-foot-seven, 80-Year-old Bill Gates Senior dragged Shultz to Baldwin’s office.

Bill Gates Senior speaking to Jerry Baldwin:

“You should be ashamed of yourself that you’re going to steal this kid’s dream. It’s not going to happen. You and I both know this is not going to happen.”

Within 10 minutes of the meeting, Baldwin agreed for Shultz to buy Starbucks in line with their original agreement.

Shultz bought Starbucks for 3.8 Million Dollars in 1987, which included six stores.

According to Google Finance, Starbucks is now worth $100.79Billion

Making good on Shultz’s original investment by a factor of 26,500 and making him a billionaire three times over.

Starbucks, led by Shultz and his early Vision, is releasing its own NFT Platform.

Starbucks Odyssey is launching later this year. The new digital experience combines an already successful Loyalty Rewards program with an NFT platform.

The platform is built on a side chain Polygon and does not require you to use a Crypto Wallet. It’ll allow customers to earn and purchase digital assets that unlock exclusive experiences and rewards.

They’ve completely removed the friction creating a more immersive and convenient experience than heading down to the coffee shop.

It’s absolutely genius.

It’s made NFTs the access coupon to their digital community, but they’ve purposely avoided highlighting the technology.

Starbucks is trying to put the consumer experience first by bringing more non-technical people onto their Web3 Platform.

They even do away with tech jargon and don’t refer to the word NFT; instead, their collectables are called:

“journey stamps”

Starbucks Just Landed a Killer blow on its competitors

It is the world’s most significant coffee house chain in terms of revenue, generating more than ten times the revenue of its closest competitor Costa Coffee.

The coffee giant is showing no sign of slowing down.

Starbucks is already way ahead of any of its closest competitors. And it’s easy to see why.

The Howard Shultz DNA of challenging the narrative runs through Starbucks, especially when others reject their ideas.

They aren’t afraid to innovate and have a forward-thinking and adaptable leadership team.

Sometimes great things are possible with help from friends like Bill Gates Senior, who passed away in 2020 at age 95.