Howard Schultz - How Starbucks was built cup by cup. Book Review: How Starbucks Was Built Cup by Cup Howard Schultz Cup by Cup

30.04.2020

Howard Schultz became CEO Starbucks in 1987 and over the years has transformed Starbucks from a small company with six coffee shops to an international business operating in 50 countries. But the Starbucks story is not just a success story. This is a story about a team of people passionately in love with coffee who built a huge company on the basis of values and principles that are rarely found in the corporate world, while maintaining an individual approach to each employee and each client.

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The following excerpt from the book How Starbucks Built Cup by Cup (Howard Schultz, 2012) provided by our book partner - the company LitRes.

Part one.

Rediscovering coffee

Company until 1987

Chapter 1

Only the heart can see correctly. The important is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The little Prince

Starbucks, as it is now, is really the child of two parents.

One is the original Starbucks, founded in 1971, passionately dedicated to world-class coffee and dedicated to making great coffee known to customers.

The second is the vision and values that I brought to it: a combination of competitive courage and a strong desire to help each member of the organization come to a common victory. I wanted to mix coffee with romance, to try to achieve what others think is impossible, to fight difficulties with new ideas, and to do it all with elegance and style.

In truth, to become what it is today, Starbucks needed the influence of both parents.

Starbucks flourished for ten years before I discovered it. I learned about the history of the early years of her life from the founders and will retell this story in the second chapter. In this book, it will be told in the order in which I learned it from my early years, since many of the values that have shaped the company's development were formed in that overcrowded apartment in Brooklyn, New York.

A humble background can serve as an incentive and instill compassion

I noticed one feature in the romantics: they try to create a new, better world away from the dullness of everyday life. Starbucks has the same goal. We are trying to create an oasis in our coffee shops, a small place in your neighborhood where you can take a break, listen to jazz and reflect on world and personal problems or think of something eccentric over a cup of coffee.

What kind of person do you have to be to dream of such a place?

Based personal experience, I would say the more unassuming your background, the more likely you are to often develop your imagination, drifting into worlds where everything seems possible.

In my case, this is exactly the case.

I was three years old when, in 1956, my family moved from my grandmother's apartment to Bayview. The quarter was in the center of Canarsie, on Jamaica Bay, fifteen minutes from the airport and fifteen minutes from Coney Island. At that time, it was not a place of horror, but a friendly, vast and green area with a dozen brand new eight-story brick houses. Primary School was right on the block, with a playground, basketball courts, and a paved schoolyard. And yet it never occurred to anyone to be proud of life in this quarter; our parents were what is now called the "working poor."

And yet I had many happy moments as a child. Living in a poor neighborhood formed a well-balanced value system, as it forced me to get along with the most different people. About 150 families lived in our house alone, and they all had one tiny elevator. All apartments were very small, and the one where our family started was also cramped, with only two bedrooms.

My parents came from working-class families who had lived in East Brooklyn for two generations. The grandfather died young, and the father, who was then a teenager, had to leave school and go to work. During World War II, he was an army medic in the South Pacific, New Caledonia and Saipan, where he contracted yellow fever and malaria. As a result, he had weak lungs and often caught colds. After the war, he changed a number of jobs related to physical labor, but he never found himself, did not determine his plans for life.

My mother was a powerful woman with a strong character. Her name is Elaine, but everyone called her Bobby. She worked as a receptionist, but when we, her three children, were small, her strength and care were completely given to us.

My sister, Ronnie, who is almost my age, went through the same ordeals as a child that I did. But I managed to save my brother, Michael, to some extent from the economic difficulties that I experienced myself; I led them in a way that their parents could not lead them. He accompanied me wherever I went. I called him Shadow. Despite the eight-year age difference, Michael and I developed a very close relationship, and where I could, I was his father. I watched with pride as he became a great athlete, a strong student, and finally succeeded in his business career.

As a child, I played sports games with the guys from neighboring yards from dawn to dusk every day. My father joined us whenever he could, after work and on weekends. Every Saturday and Sunday, at 8 am, hundreds of children gathered in the school yard. You had to be strong, because if you lost, you were out, and then you had to sit for hours watching the game before the opportunity arose to return to the game again. That's why I played to win.

Luckily, I was a natural athlete. Whether it's baseball, basketball or football, I've rushed onto the court and played hard until I got good results. I organized baseball and basketball games for national teams, which included all the children in the district - Jews, Italians, blacks. No one has ever lectured us about biodiversity; we have experienced this in real life.

I have always been imbued with an unbridled passion for everything that interested me. Baseball was my first passion. At that time, in all areas of New York, any conversation began and ended with baseball. Relations with people and obstacles between them were created not because of race or religion, but in accordance with which team they supported. The Dodgers had just moved to Los Angeles (they broke my father's heart, he never forgot them), but we still had a lot of baseball "stars" left. I remember returning home and listening to detailed match-by-match radio reports from open windows neighbors.

I was an avid Yankees fan and my dad and brother and I went to a lot of games. We never had good places, but it didn't matter. We were breathtaking from the very presence. Mickey Mantle was my idol. I wore his number, 7, on every jersey, sneaker, everything I owned. When I played baseball, I imitated Mickey's postures and gestures.

When Mick left the sport, it was impossible to believe that everything was over. How could he stop playing? My father took me to both Mickey Mantle Days at Yankees Stadium on September 18, 1968 and June 8, 1969. Watching him pay respects and say goodbye to him, listening to his speech, I plunged into deep anguish. Baseball is not what it used to be for me. Mickey was such an integral part of our lives that many years later, when he died, I received calls and words of condolence from old school friends from whom there was no news for decades.

Coffee occupied an insignificant place in my childhood. Mom drank instant. For guests, she bought coffee in a can and took out an old coffee pot. I listened to his grumbling and watched the glass lid until the coffee flew into it like a hopping bean.

But I didn't realize how limited the family budget was until I was older. Occasionally we would go to a Chinese restaurant, and my parents would start discussing which dishes to order, based only on how much cash was in my father's wallet that day. I was tormented by anger and shame when I found out that the children's camp where I was sent for the summer was a subsidized camp for underprivileged children. I didn't agree to go there anymore.

By the time I started high school, it became clear to me what kind of mark a person living in a poor neighborhood wears. Canarsie High School was less than a mile away, but the road to get there ran along streets lined with small one- or two-family houses. I knew that the people who lived there looked down on us.

Once I asked a girl from another part of New York on a date. I remember how her father's expression gradually changed as he spoke to me:

– Where do you live?

“We live in Brooklyn,” I replied.

— Canarsie.

- Bayview area.

There was an unspoken opinion about me in his reaction, and I was annoyed to catch it.

As the oldest of three children, I had to grow up quickly. I started making money pretty early. At twelve I was selling newspapers, later I worked behind the counter in a local cafe. At sixteen, after graduating from school, I got a job in shopping area Manhattan, in a fur shop where he was supposed to stretch animal skins. The work was gruesome and left thick calluses on the thumbs. One hot summer, I worked hard for pennies in a knitting factory, steaming yarn. I always gave part of my earnings to my mother - not because she insisted, but because the situation of my parents made me bitter.

And yet, in the 1950s and early 1960s, everyone was living the “American Dream,” and we were all counting on a piece of it. Mother hammered it into our heads. She herself never graduated from high school, and her greatest dream was to higher education for all three of her children. Wise and pragmatic in her rough and stubborn way, she instilled in me tremendous self-confidence. Again and again, she gave brilliant examples, pointing out people who have achieved something in life, and insisting that I, too, can achieve anything I want. She taught me to challenge myself, to create uncomfortable situations in order to overcome difficulties later. I don’t know where she got this knowledge from, since she herself did not live by these rules. But for us, she craved success.

Many years later, during one of her visits to Seattle, I showed my mother our new offices in the Starbucks Center. We wandered around its territory, passing different departments and working corners, watching how people talk on the phone and type on computers, and I directly saw how her head was spinning from the scale of this action. Finally, she came closer to me and whispered in my ear, “Who pays all these people?” It was beyond her understanding.

As a child I never dreamed of own business. The only entrepreneur I knew was my uncle, Bill Farber. He had a small paper mill in the Bronx, for which he later hired his father as a foreman. I didn't know what I would end up doing, but I knew for sure that I had to avoid the struggle for survival that my parents fought every day. I had to get out of the poor neighborhood, out of Brooklyn. I remember lying at night and thinking: what if I had a crystal ball and could see the future? But I quickly pushed this thought away from me, because it was too scary to think about it.

I knew only one way out: sport. Like the kids in Hoop Dreams, my friends and I believed that sports were the ticket to a better life. In high school, I only took classes when there was nowhere to go, because everything they taught me in school seemed unimportant. Instead of lessons, I played football for hours.

I will never forget the day I created the team. As a badge of honour, I was given a large blue "C", which said that I was a full-fledged athlete. But the mother couldn't afford the $29 jacket with that letter on it, and she asked me to wait a week or so until my father got his paycheck. I was beside myself. Every student in the school planned to wear such a jacket on one fine, predetermined day. I couldn't show up to school without a jacket, but I didn't want my mother to feel worse either. So I borrowed money for a jacket from a friend and put it on on the appointed day, but hid it from my parents until they could afford it.

My greatest triumph in high school was being a quarterback, which made me an authority among the 5,700 high school students in Canarsie. The school was so poor that we didn't even have a football field, all our games took place outside its territory. Our team didn't have a high level, but I was one of the best players.

Once, an agent came to our match looking for a striker. I didn't know he was there. A few days later, however, a letter arrived from what appeared to me to be another planet—Northern Michigan University. They recruited a football team. Did this offer interest me? I rejoiced and yelled for joy. This event was as lucky as an invitation to an NFL tryout.

Eventually, Northern Michigan University offered me a football scholarship, which was all they offered me. I can't imagine how I could have realized my mother's college dream without her.

During the last school spring break, my parents took me to this incredible place. We drove almost a thousand miles to Marquette, on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We had never left New York before, and this adventure captivated them. We drove through forested mountains, endless plains and fields, past huge lakes. When we finally arrived, the campus felt like the America I only knew from the movies, with buds coming out of the trees, students laughing, frisbees.

Finally, I was not in Brooklyn.

Coincidentally, in the same year in Seattle, which at the time was even more difficult for me to imagine, Starbucks was founded.

I adored the freedom and open spaces of college, even though I felt lonely and out of sorts at first. I made some close friends in my freshman year and shared a room with them for four years, on and off campus. Twice I invited my brother and he came to visit me. One day, on Mother's Day, I hitchhiked to New York to surprise my mother.

It turned out that I was not as good a player as I thought, and after a while I stopped playing. To continue my studies, I took out loans, worked part-time and in the summer. At night, I worked as a bartender, and sometimes even donated blood for money. However, these were for the most part merry years, irresponsible time. I had draft number 332 and didn't have to worry about being sent to Vietnam.

My specialty was communications, and I took a course in public speaking and interpersonal communication. AT last years I also took a few business courses in college as I began to worry about what I would do after graduation. I managed to finish with a B grade, only putting in the effort when I had to pass an exam or write a paper.

Four years later, I became the first college graduate in our family. For my parents, this diploma was the main prize. But I had no further plans. No one ever told me how valuable the knowledge gained was. Since then, I often joke: if someone would guide me and lead me, I would really achieve something.

Years passed before I found the passion of my life. Each step after this discovery was a big leap into the unknown, more and more risky. But getting out of Brooklyn and graduating gave me the courage to keep dreaming.

For years, I hid the fact that I grew up in Projects. I did not lie, I just did not mention this fact, since it was not best recommendation. But as much as I tried to deny it, the memory of the early experiences was indelibly imprinted on my mind. I could never forget what it was like to be on the other side, afraid to look into a crystal ball.

In December 1994, an article about Starbucks' success in New York Times mentions that I grew up in a poor neighborhood in Canarsie. After her appearance, I received letters from Bayview and other shanty towns. Most of them were written by mothers who brought up perseverance in children, they said that my story inspires hope.

The chances of getting out of the environment I grew up in and reaching where I am today are beyond measurable. So how did it happen?

At first, I was driven by the fear of failure, but as I coped with the next difficulty, fear was replaced by growing optimism. Once you overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, the remaining problems no longer scare you. Most people can achieve their dreams if they persevere. I would like everyone to have a dream that you lay a good foundation, soak up information like a sponge, and not be afraid to challenge conventional wisdom. Just because no one has done it before you doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

I can't offer you any secret, recipe for success, a perfect roadmap to the top in the business world. But my own experience suggests that starting from scratch and achieving even more than what you dreamed of is quite possible.

Recently in New York, I returned to Canarsie to take a look at our house for the first time in nearly twenty years. It looks good, except for a bullet hole in the front door and fire marks on the telephone board. When I lived there, our windows didn't have iron shutters, and we didn't have air conditioners either. I saw several children playing basketball, as I once did, and a young mother walking with a pram. The tiny boy looked at me and I thought: which of these kids will break through and make their dream come true?

I stopped at a high school in Canarsie where the football team was training. The warm autumn air, the blue uniform and the cries of the game brought down on me a stream of memories of past fun and inspiration. I asked where the coach was. From the very thick of the massive backs and shoulders emerged a small figure in a red hood. To my surprise, I came face to face with Mike Camardis, the guy who played on my team. He told me the history of the team up until today, how the school finally got its own football field. Coincidentally, they were planning a ceremony that Saturday to name the field after my old coach, Frank Morogello. For this occasion, I decided to make a commitment to support the team for five years. Where would I be now without the support of Coach Morogello? Perhaps my gift will allow some obsessed athlete like me once to jump above his head and achieve what others cannot even imagine.

I heard that coaches face an interesting dilemma. World-class athletes – the players with the best skills and experience on the team – sometimes stumble in a crisis. However, from time to time a player appears, a hard worker, whose data and training do not quite meet world standards. And at a difficult moment, the coach sends him to the field. He is so obsessed and so hungry for victory that he can outdo the best athletes when so much is at stake.

I can be compared to such a hard worker-athlete. I have always been obsessed and eager to win, so at a critical moment I feel an adrenaline rush. I run, chasing something no one else can see, long after the others have stopped to rest and recuperate.

Enough is not enough

The experience prepares you for the next. You just don't know what it will be.

After graduating from college in 1975, like many kids, I didn't know what to do next. I wasn't ready to go back to New York, so I stayed in Michigan, working at a ski resort. I had neither a mentor, nor an example, nor a teacher who would help me decide on the choice of the future path. So I paused to think, but the inspiration never came.

A year later, I returned to New York and got a job at Xerox in the personnel training department. Here I was lucky because I was able to attend the best sales school in the country, the $100 million Xerox Center in Leesburg, Virginia. I learned more about the world of work and business there than I did in college. I was trained in sales, marketing, and presentation skills and came out of there with a healthy self-esteem. Xerox was a prestigious, elite company, and I was treated with respect when I told them where I worked.

After graduation, I spent six months making fifty calls a day. I knocked on the doors of offices in midtown Manhattan, an area that stretched from 42nd Street to 48th Street, from the East River to Fifth Avenue. It was a fantastic area, but I wasn't allowed to make deals, I just lured in prospective clients.

Such visits were excellent training for business. They taught me to think on my feet. So many doors slammed in front of my nose that I had to build up a thick skin and come up with a concise speech about the product - the latest word in the then technology called "word processor". But this work attracted me very much, not allowing me to lose my sense of humor and adventurousness. I thrived on competition, trying to be the best, get noticed, get as many contacts as possible for my salespeople. I wanted to win.

And finally I succeeded: I became a full-fledged seller in the same territory. I was already getting good at wearing suits, closing deals and earning decent commissions for three years. I've sold a lot of cars and beat out a lot of my colleagues. As I fulfilled myself, so did my confidence. Selling, I have found, is very closely related to self-esteem. But I can't say I've ever had a passion for word processors.

I paid off my college loans and rented an apartment in Greenwich Village with a guy. We had fun and had a great time. One summer, we eight guys rented a cottage in the Hamptons for the weekend, and it was there, on the beach, at the July 4th, 1978 celebration, that I met Sheri Kersh.

Blonde energetic Sheri attracted me with her impeccable style and class. She studied interior design in graduate school and also spent summer weekends at the beach with friends. She was not only beautiful, but grounded, with strong Midwestern values, from a loving and caring family. We were both just starting our careers, carefree, never looking back. We started dating, and the more I got to know her, the more I realized what a subtle being she was.

By 1979, however, I was working tirelessly. I wanted something more difficult. A friend told me that the Swedish company Perstorp was planning to form an American division for their Hammarplast tableware factory. The opportunity to be present at the first steps of a growing company looked tempting. Perstorp accepted me and sent me to Sweden to study for three months. I lived in the charming cobblestone town of Perstorp, near Malmö, and explored Copenhagen and Stockholm on the weekends. Europe stunned me with its sense of history and joy of life.

Initially, I was assigned to another division that sold construction products. I was transferred to North Carolina and had to sell kitchen and furniture components. I hated my product. Who could love stamped plastic parts? After ten months of misfortune, I could not stand it. I was ready to drop everything and go to acting school, anywhere, just to get back to New York and to Sheri.

When I threatened to fire me, Perstorp not only transferred me back to New York, but appointed me vice president and director of Hammarplast. My responsibilities included operations in the US market and the management of twenty independent sales agents. I got a $75,000 salary, a car, a decent bank account, and unlimited travel, including to Sweden four times a year. I was finally selling a product I loved: a line of stylish, Swedish-designed kitchen equipment and utensils. Having been in the shoes of a salesperson, I knew how to motivate my sales team. Soon my item was present in best stores and sales have increased significantly.

I did this for three years and fell in love with my job. By the age of twenty-eight, I had achieved what I wanted. Sheri and I moved to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where we bought an apartment. Sheri's career took off, she worked as a designer and marketer for an Italian furniture company. She painted the walls of the apartment a light orange-pink color and with the help of her professional knowledge began to create coziness in our loft-style dwelling. We lived excellently, went to the theater, dined in restaurants, invited friends to parties. We even rented a summer cottage in the Hamptons.

My parents couldn't believe that I had gone so far so quickly. Just six years out of college I made successful career, received a high salary, had his own apartment. The life I led exceeded my parents' wildest expectations. Many would be happy with this.

Therefore, no one - especially my parents - could not understand why I could not sit still. But I felt that something was missing. I wanted to be the master of my own destiny. This can probably be considered a weakness: I am haunted by the thought of what to do next. Enough is never enough.

It wasn't until I opened Starbucks that I realized what it's like when what you do is truly breathtaking and imaginative.

Chapter 2

Every day, a hundred times a day, I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the work of other people, living and dead, and I must do everything in my power to give as much as I have received.

Albert Einstein

Just as I didn't create Starbucks, Starbucks wasn't the first to introduce espresso and roasted coffee beans to America. But we have become grateful heirs of this great tradition. Coffee and coffee houses have been a significant part of society for centuries, both in Europe and in America. They were associated with political upheavals, writers' movements and intellectual debates in Venice, Vienna, Paris and Berlin.

Starbucks resonates with people because it continues this tradition. The company draws strength from its own history and its links to a more distant past. That's why it's more than just a fast-growing enterprise or a 1990s fashion fad.

That's what makes it sustainable.

If it struck your imagination, it will strike someone else's too.

In 1981, while working at Hammarplast, I noticed a strange phenomenon: one small firm in Seattle made unusually large orders for certain types of coffee makers. It was a simple contraption, a conical plastic nozzle for a thermos.

I've done some research. Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spices was then a chain of four small coffee shops, and yet it bought this product in quantities that exceeded Macy's orders. Why is Seattle so obsessed with this coffee shop when the whole country brews its own coffee every day with coffee makers?

So one day I said to Sheri, “I’m going to go and have a look at this company. I want to know what's going on there."

In those days, I traveled a lot around the country, but I never went to Seattle. And who went there anyway?

I arrived in Seattle on a clear spring day, the air so clear it almost hurt my lungs to breathe. Cherry blossoms and heavenly apple trees bloomed. From the central streets of the city to the east, west, and south, snow-covered mountain peaks could be seen, clearly outlined against the blue sky.

Starbucks Retail Manager Linda Grossman met me at the hotel and walked me to their main office in the historic Pike Place Market district. Once there, we passed fresh salmon stalls where they called customers and tossed fish over their heads, past rows of freshly washed apples and neatly arranged cabbages, past a bakery that wafted the wonderful aroma of fresh bread. It was an exhibition and sale of the art of local gardeners and small independent traders. I fell in love with Market immediately and still love it. For manual labor, authenticity, a reminder of the Old World.

The Starbucks coffee shop was modest but full of character, with a narrow porch with a violinist playing Mozart and an open donation case beside it. The door opened, and the heady aroma of coffee wafted out and dragged me inside. Entering, I found myself in a kind of temple of coffee worship. Behind a worn wooden counter were baskets of coffee from all over the world: Sumatra, Kenya, Ethiopia, Costa Rica. Remember - there was a time when everyone thought that coffee was taken from a tin, not from beans. I was in a coffee shop that sold only whole bean coffee. Along another wall hung a long shelf filled with coffee-related items, including Hammarplast coffee makers in red, yellow and black.

After introducing me to the guy behind the counter, Linda explained why the customers liked the thermos and cone sets: “Part of the fun is the ritual itself.” Starbucks recommended hand-brewing coffee because electric coffee makers burn it.

While we were talking, the guy behind the counter scooped up some coffee beans from Sumatra, ground them, put the powder into a filter in a cone, and poured hot water. Although the procedure took only a few minutes, he did it almost reverently, masterfully.

As he handed me a china mug filled with freshly brewed coffee, its steam and aroma seemed to envelop my face. Adding sugar or milk was sacrilege. I took a small test sip.

Blimey! I threw back my head, my eyes opened wide. Even one sip could tell how much stronger this coffee was than any coffee I have ever tasted. Noticing my reaction, the Starbucks employees laughed, “Is that strong?” I grinned and shook my head. Then he swallowed again. I was now able to better taste the fullness of the taste as the coffee glided inwards over my tongue.

With the third sip, I was captivated.

I felt like I discovered a whole new continent. Compared to this, all the coffee I had drunk up until then seemed like slop. I was eager to learn. I began to ask questions about the company, about coffee from different regions of the world, about different ways of roasting coffee. Before we left the store, they ground more beans from Sumatra and handed me a bag as a gift.

Linda then drove me to the Starbucks coffee roasting plant to introduce me to the company's owners, Gerald Baldwin and Gordon Bowker. They worked in a narrow, old industrial building with a large metal door in the front, next to a meat-packing factory, not far from the airport.

When I entered, I immediately felt that wonderful aroma of roasting coffee, which seemed to fill the room from floor to ceiling. In the center was a silver metal contraption with a large flat tray in front. This, Linda explained, was the frying machine, and it struck me how that machine alone supplies four coffee shops. A worker in a red bandana waved happily at us. He pulled a metal ladle called a "probe" out of the car, inspected the beans, sniffed them, and put them back. He explained that he checked the color and listened until the coffee beans crunched twice to make sure they were roasted dark. Suddenly, with a whistle and a loud crunch, he opened the car door and pulled out a bunch of hot, shiny beans onto the cooling tray. The robotic arm began to stir, cooling the grains, and a whole new aroma was doused over us - the blackest, best coffee you've ever tasted. It was so intense it made my head spin.

We went upstairs and passed several tables until we reached offices in black, each with a tall, thick window. Although there was a tie under the sweater of Jerry Baldwin, the president, the atmosphere was informal. Jerry, a handsome dark-haired man, smiled and shook my hand. I immediately liked him, I found him modest and sincere, with a good sense of humor. Obviously, coffee was his passion. He was on a mission to bring people the joy of drinking world-class coffee, roasted and brewed just the way it should be.

“Here are the new grains, they were brought from Java,” he said. We just fried a portion. Let's try". He brewed the coffee himself, using a glass vessel he called a French press. As he gently pressed the piston against the coffee powder and carefully poured the first cup, I noticed that someone was standing at the door. He was a thin man with a beard, a mop of dark hair falling over his forehead, and dark brown eyes. Jerry introduced him as Gordon Bowker, his Starbucks partner, and offered to join us.

I was curious about how it happened that these two men decided to devote their lives to the coffee business. Starbucks had been founded ten years before, and they were now in their forties. They had an easy friendship that began in the early 1960s when they shared a room as students at the University of San Francisco. But in character they seemed very different. Jerry was reserved and formal, while Gordon behaved uninhibitedly and extravagantly. As I listened to them speak, I concluded that they were both extremely intelligent, well traveled, and had a strong passion for good coffee.

Jerry ran Starbucks, while Gordon divided his time between Starbucks, his own advertising and design firm, a weekly newspaper he founded, and a microbrewery he planned to open as The Redhook Ale Brewery. I had to ask what a microbrewery is. It was obvious that Gordon's eccentric and brilliant ideas were ahead of our time.

I fell in love. Before me was a completely new culture, where there was still much to comprehend and much to learn.

That day I called Sheri from the hotel. "I'm in paradise! - I said. “I know where I want to live: Seattle, Washington. I want you to come and see this city in the summer.”

This was my Mecca. My journey has ended.

How a Passion for Coffee Became a Business

That evening, Jerry invited me to dinner at a small Italian bistro located on a sloping, stone-paved alley near Pike Place Market. As we ate, he told the story of the early days of Starbucks and described the foundation upon which the company was built.

The founders of Starbucks had nothing in common with typical businessmen. As a philology graduate, Jerry taught English, Gordon was a writer, and their third partner, Zev Sigle, was a history teacher. Zev, who sold his stake in the company in 1980, is the son of an accompanist at the Seattle Symphony, and shared their interest in film production, book writing, broadcasting, classical music, great food, good wine, and great coffee.

None of them thought about building a business empire. They founded Starbucks for one reason only: they loved tea and coffee and wanted Seattle to have access to the best of them.

Gordon was originally from Seattle, and Jerry came there in search of adventure after graduating from university. He himself was from Bay Airea, and it was there, at Peet's Coffee and Tea in Berkeley, in 1966, that he discovered the romance of coffee. So he found the love of his life.

The spiritual father of Starbucks is Alfred Peet, a Dutchman who introduced America to roasted black coffee. Now a seventy-year old man, Alfred Peet is gray-haired, stubborn, independent and straightforward. He is intolerant of arrogance or pretentiousness, but is willing to spend long hours with anyone who has a genuine interest in the world's finest coffees and teas.

The son of a coffee merchant from Amsterdam, Alfred Piet has absorbed the exoticism of coffee from Indonesia, East Africa and the Caribbean coast since childhood. He remembers his father coming home with his pockets full of coffee bags. Mother cooked it in three vessels at the same time, three different kinds, and announced her opinion. When Alfred was a teenager, he worked as an apprentice for one of the city's largest coffee importers. Later, trading in tea, he sailed the distant seas to Java and Sumatra, honing his skills until he began to taste the finest shades of coffee varieties from different countries and regions.

When Pete moved to the United States in 1955, he was amazed. In this richest country in the world, the undisputed leader Western world drinking terrible coffee. Most of the coffee Americans consumed was Robusta, an inferior grade treated by merchants from London and Amsterdam as the cheapest commodity. A small amount of high-quality Arabica made its way to North America; most of it went to Europe, whose tastes were more refined.

Having founded his business in San Francisco in the 1950s, Alfred Peet began to import Arabica to the States. But the demand was small, since very few Americans had heard of it at least once in their lives. So in 1966 he opened a small shop, Peet's Coffee and Tea, on Vine Street in Berkeley, which he ran until 1979. He even brought his own coffee roaster from abroad because he believed that American companies do not know how to properly roast small portions of fine arabica beans.

What made Pete unique was that he roasted his coffee black, the European way; this, he believed, was necessary to make the taste of the grains as full as possible. He always checked each bag of beans and recommended the best roast for that particular batch.

At first, only Europeans and sophisticated Americans visited his shop. But gradually, one by one, Alfred Peet taught a few smart Americans the subtleties of coffee. Selling whole-grain coffee, he explained to customers how to grind and brew it at home. He treated coffee like wine, evaluating it by what country and plantation it was grown in, what year and crop. As a true connoisseur, he himself, according to his own recipes, mixed varieties. As any Napa Valley winemaker is sure that his technique is the best, so Pete remained an ardent preacher of the taste of black coffee - which, if we talk about wine, could be compared to Burgundy, whose pronounced taste is felt already from the first sip. .

Jerry and Gordon were among the first converts. They ordered Pete's coffee by mail order from Berkeley, but it wasn't enough. Gordon discovered another store, Murchie's, in Vancouver, Canada, which also sold good coffee, and regularly got into his car and drove north for three hours to get bags of Murchie's beans.

One fine August day in 1970, on the way back from such a coffee trip, enlightenment descended on Gordon. He later told the Seattle Weekly newspaper that he was “literally, like Saul of Tarski, blinded by a ray of sunlight reflecting off the surface of Lake Samish. At that very moment, it suddenly dawned on me: open a coffee shop in Seattle!” Jerry immediately liked the idea. Zev, Gordon's neighbor and tea lover, too. Each of them invested $1,350 and took out a bank loan for another $5,000.

The times for opening a store in Seattle were far from the best. From day one, Starbucks has been fighting for survival.

In 1971, the city was in the grip of a severe recession, which was called the "Boeing bust." Since 1969, Boeing, the most big company Seattle experienced such a drastic decline in bookings that it had to reduce its workforce from 100,000 to less than 38,000 in three years. Houses in beautiful neighborhoods like Capitol Hill were empty and abandoned. Lost their jobs and left the city so many people that on one of billboards near the airport, they jokingly wrote: "To the last person to leave Seattle: do not forget to turn off the lights."

This famous sign appeared in April 1971, the same month that Starbucks opened its first store. There was another danger at the time—an urban renewal project threatened to demolish Pike Place Market. The development team wanted to build a commercial center here with a hotel, conference room and car park. A referendum was held, and the people of Seattle voted to keep Pike Place the way it was.

In those days, Seattle was just beginning to shed its image of an exotic, isolated corner of America. Thousands of miles from home in the East, the Midwest, or California, only adventurers wandered here, sometimes on their way to the mines, mountains, and fish-rich lands of Alaska. The city has not yet acquired appearance and gloss inherent East coast. Many influential families were still associated with the logging and woodworking industries. Strongly influenced by Norwegian and Swedish immigrants who came there in the early 20th century, Seattle residents tended to be polite and unassuming.

In the early 1970s, some Americans, especially on the West Coast, began to turn away processed foods that were too often outdated and tasteless. Instead, they preferred to use in cooking fresh vegetables and fish, buy freshly baked bread and grind coffee beans with your own hands. They ditched the artificial for the real, the recycled for the natural, the mediocre for the high quality, and their sentiments resonated with the founders of Starbucks.

Market research, if they were to undertake it, would show that for occupation coffee business they chose not best time. After peaking at 3.1 cups a day in 1961, American coffee consumption began to slowly decline until the late 1980s.

But the founders of Starbucks did not study market trends. They were fulfilling a need—their own need—for quality coffee. In the 1960s, major coffee brands in America began to compete on price. To cut costs, they added cheaper grains to their blends, sacrificing flavor. In addition, they allowed cans of coffee to stagnate for a long time on supermarket shelves. Year after year, the quality of canned coffee deteriorated, although advertising campaigns publicly sang his great taste.

They fooled the American public, but they failed to fool Jerry, Gordon and Zev. The three friends were determined not to back down and open their own coffee shop, even if it appealed to a tiny number of subtle coffee connoisseurs. Until the mid-1980s, such institutions existed only in a few American cities.

Gordon consulted with his creative partner, artist Terry Heckler, about the name of the new store. Gordon pushed for the name Pequot, after the ship in Melville's Moby Dick. But Terry protested: “You're crazy! No one wants to drink a cup of pee-quod!”

The partners agreed that something special and connected with the northwest was needed. Terry looked up the names of the turn-of-the-century coal mines at Mount Rainier and settled on Starbo. Through brainstorming, the word evolved into Starbucks. True to his passion for literature, Jerry again connected him with Moby Dick: the name of the first officer on Pequot was, as it turned out, Starbuck. This name evoked romantic thoughts about distant seas and the traditions of the first coffee merchants.

Terry turned over a pile of old nautical books and based on an old wooden engraving of the 16th century, he came up with a logo: a mermaid with two tails, or a siren, surrounded by the full name of the store: Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spices. This first siren, Rubens' bare-breasted maiden, was to be as seductive as coffee itself.

Starbucks opened its doors in 1971 with little fanfare. The interior of the store was conceived in a classical nautical style like it's been there for years. All gear was made by hand. One long wall was lined with wooden shelves, another was given over to thirty whole-bean coffees. At that time, Starbucks did not brew or sell coffee by the cup, but sometimes they offered to try one or another variety and always served coffee in porcelain cups because it tastes so much better. In addition, it forced customers to linger and listen to more about coffee.

In the beginning, the only worker who was paid a salary was Zev. He wore a grocer's apron and scooped up grains for customers. The other two did not quit their jobs, but came at lunchtime or in the evening to help. Zev became an expert on retail and Jerry, who was an accountant in college, was doing bookkeeping and deepening his coffee knowledge. Gordon, in his words, was "a specialist in magic, mystery and romance." It was clear to him from the very beginning that a visit to Starbucks was supposed to be like a short trip to distant worlds.

Sales exceeded all expectations. Favorable note in Seattle Weekly attracted a staggering number of buyers the very next Saturday. The store grew in popularity thanks to word of mouth experiences.

In those early months, the founders of Starbucks traveled to Berkeley to learn coffee roasting from the master himself, Alfred Peet. They worked in his store and watched him interact with customers. He tirelessly stressed the importance of deepening their knowledge of tea and coffee.

In the beginning, Starbucks ordered coffee from Pete. But already in the first year, the partners bought a second-hand coffee roaster from Holland and installed it in a dilapidated building near the Fischerman terminal, assembling it by hand with a single instruction in German. In late 1972, they opened a second store near the University of Washington campus. Gradually, by sharing their knowledge of good coffee with their customers, they formed a loyal clientele. Seattle began to adopt the coffee sophistication of the Gulf Coast.

For the founders of Starbucks, quality was paramount. Jerry was able to endow the young company with a strong character and an uncompromising pursuit of excellence. He and Gordon obviously understood the intricacies of their market, because Starbucks remained profitable every year, despite the ups and downs of the economy. They were champions of coffee purity and never wanted to please the masses, only a handful of fine-tasting customers.

I've never heard anyone talk about a product the way Jerry talks about coffee before. He did not calculate how to increase sales, he provided people with what, in his opinion, they should enjoy. This approach to business and sales was as fresh and new to me as the Starbucks coffee we were drinking.

“Tell me about roasting,” I asked. "Why is it so important to roast them blackout?"

This kind of roasting, Jerry told me, has become a hallmark of Starbucks. Alfred Peet instilled in them the unshakable belief that dark roasting brings out the flavor and aroma of coffee in its entirety.

All the best varieties are called Arabica, Jerry explained, especially those grown high in the mountains. The cheap Robusta varieties used in supermarket blends cannot be black-roasted, which will simply burn them. But the finest varieties of Arabica are able to withstand the temperature, and the darker the beans are roasted, the brighter their taste.

Convenience companies prefer light roasting as it generates more revenue. The longer the coffee is roasted, the more weight it loses. The big manufacturers tremble over every half percent shrinkage. The lighter the grain, the more money they save. But Starbucks cares more about taste than profit.

From the very beginning, Starbucks has been committed to exclusively dark roasts. Jerry and Gordon adopted Alfred Peet's style of roast and developed a very similar variation they called the Full City Roast; now called the Starbucks Roast.

Jerry took a bottle of Guinness with him. Comparing a "full city roast" to a cup of standard supermarket canned coffee is like comparing Guinness beer to Budweiser beer. Most Americans drink light beer like Budweiser. But once you've tasted a dark, flavorful beer like Guinness, you can never go back to Budweiser.

Although Jerry didn't touch on marketing plans or sales strategies, I was beginning to realize that he had a business philosophy that I had never come across before.

Above all, every company must mean something. Starbucks meant not just good coffee, but directly the taste of roasted black coffee, which its founders had a passion for. That's what made Starbucks different and made it real.

Secondly, you need to not just give the client what he asks for. If you offer customers something they are not used to, something so much better that it takes time to develop a taste for it, you can give them a feeling of discovery, admiration and commitment that will bind them. It may take longer, but if your product is excellent, it's better to teach your customers to love it than to conform to the mass market.

End of introductory segment.

Dory Jones Young, Howard Schultz

How cup after cup built Starbucks

Translation I. Matveeva

Project Manager I. Gusinskaya

Corrector E. Chudinova

Computer layout A. Abramov

Art Director S. Timonov

Cover artist R. Fedorin

How Starbucks was built cup by cup / Howard Schultz, Dori Jones Young; Per. from English. – M.: Alpina Publisher, 2012.

ISBN 978-5-9614-2691-5

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic copy of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Show more care than others think is reasonable.

Take more risks than others think is safe.

Dream more than others think is practical.

Expect more than others think is possible.

On a cold January morning in 1961, my father broke his ankle at work.

I was seven years old at the time, and a snowball fight in the backyard of the school was in full swing when my mother leaned out of the window of our apartment on the seventh floor and waved at me. I ran home.

“Father was in trouble,” she said. - I'm going to the hospital.

My father, Fred Schultz, lay at home with his leg up in the air for over a month. I had never seen plaster before, so at first it was something outlandish for me. But the charm of novelty quickly disappeared. Like many of his other brethren social position, father was not paid when he was not working.

Before the accident, he worked as a truck driver, collecting and delivering diapers. For many months he complained bitterly about their smell and dirt, arguing that this work is the worst in the world. But now that he had lost her, he seemed to want to return. My mother was seven months pregnant, so she couldn't work. The family had no income, no insurance, no union compensation - there was nothing to count on.

My sister and I ate silently at the dinner table, while my parents argued about who and how much money they would have to borrow. Sometimes in the evenings the phone would ring, and my mother would insist that I pick up the phone. If they called about debts, I had to say that my parents were not at home.

My brother Michael was born in March, they had to borrow again to pay for hospital expenses.

Although many years have passed since then, the image of my father - face down on the couch, with his leg in a cast, unable to work - has not been erased in the least from my memory. Looking back now, I have a deep respect for my father. He did not finish high school, but he was an honest man and was not afraid of work. At times he had to work two or three jobs just to have something to put on the table in the evening. He took good care of his children and even played baseball with us on the weekends. He adored the Yankees.

But he was a broken man. He changed from one blue-collar job to another: a truck driver, a factory worker, a taxi driver, but he could not earn more than $ 20,000 a year and could never afford to buy his own house. I spent my childhood in Projects, government subsidized homes in Canarsie, Brooklyn. As a teenager, I realized what a shame it was.

As I got older, I often got into fights with my father. I was intolerant of his failures, his lack of responsibility. It seemed to me that he could achieve much more if he only tried.

After his death, I realized that I had been unfair to him. He tried to become part of the system, but the system crushed him. With low self-esteem, he was unable to get out of the hole and somehow improve his life.

The day he died (from lung cancer), in January 1988, was the saddest day of my life. He had no savings, no pension. Moreover, being sure of the importance of work, he never once felt satisfaction and pride from the work he did.

As a child, I had no idea that someday I would become the head of the company. But deep down I knew that I would never leave a person “overboard” if it depended on me.

My parents couldn't figure out what exactly attracted me to Starbucks. In 1982, I quit a well-paying, prestigious job for what was then a small chain of five coffee shops in Seattle. But I saw Starbucks not as it was, but as it could have been. She instantly captivated me with her combination of passion and authenticity. Gradually, I realized that if it grows throughout the country, romanticizing italian art making espresso and offering freshly roasted coffee beans, it can redefine a product that has been around for centuries and appeal to millions as much as I did.

I became CEO of Starbucks in 1987 because I acted as an entrepreneur and convinced investors to believe in my vision for the company. Over the next ten years, assembling a team of smart and experienced managers, we transformed Starbucks from a local business with six stores and less than 100 employees to a national business with 1,300 stores and 25,000 employees. Today we can be found in cities throughout North America, in Tokyo and Singapore. Starbucks has become a recognizable and recognized brand everywhere, which allows us to experiment with innovative products. Profits and sales grew by more than 50% per year for six consecutive years.

But Starbucks is not just a story of growth and success. This is a story about how a company can be built differently. About a company completely different from the ones my father worked for. This is living proof that a company can live with its heart and cherish its spirit—and make money at the same time. This shows that the company is able to provide stable income to shareholders for a long time without sacrificing its core principle - to treat employees with respect and dignity, because we have a team of leaders who believe that this is the right thing and because this is the best way to do business. .

Starbucks hits an emotional chord in people's souls. People make a detour to drink morning coffee in our cafe. We have become such a symbol of modern American life that the familiar green siren logo appears frequently in TV shows and feature films. In the 1990s, we brought new words to the American lexicon and new rituals to society. In some neighborhoods, Starbucks cafes have become a "third place" - a cozy corner for gatherings and socializing away from home and work, as if an extension of the porch leading to the front door.

Current page: 1 (total book has 24 pages) [available reading excerpt: 5 pages]

HOW STARBUCKS WERE BUILDING CUP BY CUP

Howard Schultz

Dori Jones Young

Howard Schultz CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND CEO STARBUCKS COFFEE COMPANY and Dori Jones Yeung

STOCKHOLM SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS IN SAINT PETERSBURG Stockholm School of Economics in Saint Petersburg

Dream of a dream

This book is the story of a passionate man. One of those who begin to love before finding the object of desire, because for them the meaning of life is to be in love. A person who neglected what is considered to be good - money, status, stability, position in society, for the sake of the opportunity to dream and passionately love life.

Howard Schultz was looking for something that could strike the imagination, deprive him of sleep and make him dream. He found coffee.

And many people reciprocated, because there is so little communication, warmth, understanding. People are very lonely in this huge world rushing somewhere, they just want to sit down and take a sip of fragrant coffee, exchange a bunch of phrases, catch someone's eye and ... dream.

Understanding this simple human desire has given the world another legend that unites millions of people.

Anna Matveeva, founder and director of the Ideal Cup coffee chain

Prologue

On a cold January morning in 1961, my father broke his ankle at work.

“Father was in trouble,” she said. - I'm going to the hospital.

My father, Fred Schultz, lay at home with his leg up in the air for over a month. I had never seen plaster before, so at first it was something outlandish for me. But the charm of novelty quickly disappeared. Like many of his fellow social class, my father was not paid when he was not working.

My brother Michael was born in March, they had to borrow again to pay for hospital expenses.

father. He did not finish high school, but he was an honest man and was not afraid of work. At times he had to work two or three jobs just to have something to put on the table in the evening. He took good care of his children and even played baseball with us on the weekends. He adored the Yankees.

As I got older, I often got into fights with my father. I was intolerant of his failures, his lack of responsibility. It seemed to me that he could achieve much more if he only tried.

As a child, I had no idea that someday I would become the head of the company. But deep down I knew that I would never leave a person “overboard” if it depended on me.

My parents couldn't figure out what exactly attracted me to Starbucks. In 1982, I quit a well-paying, prestigious job for what was then a small chain of five stores in Seattle. But I saw Starbucks not as it was, but as it could have been. She instantly captivated me with her combination of passion and authenticity. Gradually, I realized that if it spread across the country, romanticizing the Italian art of espresso and offering freshly roasted coffee beans, it could change the idea of a product that has been familiar to people for many centuries, and appeal to millions as much as I loved it.

I became CEO2 of Starbucks in 1987 because I acted as an entrepreneur and convinced investors to believe in my vision for the company. Over the next ten years, assembling a team of smart and experienced managers, we transformed Starbucks from a local company with six stores and less than 100 employees to a national business with 1,300 stores and 25,000 employees. Today we can be found in cities throughout North America, in Tokyo and Singapore. Starbucks has become a recognizable and recognized brand everywhere, which allows us to experiment with innovative products. Profits and sales grew by more than 50% per year for six consecutive years.

But Starbucks is not just a story of growth and success. This is a story about how a company can be built differently. About a company completely different from the ones my father worked for. This is living proof that a company can live with its heart and cherish its spirit—and make money at the same time. This shows that the company is able to provide stable income to shareholders for a long time, without sacrificing its core principle - to treat employees with respect and dignity, because we have a team of leaders who believe that this is the right thing, and because this is the best way to business.

Starbucks hits an emotional chord in people's souls. People make a detour to drink morning coffee in our cafe. We have become such a symbol of modern American life that the familiar green siren logo appears frequently in TV shows and feature films. In the 1990s, we brought new words to the American lexicon and new rituals to society. In some areas, Starbucks cafes have become the Third Place, a cozy place for gatherings and socializing away from home and work, as if an extension of the porch leading to the front door.

People meet at Starbucks because the meaning of our activities is close to them. It's more than great coffee. This is the romance of the coffee experience, the sense of warmth and community that people experience at Starbucks. Our baristas set the tone: while the espresso is being brewed, they talk about the origin different types coffee. Some come to Starbucks with no more experience than my father, and yet they are the ones who create the magic.

If there's one achievement at Starbucks that I'm most proud of, it's probably the relationship of trust and confidence between the people who work for the company. This is not an empty phrase. We've made sure of this with convergence programs such as the health care program, even for part-time employees, and stock options, which give everyone the opportunity to become a part owner of the company. We treat the warehouse workers and the most junior sales assistants and waiters with the respect that most companies show only to the top management.

These policies and attitudes are contrary to common business tradition. A company focused only on the benefit of shareholders, considers its employees " consumable", costs. Executives who actively cut positions are often rewarded with a temporary increase in the price of their shares. However, in the long term, they not only undermine morale, but also sacrifice innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and sincere dedication of the very people who could lift the company to great heights.

Many business people don't realize that this is not a zero-sum game. A positive attitude towards employees should not be considered an additional cost that reduces profits, but a powerful source of energy that can help the enterprise grow to a scale that its leader could not even dream of. Starbucks people are less likely to leave, they are proud of their place of work. Our cafés have more than two times the industry average turnover rate, which not only saves money, but also strengthens customer relationships.

But the benefits go even deeper. If people are attached to the company they work for, if they have an emotional thread with it and share its dreams, they will give their heart to make it better. When employees have self-worth and self-respect, they can do more for their company, family, and the world.

With no intention on my part, Starbucks became the embodiment of my father's memory.

Since not everyone is able to take fate into their own hands, those in power are responsible to those whose daily work the enterprise lives on, bosses must not only steer in the right direction, but also be sure that no one is left behind.

I didn't plan to write a book, at least not at such an early age. I firmly believe that the greatest part of Starbucks' achievements is still ahead, not in the past. If Starbucks were a 20-chapter book, we'd only be in the third.

But for several reasons, I decided now is the time to tell the Starbucks story.

First, I want to inspire people to follow their dreams. I am from a simple family, without a pedigree, without income, I did not have nannies in early childhood. But I dared to dream and then wished to make my dreams come true. I am convinced that most people are able to achieve their dreams and even go further if they are determined not to give up.

Second, and more importantly, I hope to inspire leaders to higher goals. Success is nothing if you come to the finish line alone. The best reward is to come to the finish line surrounded by winners. The more winners that come to you—whether employees, customers, stockholders, or readers—the more satisfaction you'll get from winning.

I am not writing this book to make money. All proceeds from its sale will go to the newly founded Starbucks Foundation, which will donate it to charitable events on behalf of Starbucks and its partners.

This is the history of Starbucks, but it's not a business book. Its purpose is not a story about my life and not advice on how to fix a broken company, and not a corporate story. It has no guidelines, no action plans, no theoretical model to analyze why some businesses succeed and others fail.

On the contrary, this is a story about a team of people who built successful company based on values and guiding principles rarely seen in corporate America. It tells how we learned some important business and life lessons. They, I hope, will help those who are building their own business or realizing the dream of their life.

My ultimate goal in writing Pour Your Heart Into It was to give people the courage to persevere by following their heart, even when they are being laughed at. Don't let the pessimists break you. Don't be afraid to try, even if the odds are slim. What were the chances for me, the boys from the poor quarter?

It is possible to build a great company without losing passion and individuality, but this is only possible when

everything is aimed not at profit, but at people and values.

The key word is heart. I pour my heart into every cup of coffee, and so do my Starbucks partners. When visitors feel this, they respond in kind.

If you put your heart into the work you do, or any worthwhile endeavor, you can make dreams come true that others would find impossible. That's what makes life worth living.

The Jews have a tradition called yahrzeit. On the eve of the anniversary of the death of a loved one, close relatives light a candle and leave it burning for 24 hours. I light this candle every year in memory of my father.

I just don't want this light to go out.

Part 1. Rediscovering coffee. company until 1987.

CHAPTER 1 Imagination, Dreams, and Humble Origins

Only the heart can see correctly. The important is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The little Prince

Starbucks, as it is now, is really the child of two parents.

One is the original Starbucks, founded in 1971, passionately dedicated to world-class coffee and dedicated to making great coffee known to customers.

The second is the vision and values that I brought to it: a combination of competitive courage and a strong desire to help each member of the organization come to a common victory. I wanted to mix coffee with romance, to try to achieve what others think is impossible, to overcome difficulties with new ideas, and to do it all elegantly and with style.

In truth, to become what it is today, Starbucks needed the influence of both parents.

Starbucks flourished for ten years before I discovered it. I learned about the history of the early years of her life from the founders, and I will retell this story in the second chapter. In this book, it will be told in the order in which I learned it from my early years, since many of the values that have shaped the company's development were formed in that crowded apartment in Brooklyn, New York.

A humble background can serve as an incentive and instill compassion

I noticed one feature in the romantics: they are trying to create a new, better world away from the dullness of everyday life. Starbucks has the same goal. We are trying to create an oasis in our coffee shops, a small place in your neighborhood where you can take a break, listen to jazz and reflect on world and personal problems or think of something eccentric over a cup of coffee.

What kind of person do you have to be to dream of such a place?

From personal experience, I would say that the more unassuming your background, the more likely you are to often develop your imagination, drifting into worlds where everything seems possible.

In my case, this is exactly the case.

I was three years old when, in 1956, my family moved from my grandmother's apartment to Beiwuo. The quarter was in the center of Canarsie, on Jamaica Bay, fifteen minutes from the airport and fifteen minutes from Coney Island. At that time, it was not a place of horror, but a friendly, vast and green area with a dozen brand new eight-story brick houses. The elementary school, P.S. 272, was right on the block, with a playground, basketball courts, and a paved schoolyard. And yet it never occurred to anyone to be proud of life in this quarter; our parents were what is now called the "working poor."

And yet I had many happy moments as a child. Living in a poor neighborhood formed a well-balanced value system, as it forced me to get along with a variety of people. About 150 families lived in our house alone, and they all had one tiny elevator. All apartments were very small, and the one where our family started was also cramped, with only two bedrooms.

I was an avid Yankees fan and my dad and brother and I went to a lot of games. We never had good seats, but that didn't matter. We were breathtaking from the very presence. Mickey Mantle was my idol. I wore his number, 7, on every jersey, sneaker, everything I owned. When I played baseball, I imitated Mickey's postures and gestures.

When Mick left the sport, it was impossible to believe that everything was over. How could he stop playing? My father took me to both Mickey Mantle Days at Yankee Stadium, September 18, 1968, and June 8, 1969. Watching him pay respects and say goodbye to him, listening to his speech, I plunged into deep anguish. Baseball is not what it used to be for me. Mickey was such an integral part of our lives that many years later, when he died, I received calls and words of condolence from old school friends from whom there was no news for decades.

Once I asked a girl from another part of New York on a date. I remember how her father's expression gradually changed as he spoke to me:

Where do you live?

We live in Brooklyn,” I replied.

Bayview quarter.

There was an unspoken opinion about me in his reaction, and I was annoyed to catch it.

As the oldest of three children, I had to grow up quickly. I started making money pretty early. At twelve I was selling newspapers, later I worked behind the counter in a local cafe. At sixteen, after graduating from high school, I got a job in Manhattan's commercial district, in a fur store, where I had to stretch animal skins. The work was gruesome and left thick calluses on the thumbs. One hot summer, I worked hard for pennies in a knitting factory, steaming yarn. I always gave part of my earnings to my mother - not because she insisted, but because the situation of my parents made me bitter.

And yet, in the 1950s and early 1960s, everyone was living the American Dream, and we were all counting on a piece of it. Mother hammered it into our heads. She herself never graduated from high school, and her greatest dream was higher education for all three of her children. Wise and pragmatic in her rough and stubborn way, she instilled in me tremendous self-confidence. Again and again, she gave brilliant examples, pointing out people who have achieved something in life, and insisting that I, too, can achieve anything I want. She taught me to challenge myself, to create uncomfortable situations in order to overcome difficulties later. I don’t know where she got this knowledge from, since she herself did not live by these rules. But for us, she craved success.

As a child, I never dreamed of owning my own business. The only entrepreneur I knew was my uncle, Bill Farber. He had a small paper mill in the Bronx, for which he later hired his father as a foreman. I didn't know what I would end up doing, but I knew for sure that I had to avoid the struggle for survival that my parents fought every day. I had to get out of the poor neighborhood, out of Brooklyn. I remember lying at night and thinking: what if I had a crystal ball and could see the future? But I quickly pushed this thought away from me, because it was too scary to think about it.

Eventually, Northern Michigan University offered me a football scholarship, which was all they offered me. I can't imagine how I could have realized my mother's college dream without her.

During the last school spring break, my parents took me to this incredible place. We drove almost a thousand miles to Marquette, on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We had never left New York before, and this adventure captivated them. We drove through forested mountains, endless plains and fields, past huge lakes. When we finally arrived, the campus seemed like the America I only knew from the movies, with buds in the trees, laughing students, flying discs.

Finally, I was not in Brooklyn.

Coincidentally, in the same year in Seattle, which at the time was even more difficult for me to imagine, Starbucks was founded.

I adored the freedom and open spaces of college, even though I felt lonely and out of sorts at first. I made some close friends in my freshman year and shared a room with them for four years, on and off campus. Twice I sent for my brother and he came to visit me. One day, on Mother's Day, I hitchhiked to New York to surprise her.

It turned out that I was not as good a player as I thought, and after a while I stopped playing. To continue my studies, I took out loans, worked part-time and in the summer. At night, I worked as a bartender, and sometimes even donated blood for money. However, these were mostly fun years, irresponsible times. With draft number 3325, I didn't have to worry about being sent to Vietnam.

I majored in communications and took a course in public speaking and interpersonal communication. In my later years of college, I also took a few business courses as I began to worry about what I would do after graduation. I managed to finish with a B-6 average, only putting in the effort when I had to pass an exam or write a paper.

For years, I hid the fact that I grew up in Projects. I didn't lie, I just didn't mention this fact because it wasn't the best recommendation. But as much as I tried to deny it, the memory of the early experiences was indelibly imprinted on my mind. I could never forget what it's like

it is to be on the other side, afraid to look into the crystal ball.

In December 1994, an article about the success of Starbucks in the New York Times mentions that I grew up in a poor neighborhood in Canarsie. After her appearance, I received letters from Bayview and other shanty towns. Most of them were written by mothers who brought up perseverance in children, they said that my story inspires hope.

The chances of getting out of the environment I grew up in and reaching where I am today are beyond measurable. So how did it happen?

I can't offer you any secret, recipe for success, a perfect roadmap to the top in the business world. But my own experience tells me that starting from scratch and achieving even more than what you dreamed of is quite possible.

Recently in New York, I returned to Canarsie to see Bayview for the first time in almost twenty years. It looks good, except for a bullet hole in the front door and fire marks on the telephone board. When I lived there, our windows didn't have iron shutters, and we didn't have air conditioners either. I saw several children playing basketball, as I once did, and a young mother walking with a pram. The tiny boy looked at me and I thought: which of these kids will break through and make their dream come true?

I stopped at a high school in Canarsie where the football team was training. The warm autumn air, the blue uniform and the cries of the game brought down on me a stream of memories of past fun and inspiration. I asked where the coach was. From the very thick of the massive backs and shoulders emerged a small figure in a red hood. To my surprise, I came face to face with Mike Camardis, the guy who played on my team. He told me the history of the team up until today, how the school finally got its own football field. Coincidentally, they were planning a ceremony that Saturday to name the field after my old coach, Frank Morogello. For this occasion, I decided to make a five-year commitment to support the team. Where would I be now without the support of Coach Morogello? Perhaps my gift will allow some obsessed athlete like me once to jump above his head and achieve what others cannot even imagine.

Cup by Cup tells the story of how Howard Schultz created the Starbucks empire, the world's most popular coffee chain. By the age of 30, Howard had a steady income and a job at a prestigious company. He dropped it all without hesitation when he fell in love with Italian coffee and wanted to dedicate his life to it. Mind you, Starbucks was then not a huge empire, but a small chain of five coffee shops in the city of Seattle - but this did not stop Schultz. “This is crazy, we need to urgently look for a normal job!” they told him. But he did his own thing - and he won. About what it cost him to create a coffee empire, he honestly and without embellishment tells in this book. And we found 8 reasons why you should read it immediately.

1. Autobiographical. The book begins with a description of the difficult everyday life of little Howard. The guy grew up almost in a ghetto - a poor area, in a simple family. The ultimate dream of his parents was the desire to give the heir a higher education. What can I say, the initial data of the future billionaire were sad, and he himself admitted that he "started as a loser." At the same time, he is not shy about his “source codes” - on the contrary, as it seemed to me, he is proud of the fact that he made himself. This will be close to many readers who, like the author, were not born with a golden spoon in their mouth, but achieved everything with their own labor.

2. Honesty. Success stories famous people are the handbooks of many entrepreneurs. But not in every book the reader will find the answer to specific questions, what to do in a given situation. Some biographies are too slick - from the first page it is clear that the main character is a good boy, and good boys have everything in their lives perfectly. Howard Schultz honestly talks about his ups and downs, describes in detail how he built a company, fought against ill-wishers, survived in crises. Reveals the “secrets of production”: never take loans, increase the number of outlets without a franchise, encourage employees and others. Perhaps that is why Cup after Cup is highly regarded among lovers of business literature - many critics rank only the autobiography of Henry Ford above it. 3. The book motivates and inspires. According to Howard Schultz, every entrepreneur dreams of coming up with a cool idea, finding investors and building a profitable and sustainable business. This is nothing less than the great American dream, which Schultz managed to realize by 200 percent. Sometimes it seems that he himself did not expect that the plan for implementation would be so overfulfilled - the Stakhanovists never dreamed of! To date, Starbucks Corporation has over 24,000 outlets around the world, the geography of coffee houses continues to expand. Net profit according to the results of the first half of the 2016-2017 financial year (from October 1 to March 27) amounted to 1.404 billion dollars. Isn't that inspiring? 4. Literary value. “Cup after Cup” is written in an excellent style and reads like a good novel with a logical plot, living characters - relatives, friends, partners and enemies of Schulz, a climax and a denouement. Many lines can be disassembled into quotes. For example, these words are worthy of being printed and hung in the workplace as an incentive for development:

“Be more caring than others think is reasonable. Take more risks than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible.”

The book does not let go of itself, forcing to read and savor every word. No special terminology, everything is simple and clear - the volume can be mastered in a few days. 5. Description of corporate culture and values that must be observed at all times, without exception, and this is the key to the long-term prosperity of the company. Here are the Starbucks values I found most important: 1. Treating people with respect and dignity is commonplace, but kindness and humanity never go out of style. 2. Consider the wishes of customers. At the very beginning of his journey, Schultz saw his offspring in a completely different way: Italian opera sounds in a coffee shop, baristas flaunt in white shirts and bow ties. However, Italian chic did not take root in America, and Schultz had to adapt to the requirements of clients. 3. Be decent, do not deviate from the principles. When serious uncles wanted to wring out his still young company from Schultz, he promised himself that he would never do the same. I want to believe that he kept his promise. 4. Believe in success. Together we will do great things - they say Starbucks employees, and they actually do! Truly corporate spirit is a great thing.

Howard Schultz, founder of the Starbucks empire

6. The book breaks stereotypes. “We often come under so much pressure from friends, family, colleagues to take the easy way, to follow conventional wisdom, that it's hard sometimes not to give in, not to accept the status quo and not do what others expect., — writes the author. Familiar, right? Especially for those of us who live in the regions, this is the eternal “what will people say?” in practice it is very difficult to get rid of. Cup by Cup teaches us not to give in, not to look back at others, but simply to do our best to make our dream a reality. The most interesting thing is that then the same people will say: “Oh, dude, this is cool!”. But you probably don't care about their opinion.

7. Delicious description of coffee. Have you heard that people are divided into "dummies" and "coffee pots"? So, if you are a "coffee drinker" - we promise, you will simply die from multiple literary orgasms! The process of preparing and drinking coffee is described so tasty, so sweet, so juicy that you want to immediately drop everything and run after the Turk. The author of this review swears that he never drank as much coffee in his life as while reading this book - and even if not at Starbucks, but in his own kitchen. Well, if you prefer tea, you will probably wonder: is there something in it, in this coffee, since the whole world has been crazy about it for many centuries? 8. Recommendation of Alexey Molchanov. The founder of Envybox by CallbackKILLER, Alexey Molchanov, is also delighted with this story: “I downloaded this book on my phone late in the evening, around 22.30, and could not tear myself away until 5 in the morning. I read almost everything in a night - this cool living story sucked me in so much. I read and drew parallels with myself: how I moved, developed, fell, solved problems. Biographies are my favorite genre. You can always get ideas, analyze the models of actions of this or that person. From the book “Cup by Cup”, for example, I took out the main idea: we need to partner and partner again, pull up strong people and unite with them.” Have you read the book “How Cup by Cup Starbucks was Built”? Tell us about your impressions! If you have your own reasons for reading this or other books, please share with us!