Born in the housing sector of Brooklyn, New York, Howard Schultz never dreamt of becoming the founder of one of the largest coffee chains in the world. Growing up, Schultz lived a life where people were used to being poor, with lack of money being a constant nagging issue! With three kids, the parents worked two jobs each to make ends meet, scraping their savings on a daily basis. This would have been Schultz’s life on a daily basis, if his father had not broken his foot. The day that happened was the day the family realized their income was reduced by half. With no savings in hand, Howard and his parents experienced poverty like never before.
The day he watched his father lie on the couch, with a cast and defeated completely, was the day Howard made the decision to change his life. At the age of 7, a young Schultz made the choice of taking his life into his hands. At school, he worked and played hard, a decision which helped him earn an athletic scholarship to Northern Michigan University. After graduation, his first job was working in the sales training program at Xerox, where he learned how to cold call ad pitch word processors. A few years down the line, he took a job at a housewares business owned by a Swedish company called Perstop! With the previous experience he had, Schultz grew quickly and became the Vice President of the company in a few months! Despite reaching success early in life, something seemed to be missing for Schultz.
A couple of months after being the Vice President, he realized the one thing lacking for him in this job was passion. Schultz first came across a Starbucks when he was walking around, looking for his dreams to come true. Back when Schultz came across the very first coffee shop, the franchise had only four stores in operation. When he met the then owners of Starbucks, Howard realized there was a lot of potential in these coffee shops. However, joining Starbucks meant moving across the country with a pay cut and for Howard that was a huge move to make. Schultz’s future and Starbuck’s future changed when the management sent him to Milan for an international housewares event.
When he saw the way espressos were served in Italy, Schutz realized the way the future of Starbucks could change was by serving coffee the Italian way! Balwin and Bowker, however, did not appreciate Schultz’s idea and said no to the proposal. Soon after, in the year 1985, Schultz opened his own coffee chain, II Giornale (Italian for daily.) Two years later, Schultz’s coffee chain did so well, they had enough money to take over Starbucks! In 1987, II Giornale went and did the impossible by buying over Starbucks. Schultz became the Chief Operating Officer and the rest, as they say, is history! With a valuation of over $ 80 million and 25,000 stores across 65 countries, Starbucks has definitely changed the way people drink coffee!
