How One Simple Resolution Turned Starbucks into STARBUCKS

Here’s wishing you and your business a Happy New Year!

While New Years’s resolutions are made and broken - as we all know - sometime they are not. This tale that shows just how powerful one simple resolution can actually be.

Think big my friends!

Howard Schultz was just a working stiff at the time, a salesperson hustling for a housewares company.

But when he called on the original Starbucks store at Pike Place Market in Seattle, trying to sell them a coffee machine, it was magic; something stirred inside him.

Something that would change his world.

He would soon make a resolution that would change our world too.

Shultz was smitten with the company’s passion for high-quality coffee and its meticulous approach to sourcing and roasting; it was unlike anything he’d seen.

So much so that he quit his job and convinced the owners of the small coffee chain (7 stores) to hire him as the Starbucks Director Marketing.

The Milan epiphany and resolution

It was on a coffee buying trip to Milan the next year, in 1983, that everything changed.

In Milan, Schultz found himself captivated by Italy’s espresso bar culture.

It wasn’t just about the coffee; it was about the experience.

Customers lingered over their drinks, chatting with baristas and connecting with one another. Cafés were lively hubs of community and conversation—a stark contrast to the coffee landscape in America, where coffee was a boring, quick, utilitarian affair.

So impressed and amazed as he was at the possibilities, Schultz made a resolution right there in Milan: to transform Starbucks into that kind of place - one that offered more than just coffee, but an experience.

He resolved that it would become a “third place” between home and work—a warm, welcoming space for connection and comfort.

The power of one idea, one resolution

When Schultz returned to Seattle, he pitched his new grand vision to Starbucks’s founders.

Crickets.

The then-owners were not convinced. Starbucks, they said, was a coffee bean and equipment retailer, not a café.

Frustrated but undeterred, Schultz left the company and started his own espresso bar chain.

While his new venture was a middling success, Schultz seized the opportunity to buy Starbucks when he convinced the owners to sell to him a few years later.

Armed with his Milanese inspiration and resolution, he finally began building Starbucks into the “third place.”

A reslution, committed to, can be that powerful.

A behemoth is born

Under Schultz’s leadership, Starbucks created, not just a new way to buy and drink coffee, but a cultural phenomenon. From a handful of stores into what we now know, thousands worldwide.

Indeed, the company became became a lifestyle.

But as the years went on, for a variety of reasons, its focus shifted. Starbucks began to prioritize efficiency and scale. The “coffee house” feel of the stores became more and more sterile and corporate.

And then Covid hit.

Sitting in a cafe was out, drive though windows were in.

The coffee drinks, always pricy, became even more expensive and the chain lost the warmth and community that once set it apart.

The return to the original vision

Fast forward to today: Sales slumped, people became more cost conscious, and the Starbucks’s star began to dim.

A new CEO was brought in, Brian Niccol. Niccol has announced a plan to renew the coffee chain. And the cornerstone?

Yep, you guessed it, a renewed commitment to the “third place” vision.

In a letter to shareholders he said his commitment will be, reestablishing Starbucks as the community coffeehouse: Our stores will be inviting places to linger, with comfortable seating and thoughtful design…”

The Takeaway

Think about it. One resolution, sparked by a trip to Milan, changed not just Howard Schultz’s life but also the way millions of people experience coffee.

And having the courage to pursue that vision - one that others might not immediately understand - can make all the difference.

Sometimes that’s what being an entrepreneur is all about.

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📖 Book - Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time - Howard Schultz’s memoir details his journey and the principles that built Starbucks.

🌐 Website: 10 traits of a visionary entrepreneur.

🎥 Video - Howard Schultz’s informal sit down chat about the vision in his own words -A compelling discussion on leadership and building a purpose-driven company.

🛠️ Tool - Notion - A platform to organize your visionary ideas and actionable plans.

About Steve

Steve Strauss is the best-selling author of The Small Business Bible (and 17 other books), Inc.’s small business columnist, a lawyer (non-practicing), and an entrepreneur. He sold his last venture, TheSelfEmployed.com to Mark Cuban & Zen Business. If you want your own engaging newsletter like this one, contact Steve.