Pour Your Heart Into It - A Review

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks Coffee, has written a wonderful book about the beginnings of this gigantic franchise. It's called Pour Your Heart Into It.Looking for a book to inspire and motivate you? This one will do the job.

Howard Schultz tells his story beginning with his childhood in the Projects in Brooklyn, New York as the son of a truck driver. He didn’t become involved in the coffee business until joining the founders of Starbucks; Linda, Jerry, Gordon and Zev when they were a small four-store operation in the early 1980’s.

Schultz credits Starbuck’s initial investors as willing to invest in a new venture that, though risky, was full of passion for their craft, honesty, sincerity and integrity. It took four years for initial investments to realize a profit.

In July of 1993, Starbuck franchises had grown to the point that they joined forces with Pepsi-Cola and by 1995, they successfully marketed the HUGE cold-coffee hit, Frappuccino. In the Starbucks stores, this drink is made in a blender with coffee, milk and crushed ice. Even today, according to Schultz, the team of Pepsi and Starbuck’s can’t make their bottled Frappuccino fast enough to keep in on supermarket shelves!

Schultz sites the ups and downs Starbuck’s has endured, highlighting the dramatic coffee price fallout of 1994. But, through it all, the highs and the lows, Starbucks’s has remained a business based on honesty and integrity. Schultz believes that this comes from picking the right partners, training staff well and monitoring close, tight product standards.

If you pick up a copy of Pour Your Heart Into It, all the proceeds will be donated to the Starbucks Foundation literacy programs. Just one more example of how this company has their heart in the right place.

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