Here’s the story of Howard Schultz, an American #entrepreneur, and the chairman, president, and CEO of Starbucks Coffee Company, which is well-known as one of the largest coffee store chains of the world. The story of his “American Dream” coming true is widespread, but Howard’s breakthrough is not an easy one to overachieve: he did not only earn a fortune but also reached the hearts of an entire generation of coffee fans.

 

The childhood of the future billionaire was spent in the neighborhood of the houses for low-income families, where there was nothing but the basketball court. Most of the people over there were extremely poor and it is evident, that the children from this area were considered quite ordinary. That is why Howard always knew how difficult it would be for him to break out of this poverty. However, his dream of becoming successful was stronger than any obstacle.

 

Being a little boy, Howard often watched his father trying to find a job, which would meet his expectations. When Howard was seven years old, his father broke a leg while being at work. As he had no medical insurance, the subsequent family financial difficulties left an indelible mark in the boy’s memory.

At the age of 12, Howard got his first job. First, he was selling newspapers and then working in a local cafe. The boy faced a rather hard experience when he turned 16. He was working at the fur store, where he had to deal with stretching the leather. This exhausting job only made Howard stronger and firmed his wish to succeed in the future.

 

After his graduation, Howard Schultz spent three years as a sales manager at Xerox, and then he started working at a Swedish company Hamamaplast, where he was selling home appliances, including coffee grinders to the businesses like Starbucks. Once Schultz discovered, that this little company purchases his coffee machines way more than some other popular stores.

 

Intrigued, Schultz traveled to Seattle to meet the company's then owners, Gerald Baldwin and Gordon Bowker. He was struck by the partners' passion and their courage in selling a product that would appeal only to a small niche of gourmet coffee enthusiasts. Joining Starbucks would mean moving across the country and taking a significant pay cut, but Schultz was certain it would be the right move for him. It took a year to persuade Baldwin to hire him as the director of marketing.

Schultz's career - and Starbucks's fate - changed forever when the company sent him to an international housewares show in Milan. While walking around the city, he encountered several espresso bars where owners knew their customers by name and served them drinks like cappuccinos and cafe lattes.

 

"It was like an epiphany," Schultz writes of the moment he understood the personal relationship that people could have to coffee. He was convinced that Starbucks should start serving espresso drinks the Italian way - that Starbucks should be an experience and not just a store.

 

Baldwin and Bowker, however, felt differently. In 1985 Schultz decided to leave Starbucks to start his own coffee company: Il Giornale (Italian for "the daily").

He spent two years away from Starbucks, wholly focused on opening Il Giornale stores that replicated the coffee culture he'd seen in Italy. It caught on quickly. In 1987, Il Giornale bought Starbucks, and Schultz became the CEO of Starbucks Corporation.

 

Throughout his career at Starbucks, Schultz's first priority has been his employees' well -being, he says.
Largely because of his father's experience when he was injured, Schultz offered all his employees (including part-time workers) complete healthcare coverage as well as stock options. Last year, Starbucks announced it would pay for employees' college tuition.

 

Schultz has also been committed to maintaining the quality of his product. In 2008, when Starbucks was struggling financially, he temporarily closed 7,100 US stores in order to retrain baristas on how to make the perfect espresso. Over the next two years, he led Starbucks' massive turnaround.

 

Today, there are more than 21,000 Starbucks stores in 65 countries, and the company is valued at $77 billion. Although it's been years since he was a college football player, Schultz writes that he still identifies with the persona of the blue-collar athlete whose determination and perseverance more than compensate for his lack of training.

 

"I've always been driven and hungry," Schultz says. "Long after others have stopped to rest and recover, I'm still running, chasing after something nobody else could ever see."

 

“I cannot offer you any specific secret recipe for success, the perfect plan, how to reach the pinnacle of success in the business. But my own experience suggests that starting from scratch and achieving much more than what I dream about is quite possible”.