Howard Schultz

And so you can do things like become the official coffee of United Airlines or be in Costco's all over the US. You did this a number of times. And I feel like the rest of the world did not catch on to what you were doing, was just finding little billboards everywhere where you could put the Starbucks logo and sort of create that ubiquity.

And so you can do things like become the official coffee of United Airlines or be in Costco's all over the US. You did this a number of times. And I feel like the rest of the world did not catch on to what you were doing, was just finding little billboards everywhere where you could put the Starbucks logo and sort of create that ubiquity.

Yeah. If you thought the Costco revolt was high, you can imagine.

Yeah. If you thought the Costco revolt was high, you can imagine.

when i said we have an opportunity for united airlines people thought that was absolutely blasphemy don't do that and again the exposure and the opportunity to surprise and delight customers in places that they've never had anything close to good coffee all these things when you consider we didn't spend a dollar a dollar of marketing dollars ever

when i said we have an opportunity for united airlines people thought that was absolutely blasphemy don't do that and again the exposure and the opportunity to surprise and delight customers in places that they've never had anything close to good coffee all these things when you consider we didn't spend a dollar a dollar of marketing dollars ever

And so the reputation of the company was built basically word of mouth, both inside our stores and exactly right in places that we could surprise the customer. And then we also started putting Starbucks coffee in grocery stores. which was the other thing. Because remember, we were building a beverage business.

And so the reputation of the company was built basically word of mouth, both inside our stores and exactly right in places that we could surprise the customer. And then we also started putting Starbucks coffee in grocery stores. which was the other thing. Because remember, we were building a beverage business.

And we were then going back to our core business in new channels of distribution. It's like the ultimate goal is to capture those margin dollars from selling cups of coffees in the stores that you operate. But there's all these other things that you can do that actually might spit off some profit dollars.

And we were then going back to our core business in new channels of distribution. It's like the ultimate goal is to capture those margin dollars from selling cups of coffees in the stores that you operate. But there's all these other things that you can do that actually might spit off some profit dollars.

But at the very least, it's a break-even way to do customer acquisition and brand building in the rest of the world. I don't know what our cost of customer acquisition was back then.

But at the very least, it's a break-even way to do customer acquisition and brand building in the rest of the world. I don't know what our cost of customer acquisition was back then.

But it was low.

But it was low.

But you weren't spending any money on marketing. But United Airlines was paying you for coffee, I assume. I don't know exactly how that went down. I have to assume that Barnes & Noble was basically the same thing.

But you weren't spending any money on marketing. But United Airlines was paying you for coffee, I assume. I don't know exactly how that went down. I have to assume that Barnes & Noble was basically the same thing.

Barnes & Noble was a different deal. I met Len Riggio, the founder of Barnes & Noble, very interesting guy, very smart guy, great merchant. And we just started talking. He was from Brooklyn. I was from Brooklyn. We had a natural kind of relationship. And I said, what do you think about us opening Starbucks inside Barnes & Noble, given you are the ultimate third place is what we are?

Barnes & Noble was a different deal. I met Len Riggio, the founder of Barnes & Noble, very interesting guy, very smart guy, great merchant. And we just started talking. He was from Brooklyn. I was from Brooklyn. We had a natural kind of relationship. And I said, what do you think about us opening Starbucks inside Barnes & Noble, given you are the ultimate third place is what we are?

And it just, again, became a natural extension of our stores.

And it just, again, became a natural extension of our stores.