Since 1987, Starbucks's star has been on the rise, growing from 11 Seattle, WA-based stores to more than 1,000 worldwide. Its goals grew, too, from the more modest, albeit fundamental one of offering high-quality coffee beans roasted to perfection to, more recently, opening a new store somewhere every day. An exemplary success story, Starbucks is identified with innovative marketing strategies, employee-ownership programs, and a product that's become a subculture. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a manager, a marketer, or a curious Starbucks loyalist, Pour Your Heart into It will let you in on the revolutionary Starbucks venture. CEO Howard Schultz recounts the company's rise in 24 chapters, each of which illustrates such core values as "Winning at the expense of employees is not victory at all."


From Library Journal
The author is the entrepreneur behind Starbucks, the coffee-shop chain with a "passion" for quality coffee. Through the voice of Eric Conger, Schultz speaks poetically about the "mystery and romance" of the "coffee experience." Well, to some people coffee is like that. The program is not so much for those who want to learn about business techniques as for those who love Starbucks. Schultz's story is an interesting one, largely a personal narrative about making it big. At one point the narration says, "It's not about me," but to a great extent the tapes really are. Recommended only if Starbucks has a strong presence in your community.?Mark Guyer, Stark Cty. Dist. Lib., Canton, OhioCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Entertainment Weekly
... several moments--Schultz scoffing at the idea of Frappuccinos ... striding into a beverage pow-wow, demanding "What is going on with the eggnog latte?"--turn out richer than a cup of Kona.


From AudioFile
Howard Schultz continuously reminds the listener of his didactic purpose in writing this history of his management of Starbucks: to teach industry how to succeed humanely. But early on it becomes clear that his real purpose is to crow about how he rose from poverty and, without help, became not just a coffee mogul, but a major cultural influence. Not that there aren't lessons here, but they're between the lines of his endless bragging. Here's a book better experienced in this nicely read abridgment than fully on the printed page where Schultz's conceit would soon grow insufferable. Y.R. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Kirkus Reviews
A chatty history of Starbucks by its CEO, who announces that he considers the company to be only in its third chapter (which is nowhere near the eleventh). Schultz first heard of Starbucks in 1981 when he sold to the fledgling business a number of expensive coffeemakers, and he fell in love with the company immediately. He calls the meeting bashert (Yiddish for destiny), and while the Seattle-based group may have had another word for it, Brooklyn-bred Schultz does seem particularly suited to Starbucks. He repeatedly swoons over the coffee and details at length the process that turns a small green bean into a dark brown drink in a green cup. His enthusiasm for his product is palpable when he writes of ``the romance of the coffee experience'' at Starbucks, though his tips about how to run a company are less valuable. Schultz does offer some useful war stories--especially his dinner with the Seattle partners, who found him ``too New York''--and his idea of putting even part-time workers on the company's health-care plan is both admirable and cost-effective, saving money on employee turnover. Schultz, who bought the company for under $4 million, should have more specific points to convey about how he made Starbucks worth over $270 million in a half a decade. And much of the Starbucks story is overly familiar, while elsewhere, the narrative would be better served if the events were discussed chronologically: It's jarring to jump from the 1996 success of Frappuccinos and ice cream to the devastating Brazilian frost of 1994. Though this is unsatisfying as a skim-milk latte in places, Schultz is less a braggart and more a true believer than many CEOs, and (with Business Week staffer Yang) he provides a pleasing read. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Dale Dauten, Mpls Star-Tribune, Sept. 23, 1998
Winner of the Golden Play Button for Best Business of 1998. Here is what makes a great business audio: real business wisdom passed along as stories within stories. One theme of the book is an essential element of creativity, maybe the only essential element. {Schultz] noticed that a little company in Seattle was buying an exceptionally large quantity of one product, a drip coffemaker. And so he flew out to investigate, and there found a small chain of coffee bean shops, Starbucks. Schultz got to know the owners, and eventually they hired him....Schultz found himself at a convention in Italy and went for a stroll and stopped into an espresso bar, just looking. And there he saw the future of coffee in the United States. When the owners of Starbucks rejected the idea, Schultz opened his own chain, eventually buying out his mentors. Could it be that curiosity is the only creativity an entrepreneur really needs? [brought to you by HighBridge Audio]


Audio Publishers Association
Winner of the Audie Award for Best Business of 1998 [brought to you by HighBridge Audio].

ANNOTATION

CEO Howard Schultz shares the inside story of the rise of Starbucks.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The vision came to Schultz while traveling through Italy, when he recognized the intense relationship that the Italian people had not only with their coffee, but with the coffee bars that are an integral part of the country's social life. He knew in his heart that Americans would embrace the coffee bar experience in the same way. The idea was the beginning - and the marketing of the brand was brilliant. But Schultz gives credit for the growth of the company to a foundation of values seldom found in corporate America, values that place as much importance on the company's employees as they do on profits, as much attention to creativity as to growth. Schultz tells the story of Starbucks in chapters that illustrate the principles which have made the company enduring, such as "Don't be threatened by people smarter than you," "Compromise anything but your core values," "Seek to renew yourself even when you're hitting home runs," and, most simply, "Everything matters."

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Starbucks CEO Schultz has given millions of Americans a taste for dark-roasted coffee blendsespresso, cappuccino, caffe latteas served in the congenial atmosphere of pseudo-Italian coffee bars. With Business Week writer Yang, he recalls here rounding up often reluctant investors, opening his first store in Seattle, fending off a takeover, providing stock options and health care coverage to employees while doggedly raising new capital despite early lossesand eventually delivering a 100-to-1 return on investment. As the company grew, with a new store opening daily nationwide, Schultz hired away executives from 7-11 and Burger King, took on Wall Street with an initial public stock offering, all the while developing additional products (Frappucino) and customizing the music tapes played in the shops. As instruction in plain English on how to build a billion-dollar retail specialty chain, it is hard to imagine a more satisfying brew than this memoir. $300,000 ad/promo. (Sept.)

Library Journal

Schultz, chairman and CEO of Starbucks, and writer-researcher Yang trace the growth and development of Starbucks from a single store in Seattle, which in 1973 sold only dark-roasted coffee beans, to the international business it has become today. Schultz does not conceal his passion for good coffee or for his company. His initial goals were to introduce Americans to really fine coffee, provide people with a "third place" to gather, and treat his employees with dignity. The extent to which he succeeded and the obstacles encountered along the way are the subjects he tackles here. This is not, in the strictest sense, a how-to book despite its considerable detail but more a motivational title. Recommended for large public libraries.Joseph C. Toschik, Half Moon Bay P.L., Cal.

Kirkus Reviews

A chatty history of Starbucks by its CEO, who announces that he considers the company to be only in its third chapter (which is nowhere near the eleventh).

Schultz first heard of Starbucks in 1981 when he sold to the fledgling business a number of expensive coffeemakers, and he fell in love with the company immediately. He calls the meeting bashert (Yiddish for destiny), and while the Seattle-based group may have had another word for it, Brooklyn-bred Schultz does seem particularly suited to Starbucks. He repeatedly swoons over the coffee and details at length the process that turns a small green bean into a dark brown drink in a green cup. His enthusiasm for his product is palpable when he writes of "the romance of the coffee experience" at Starbucks, though his tips about how to run a company are less valuable. Schultz does offer some useful war stories—especially his dinner with the Seattle partners, who found him "too New York"—and his idea of putting even part-time workers on the company's health-care plan is both admirable and cost-effective, saving money on employee turnover. Schultz, who bought the company for under $4 million, should have more specific points to convey about how he made Starbucks worth over $270 million in a half a decade. And much of the Starbucks story is overly familiar, while elsewhere, the narrative would be better served if the events were discussed chronologically: It's jarring to jump from the 1996 success of Frappuccinos and ice cream to the devastating Brazilian frost of 1994.

Though this is unsatisfying as a skim-milk latte in places, Schultz is less a braggart and more a true believer than many CEOs, and (with Business Week staffer Yang) he provides a pleasing read.