Who Founded Starbucks In 1971? How Did Howard Schultz Acquire Starbucks?

American company with the largest coffeehouse chain in the world, Starbucks, was founded by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl, opening its first store in 1971 near the historic Pike Place Market in Seattle.

The three Starbucks founders had two things in common: they were all coming from academia, and they all loved coffee and tea.

The story began in 1971 along the cobblestone streets of Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market.

It was where Starbucks opened its first store, offering fresh-roasted coffee beans, tea and spices from around the world for customers to take home.

How Did Howard Schultz Acquire Starbucks?
The original founders of Starbucks, who had purchased Peet’s Coffee, got into financial difficulty and decided they would sell Starbucks.

According to Schultz, one of the founders offered the company to him exclusively — with six shops at the time — for the price of $3.8 million.

In 1982, at age 29, Schultz was hired at Starbucks as the director of retail operations and marketing. Schultz was exposed to Coffee in Italy on a buying trip to Milan, Italy in 1983.

Eight years later Starbucks was suffering from a rough economy and its own strategic missteps, and Schultz felt compelled to return to the CEO seat.

His previous tenure had seen promising growth, but now he faced a challenging mission: to lead a turnaround of the company he had built.