Hey, this is Napkin Notes: the newsletter that’s so bullish on soaking up gems from smart entrepreneurs that we wiggled our way into a webinar with the cofounder of Starbucks to share his top advice with you 🤫

Don’t ask us how we got in the side door. Just appreciate that we’re willing to spill the beans on what we learned. ☕️

(More on that later)

TL;DR for the Busy Readers:

• 📰 News you missed

• ☕️ 5 lessons Starbucks cofounder Zev Siegl swears by

• 🗓 Our next AI demo day is November 7th, RSVP here

• 💡 Hot F&B startup ideas that could be a hit

• 🤣 Founder laugh of the week

We’re keeping today’s word count nice and tight so you can make it out to the team happy hour by 4 p.m. Let’s get to it 🍻 

📰 News You Missed

WeWork is struggling to stay alive. LinkedIn let go of 700 workers. Kim Kardashian spoke about her new billion-dollar PE firm SKKY Partners. Amazon’s close to delivering medicine via drone. OpenAI’s given ChatGPT full internet access. Accelerators are lining up to use Dealroom. Halloween’s in 11 days. And you still haven’t decided which neighbourhood party you’re committing to. 😅

Toss on your slippers and get cozy; we’re getting to the main show.

☕️ 5 Frameworks the Cofounder of Starbucks Swears By

Yesterday a friend of ours invited us to a private interview with the cofounder of Starbucks, Zev Siegl.

If you don’t know what Starbucks is, now’s the perfect time to unsubscribe. If you do know what it is, we’ll give you a refresher on just how wildly successful Zev’s idea became. In 2023, Starbucks is:

• worth $100 billion 💸

• across 35,000 locations 🌎

• and employs over 350,000 staff 👥

The crazier part? Zev and his two friends Jerry and Gordon were the 3 people responsible for building the first Starbucks store by hand in 1971.

So it’s fair to say, Zev has one of the highest-value start-up ideas in history; which is kind of a crazy claim to fame to keep on your founder shelf.

Let’s Jump Into Zev’s 5 Hot Takes:

☕️ 1) Find a niche mentor willing to teach you: Zev and his two cofounders reached out to Alfred Peet and he took them under his wing. Alfred was the founder of Peet’s Coffee which started a few years before them and this relationship became their “mini accelerator” to get their idea off the ground

☕️ 2) Raise money only as you need it: after they saw success, they decided to raise some money to expand. They took money from 3 investors (who happened to be customers) and raised close to $150K. They didn’t go back into the equity market and used debt from then on for the next 10-12 years.

☕️ 3) Dial in a smart cofounder matchup: They didn’t have ambitions to go global, but eventually, a key hire made in 1983 (Howard Schultz) advised they change their mind. Zev was the 0 to 1 guy, Jerry was the financial mind and Gordon was the marketing strategy. The 3 of them were able to scale at a rate other competitors couldn’t because they all owned their scope so effectively.

☕️ 4) Find your “Howard Schultz” hire: Howard Shultz was hired in 1983 to be the VP. Note this was 13 years later. Zev told everyone on the call, “You should all try to find your Howard hire”. Howard eventually became their exit strategy. He was a great marketing exec, and then he led our exit strategy

☕️ 5) Leverage joint ventures where possible: few people know this playbook, but Starbucks went on to achieve worldwide growth through a network of joint ventures. And it was through 4 brands likely no one’s heard of that made them go global. Zev told everyone that joint ventures are a fantastic way for small brands to grow. The 4 they used were Alshaya Group, Grupo VIPS, Tata and Alsea.

That’s all for the hot takes in this newsletter.

Now the next time you have a Starbucks drink, you’ll know some of the top traits behind why this green mermaid cup idea was a $100B homerun. 🚀

To close off, here are some food and beverage startup ideas that could be the next Starbucks.

Loyal readers, you know the drill.

Newbies, all you gotta do is upvote, comment or connect with the startup ideas that spark your interest.

💡More Hot F&B Startup Ideas to Browse

• Dropshipping marketplace for high-end food

• The Tesla for coffee 

• AI Chef: figures out what to make with what you have

• Premium French bakery product delivery

• Non-alcoholic single-service cocktails

• FridgeIt: automated recipe generator by what’s in your fridge

Wanna find more F&B startup ideas? Click here. Or if you think you’re a hot shot and can share a stronger startup idea, be our guest and click below👇

Also, congrats to Braden Barwich who won the sipp.ly wine giveaway from last week’s newsletter. Email us here to redeem your free bottle of wine 🍷

Mark the calendar. November 7th is our next demo day at Kernal Dealroom and it’s digging into the future of AI.

You think Neighbour Joanne’s Halloween dinner is a party? Just wait till you see LOI’s speaker line-up.

T-48 hours until applications to pitch close. Get your pitch in here.

👀 Laugh of the Week

Now go have a great weekend friends.

💚 The Kernal Fam