EP312: STEAL Starbucks’ $111B Market Selection Strategy

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What if the richest coffee brand in the world did your financial homework for you?

What if you could sit in the How to Make Money class, and right next to you was the richest coffee brand in the world—letting you peek at their notes?

What if you stumbled across the exact playbook Starbucks used to build a $111 billion empire?

And what if you took those same principles and applied them to your own life?

Because in today’s deep dive, I’m pulling back the curtain on the Starbucks strategy playbook—the one that took them from a small coffee bean shop to a global powerhouse.

By the way, we’re the Kitti Sisters, and our investment firm manages over $300 million in multifamily assets.

But today?

We’re talking about coffee… and how it secretly holds the keys to smart investing.

So, grab your latte, and let’s dig in. 😵😵

The Starbucks Empire: From Beans to Billions

We all know Starbucks. The green siren, the caramel macchiatos, the morning rush. But here’s what most people don’t know—Starbucks wasn’t always this massive coffee empire.

At the start, they didn’t even sell lattes. No cozy cafés. No drive-thrus. Just coffee beans and equipment. That’s it.

Then Howard Schultz came along in the early ‘80s. He saw something bigger—an Italian-style espresso bar experience. But the original founders? They weren’t into it. They wanted to stick to wholesale.

So Schultz left. He started his own coffee shop. Then, when Starbucks hit a rough patch, he came back, bought the company, and merged it with his brand.

And the rest? History.

Starbucks went from selling beans to brewing up a $111 billion empire.

But here’s the wild part—this same playbook works in real estate.

Because when you’re just starting out, you don’t always have the perfect plan. You pivot, adjust, and fight for your vision—just like Starbucks did.

The Starbucks Effect: A Real Estate Goldmine

Okay, full transparency—I wasn’t a Starbucks fangirl from the jump. I don’t even drink coffee. (And don’t get me started on their chai… let’s just say it’s not my thing.)

But you know what I do love? Their strategy. Their locations. Their standardization.

Whether I’m in Bangkok, Los Angeles, or Cairo, I know exactly what I’m getting. And that consistency? That’s powerful.

But what really blows my mind as a real estate investor is how they choose where to open new locations.

Because if we take just one thing from Starbucks’ $111 billion playbook, it’s this: They study and select the right markets before they explode.

How Starbucks Picks Their Locations (And Why You Should Too)

Starbucks doesn’t just pop up in random places. They don’t say, “Oh, this street looks nice!” and slap up a store. Nope. They use data-driven market research to predict high-growth locations before the boom happens.

A Zillow study found that homes near a Starbucks appreciate twice as fast as homes without one.

Another study showed that properties within a quarter-mile of a Starbucks see a 20% premium increase over time.

Why? Because Starbucks does their homework.

They analyze:

✅ Population Growth
✅ Income Levels
✅ Retail Synergy
✅ Traffic & Accessibility

They track cell phone movement data. They analyze consumer spending patterns. They even study “dwell time” (a fancy way of saying how long people linger in a location).

And once all the signs point to “YES, this is about to pop,” they move in.

And here’s the thing—real estate investors can do the exact same thing.

The “Oops” That Cost Us Thousands

Let me tell you a quick story about when Nan and I got into real estate.

Nan was at lunch with a high school friend who casually mentioned, “Oh yeah, my dad owns rental properties in XYZ City.”

And that was it. We had instant FOMO.

Next thing we knew, we were touring houses. The first one? Weird vibe. The second one? The agent said, “You should make an offer.”

So we did.

No objections. No deep analysis. No actual research.

Because guess what? We didn’t know any better.

We thought, “Oh, we should invest in a city we know.”

Problem? We didn’t actually know the city. We had heard of it, sure. But we didn’t know the neighborhoods, the job market, the economic trends—nothing.

Our “market research” was basically, “Hey, our friend’s dad has rentals nearby, so this must be a good place to buy.”

Spoiler alert: That’s not how you pick a market.

After mortgage, insurance, and taxes, guess how much we were actually making?

👉 $200 a month. 😖😖

Yep. After sinking half a million dollars into that property, we were netting two. hundred. dollars.

And that’s if the tenant paid on time. And if nothing broke.

That’s when it hit us—this wasn’t financial freedom. This was a financial hamster wheel.

How to Hack Market Selection (Without Guessing)

So we changed everything. We stopped guessing. We stopped hoping. We started getting strategic.

And one of the biggest lessons we learned? Follow the big players who’ve already done the research.

Instead of trying to predict where the next hot market would be, we started looking at who was moving in.

And Starbucks?

They became one of our biggest indicators.

If Starbucks was betting on an area, we paid attention—because they had already done millions of dollars in research for us.

Steal Starbucks’ Billion-Dollar Strategy for Your Investments

Here’s the deal—Starbucks isn’t just in the coffee business. They’re in the real estate business. And they’re one of the best in the world at it.

They don’t just pick a spot and hope for the best. They use predictive analytics, behavioral economics, and even social psychology to pinpoint locations before they explode.

And if you want to invest in real estate without making the mistakes we did, you’ve got to do the same.

📍 Study high-growth areas.
📍 Follow major brands moving in.
📍 Analyze the data—don’t just go off of “vibes.”

Because if Starbucks is setting up shop, you already know—the market’s about to pop.

And that is how you hack market selection.

So tell us—have you ever noticed the Starbucks Effect in action?

Where’s your city’s next boomtown?

Let’s talk in the comments!