What business are you in? Redux 22 Jan 2007

Last week, we posed the question "What business are you in?". This week, we stumbled across the following quote from NewYork City restauranteur Danny Meyer, excerpted from his bestselling book "Setting the table". Meyer tells us that Starbucks is not necessarily in the business of selling coffee:

"Starbucks took the notion of drinking good coffee (and standing in line to buy it) and figured out how to make the experience of drinking coffee with a community of other like-minded people become the real star of the show.

"The company also learned how to superimpose its blueprint onto thousands of locations north, south, east, and west while also conveying the sense that each Starbucks belonged to its particular community.

"It was brilliant entrepreneurship to grasp that selling coffee is secondary to creating a sense of community. Coffee sells (and is habit-forming), but performing a daily ritual with a self-selected group of like-minded human beings also sells. A business that doesn't understand its raison d'etre as fostering community will inevitably underperform."

[via Brand Autopsy]