This is a memorandum to Mr. Howard Shultz, Founder of Starbucks and all around good guy.

You’re missing the boat, Mister.

Let’s start with the fact that Starbucks is pretty much a worldwide organization worth about $20B according to my friends at Google. But, in today’s world this is not enough. You need to keep up with the trend of large corporations and your CEO competitors.  Now that Tesla and Amazon have conquered the Earth, they are going galactic. How can a company with “Stars” in their name miss out on this opportunity?

I present to you a new subsidiary branding opportunity:

MarsBucks

Now, a proper business plan would take note of the cosmic trends of the universe in which we now operate. But now that I’m retired that would be entirely too much work. You need massively over-paid consultants to work through the details (and I’m available if you want).

Instead, I’ll provide you with the following Executive Summary of the trends of today and the opportunities that exist. You can Venmo me the massive bundles of money later.

Did you know that Elon now serves the space station?  His rockets are going up to there all the time now. Apparently, the astronauts have since 2015 drank espresso from Lavazza, “Italy’s favourite espresso”.  How simply un-American. (I, of course, mean the spelling of ‘favourite’ here, not the coffee.)

So, consider these facts (so called because I made them up)

• The space station gets espresso.  BUT… who gets them a pumpkin-spice latte? 
• The space station orbits the earth approximately 16 times a day.  That means that there are 16 days in space for every 1 on earth. That means 16 space-breakfasts in a single earth-day, all of which will need their coffee. (I cannot imagine what would happen to space dogs – lets see 7 years for 1 earth year x 16 days in space x 365 days a year = a LOT of dog-coffee).
• Yes it costs more to launch coffee into space, plus the baristas to serve it and the little green sticky-thingies to keep it in the cup. What is important to realize is this – at 16 times more consumption you will make up the additional cost in volume.

Now, someone may say – 16 days is ludicrous.  I respectfully disagree – in today’s ever-faster moving world it is expected.  You’d say that the astronauts need their sleep. But if you do the math, they get 45 minutes rest for each of their 16 space-days, or exactly 12 hours rest for a single earth-day. Since when did us mere earthlings last get 12 hours sleep in a day?

And for those nay-sayers (who probably never say nay) that would suggest that all that coffee would keep the poor astronauts up at night(s) let us simply say that what they need is the “Half-Baked”.  We promise, we’ll ’splain this one later.

Of course, the opportunities don’t stop here.  The space station’s been around a long time (at least since 2015).  They’re reliable, but not on the leading edge of space.

Nope, that’s Mr. Bezos and Mr. Branson who are already launching their friends into space.  CBS news says that space tourism could soon be a huge part of the economy. 

And again, you are missing out.  Think about it:  You’ve got a first class ride into space on the Bezos Space Plane.  But… YOU HAVE NO BEVERAGE CART SERVICE.  I mean, Tom Hanks already refused such a trip, citing the 28M cost.  I’m guessing that this isn’t really the problem; he just expects coffee and prepackaged snacks. At $20 per space-donut I think you can fill the need here.

Jeff Bezos is trying to make up for this gap in the business plan by showing up to the landings and spraying his friends with champagne.  But I gotta believe that he’s a busy guy and at some point will get tired of the routine.  With his wealth, I’m sure he can afford to get a space-stewardess (or is that space-attendant?) on board to serve drinks.

Now’s the time to get on the “ground zero floor” and become the exclusive provider of near-warm coffee to those near-astronauts.

Yes, that might lose some money in the short run, but it’s all about creating the brand that is MarsBucks. You’ll need that to develop the next important thing, which is…..

Space-thrus. As we’ve all heard, Mr. Elon wants to colonize Mars. He’s already promoting the doge-coin because, in space, no one can provide change.  Also, don’t forget that in 2018 Elon already parked his car in space. According to the web, it’s already orbited the sun 2 times.  You gotta believe that their driver needs a cuppa joe (and probably a pit stop).

So, you use your SpaceX rockets to launch some appropriate MarsBucks Space-United-Coffee-Kiosk-Systems (I’ll let you decipher the acronym here) into orbit.  Elon can park out front, Bezos can use the fly-through and (I highly suggest this), all cups should have the little green sticky-thingies.  After what happened with McD’s here on earth, the last thing you want is the bad press of floating coffee in a convertible staining your nice blue space-suit.

Yes, Yes, all of this sounds half-baked. That’s because it is.  But with Hyperloops, Space Telsas, $28M plane rides and the US Congress, you have to admit that this isn’t the silliest thing you’ve heard.

I walk to the local Starbucks almost every day.   I order a half-coffee, half-decaf with half-and-half.  The baristas and I call it the ‘Half-Baked’.

You would expect nothing less of me.