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Siddharth K Nair
Thatmoonemojiguy 🌝 • 1m
☕️ How India’s Biggest Café Empire Brewed Success and Burned Out Before Starbucks or Blue Tokai, there was one name that defined coffee in India: Café Coffee Day (CCD). Launched in 1996 by V.G. Siddhartha, CCD wasn’t just a café it was a movement. For young India, it was the go to place for first dates, job interviews, study breaks, or just affordable air conditioned peace with Wi-Fi. What made it different? Siddhartha didn’t just sell coffee, he owned the supply chain: ✔ Massive coffee estates ✔ In-house roasting ✔ 1,700+ outlets at its peak ✔ Coffee vending, exports, and more By the 2010s, CCD held over 60% of India’s café market far ahead of Barista, Costa, or any foreign brand. ☠️ Then, It Crashed. Rapid, debt fueled expansion into unrelated sectors: tech parks, logistics, hotels Loans ballooned to ₹7,000+ crore Tax raids and pressure from investors mounted In 2019, Siddhartha died by suicide. His final letter revealed the unbearable weight he carried: “I gave it my all… I failed as an entrepreneur.” India mourned the man who made coffee cool and saw, up close, the dark side of high stakes business. 💡 What Remains CCD still exists smaller, quieter, humbler. But the brand’s cultural imprint is permanent. It introduced café culture to the masses It made sipping coffee feel aspirational yet affordable It was India’s own success story before the unicorn wave Not every failure is a fall. Some are lessons poured into a legacy. follow Thatmoonemojiguy for such more content 🌝
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