Remembering VG Siddhartha, The Man Who Introduced Coffee Culture In India





Autoplay Autoplay 1 of 4 A Tragic Loss The disappearance and demise of Café Coffee Day owner VG Siddhartha left the country in shock. On Saturday, the coffee tycoon wrote a letter addressed to his 'Coffee Day' family where he apologised to them for failing as an entrepreneur and opened up about the pressure he had been dealing with. On Monday he went missing from Mangaluru, and 36 hours later his body was recovered by the fishermen in the city's Hoige Bazaar.



The tragic episode saw tributes pour in for the billionaire businessman, whose 'A lot can happen over a coffee' idea brought enthusiasts closer and sparked the trend of coffee dates in India.



Despite running a mega empire, the camera-shy 60-year-old tycoon preferred to stay away from the limelight and mostly maintained a low-profile. Back To The Beginning Siddhartha was born in 1960 to coffee plantation owner Gangaiah Hegde in Chikkamagalur, Karnataka (his family has been in the coffee business for almost 130 years). Growing up in the district known for its coffee estates, the coffee baron completed his master's degree from Mangalore University.



During the early '90s, as a budding entrepreneur, he tied the knot with Malavika Hegde, the daughter of former Chief Minister of Karnataka, Indian Minister for External Affairs and Governor of Maharashtra, S.M. Krishna. They had two sons, Ishan and Amarthya. Coffee Tales He began his career at the age of 24 as a management trainee with JM Financial Limited in Mumbai, where he worked from 1983 to '84. In the mid '80s, he invested his earnings in the stock market on Chikkamagaluru's coffee plantations, and in 1984, bought an investment banking and brokering firm, Sivan Securities - that was later renamed to Way2Wealth Securities Ltd.



A few years later, using the money given to him by his father as capital, he bought a coffee unit in Hassan, and founded Amalgamated Bean Company Trading in 1993. Two years later, it became India’s largest green coffee exporter. Siddhartha grew coffee, sold and exported tonnes of it, earning millions from the business. The owner of 12,000 acres of coffee plantation, he also had 200 exclusive retail outlets selling his Coffee Day powder all over South India.



In 1996, he set up his first coffee outlet, naming it Café Coffee Day. The first CCD opened its doors at Brigade Road in Bengaluru.



Twenty-three years later, the brand now runs over 1700 outlets, making CCD the country's largest retail coffee chain. It also operates cafes in Austria, Malaysia, and Egypt.



With a burgeoning business to bank on, Siddhartha earned a spot on the 2014 Forbes India's Rich list. However, a year later, he dropped off. Tough Tidings 2017 proved to be the start of a professionally difficult time for Siddhartha, who was then also attending to his 94-year-old father at the time. The coffee tycoon found himself caught in the middle of a tax evasion case. 20 properties owned by him, in Bengaluru, Chennai, Chikkamagaluru and Mumbai, were subjected to a raid by the income tax department.

“Whenever I get time, I read a lot. I just finished Elon Musk’s biography. When he came from Africa to US to work, his first job was cleaning a boiler for $18. Imagine, what a tough job it is. And now, we know that man has created Tesla and SpaceX. But my first role models are [Azim] Premji and Nandan [Nilekani].”“I was once having dinner with Sequoia venture capitalist Michael Moritz. He was an investor at the time. He told me that in 1992, five people went to him, and asked for $5 million. Everybody said do not give money, IBM will lay it away. That company became Cisco. In 1999, three people went to him, asking for $5 million. Again, everyone said do not give money, Microsoft will lay it away. Yet, he gave $5 million. That company became Google. He said if that was the story, then only big guys should become bigger. There would have been no scope for you and me to go up the ladder. So, I keep these stories as inspiration. If someone is big today, it doesn’t mean there cannot be anyone bigger after 10 years... Always, dream big, put your common sense, control your cost and put your best.”“I meet him [Sachin Bansal, cofounder Flipkart] often for coffee in their office. Except, he always gives me my own coffee.” “Kunal [Bahl, co-founder of Snapdeal] once told me that he and Ola founders [Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati] met about 45 times in one of the CCDs in Delhi, when Ola was starting.”“I don’t want to take names but when any big foreign brand comes to India, if you are not paranoid, that means either you are wrong or you are going to fail. Honestly, when people come and say that they will open 500-700 stores, we do get worried. And they will do it, 5-10 years down the line, but then, we will also do it. With this population, one coffee brand is not enough for the world. I’ll sell anything, including my house and my wife’s jewellery to build this brand. There is passion.”