From selling plain vanilla coffee beans and bags for years and years, VG Siddhartha ventured into the café business some 20 years ago. As India’s consumption story blossomed, Siddhartha’s Café Coffee Day became a popular meeting place for professionals and a cool hangout for teenagers. From nothing, Café Coffee Day today has 1,500 cafés across the country serving 200,000 cups of coffee every hour. That translates into ₹1,400 crore in revenues for his diversified group, which is into financial services, software and logistics. Having conquered India, Siddhartha wants to grow his enterprise into one of the top café chains in the world. That dream is worth a few billions, but before getting there, he has to deal with Starbucks and a multitude of other global players on his home turf. As Coffee Day Enterprises waits in the wings to hit the public market, chairman Siddhartha talks to Outlook Business in an exclusive interview about his strategy to deal with competition and to propel growth.