In this post
The quick answer
P.S. Coffee is being built because the people who drink coffee every day in India are being asked to pay for the people who drink it once a week. The ₹300 latte works for a weekend treat, it does not work for a Tuesday morning and a 3pm follow-up. We are building the Pod format, 50–200 sq ft inside buildings that already have hundreds of people in them daily, to fix that. We are starting in Gujarat, specifically Ahmedabad, because the urban professional class has formed, the gym and co-working culture is strong, and the competitive landscape is completely empty. abCoffee is in Mumbai and Bengaluru. First Coffee is in Delhi-NCR. Nobody has planted a flag here yet.
Key takeaways
Ahmedabad has 11 IT parks, 14+ co-working spaces, 4 university clusters, and a strong gym culture, and zero grab-and-go specialty coffee chains.
The specialty cafe model (high rent, high labour, high ticket) was built for an occasion. We are building something for the daily habit instead.
A Pod is 50–200 sq ft inside a building that already has hundreds of people in it daily, no destination visit, no detour, no cover charge for ambiance.
Gujarat's coffee culture today looks like Mumbai's did 6–7 years ago, the audience has formed, the competition has not arrived.
abCoffee is concentrated in Mumbai and Bengaluru. First Coffee is Delhi-NCR. Nobody has a credible specialty grab-and-go brand in Ahmedabad yet.
We are pre-Pod. The website is live. We are looking for investors, co-founders, operators, and baristas who see the same gap we do.
The observation that started this
The people who drink coffee every day in India are being asked to pay for the people who drink it once a week. The ₹300 latte works as a weekend treat, a destination, an occasion, something planned around. It does not work for a Tuesday morning before a 9am stand-up and a 3pm follow-up call.
The specialty cafe model, high rent, high labour, high ticket size, was built for an occasion. Every cost in that model assumes the customer is visiting once, maybe twice a week, and is willing to pay for the ambiance along with the cup. We built nothing for the people drinking coffee daily, because nothing in the model was designed for daily.
That gap is not a coincidence. It is a structural consequence of how Indian specialty coffee scaled, cafe first, daily habit second, if at all. We are building P.S. Coffee in the opposite order.
Why the Pod format is the right answer
A Pod is 50–200 square feet inside a building that already has hundreds of people in it daily. No destination visit. No detour. No cover charge for the ambiance. The coffee earns its place because of what is in the cup, not what is around it.
The format is not a limitation, it is the pricing mechanism. Remove the rent premium of a standalone cafe, remove the table service, remove the ambiance investment, and the ₹300 latte's overhead collapses to something that can support a ₹89 specialty cup without touching the bean.
This is the same Pod thesis covered in our earlier post on why we're building without a cafe, proven elsewhere by Luckin Coffee and abCoffee, and now being brought to Gujarat.
Why Gujarat, and why now
Gujarat's coffee culture is where Mumbai's was six to seven years ago. The young urban professional class has formed. The gym culture is strong and growing. The co-working ecosystem is expanding fast, with new spaces opening across Ahmedabad, Surat, and Vadodara every quarter.
The competitive landscape, meanwhile, is empty. First Coffee is in Delhi-NCR. abCoffee is in Mumbai and Bengaluru. Nobody has planted a flag in Ahmedabad with a credible specialty grab-and-go brand. We are doing that, not because Gujarat is easier, but because it is the largest underserved market for daily-habit specialty coffee in the country.
What Ahmedabad already has in place
- 11 IT parks: concentrated daily footfall of exactly the customer this format is built for.
- 14+ major co-working spaces: IKube, Wing, Plug and Play, and others, all candidates for Pod hosting.
- 4 significant university clusters: CEPT, Nirma, IIMA, MICA, a built-in pipeline of future daily drinkers.
- One of India's most active gym cultures: a segment that already wants functional, no-nonsense coffee.
Gujarat vs the metros: the white space, by the numbers
| Market | Urban professionals | Grab-and-go specialty chains | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mumbai | ~8M+ | abCoffee (~50 stores) | Contested |
| Delhi-NCR | ~10M+ | First Coffee, abCoffee | Contested |
| Bengaluru | ~6M+ | abCoffee, First Coffee, Drickle | Contested |
| Ahmedabad + Surat + Vadodara | ~3.5M | Zero at scale | Unclaimed |
Every major metro already has at least one third-wave specialty brand contesting it. Gujarat, with a combined urban professional base larger than most single metros, has none. That absence is the entire brief.
What we are looking for
We are pre-Pod. The website is live. Traction is building. We are looking for people who see what we see.
Strong unit economics, a proven model abroad and in metro India, and zero incumbent in the most underpenetrated major market in the country.
Build the unit economics from Pod #1. We want operators who've run QSR, retail, or supply chain at scale in tier-1 India.
Specialty coffee professionals who want to do the work at the scale daily life actually runs at, not weekend occasion.
If you're assembling a beverage or consumer portfolio and want a brand with a clear thesis and an empty competitive field, this is the conversation to have.
If you are building a portfolio and want a beverage brand with a clear thesis, strong unit economics, and zero incumbent in the most underpenetrated major market in India, we would like to talk.
Frequently asked questions
Pre-Pod, pre-launch, and looking for the right people.
If you're an investor, co-founder, operator, or barista who sees the gap we see in Gujarat's specialty coffee market, we'd like to talk before the geography closes.
Pre-launch · Ahmedabad first · Investors, founders, operators welcome