Where founders meet

eChai Ventures is a slow founder network. It is built by founders showing up at open meetups, demo days and dinners: every week they gather somewhere across 25+ cities in 10+ countries, and have been since 2009. Sometimes what they find here matters right away. More often it matters years later, when something changes, and something always does: hiring, raising, going global, pivoting, moving city, starting over.

Each year eChai works with a small number of select brands as their growth partner.

Join eChai Find your city

It starts in your city.

Find your city

India

North America

Global

Every city on eChai

What eChai runs, and who it is for.

Different set-ups, because founders are at different stages. Most are open to anyone; a few are small on purpose.

Open to every founder in the city

01 Startup Open House
An easy, informal evening with founders and startup folks from across the city. You walk in.

For anyone building a startup, or thinking about it.
02 Startup Meetups
Founders and operators on one question at a time: AI, go-to-market, fundraising, consumer brands, climate, manufacturing, product.

For founders working on that question right now.
03 Startup Day
A city-wide day with local ecosystem partners: parallel tracks on themes like fintech, healthcare, consumer brands and AI, then everyone together.

For founders, investors, enablers and startup folks across a city.
04 eChai Startup Mixer
The open evening in cities outside India, put on once enough founders in a city want it.

For founders abroad, and founders going global.

On stage

05 eChai Startup Demo Day
Every month, early-stage founders who are actively building show what they are making, and founders across eChai upvote it.

For founders with something to show, and anyone who wants to see what is being built.

Smaller circles

06 FailCode
The stories founders skip when things are going well: the launch that flopped, the hire that did not work out, the pivot that came late.

For founders who have been through one, and those who would rather hear it first.
07 eChai Women Founders Initiative
Conversations with leaders of women-led businesses, smaller and by application.

For women founders and operators.
Founder dinners
08 Founder dinners
A small dinner table, by invitation: good food, an easy pace and conversation.

For founders, operators, investors and creators, a few at a time.
09 Startup Cricket Night
Every week in a city, startup folks get together for cricket. Some play, some cheer.

For anyone who wants to spend an evening with founders away from a panel.

Between the gatherings

Founder Notes
10 Founder Notes
Founders writing about what they are building, in their own words.

For founders on eChai, and anyone who wants to read them.
The Startup Grid
11 The Startup Grid
A city's companies on one map, and the walks through them.

For anyone finding their way around a city's startups.
How do I track where my hours actually go so I know what to cut, without turning tracking into another chore? When is it worth investing real money in branding? When should I actually incorporate my startup? How much of my own savings is it actually sane to put into my startup before I raise or make revenue? How do I tailor the same deck for different investors without rebuilding it every time? How do I get customers who don't already know me when I have no brand, no audience, and no case studies yet? How soon after signup should I even worry about retention versus just getting more users in the door? What metrics actually tell me if my community is healthy, beyond member count? How do I brief a designer or an AI tool to generate name ideas that don't all sound the same? What government schemes and grants can an early Indian startup actually get? Why do meetings destroy my whole day of building? Should my startup name describe what we do or be an abstract word I give meaning to later? How do I define an ideal customer for a two-sided marketplace where I have to pick two of them? How should I set up a simple growth model or dashboard? How do I track where my hours actually go so I know what to cut, without turning tracking into another chore? When is it worth investing real money in branding? When should I actually incorporate my startup? How much of my own savings is it actually sane to put into my startup before I raise or make revenue? How do I tailor the same deck for different investors without rebuilding it every time? How do I get customers who don't already know me when I have no brand, no audience, and no case studies yet? How soon after signup should I even worry about retention versus just getting more users in the door? What metrics actually tell me if my community is healthy, beyond member count? How do I brief a designer or an AI tool to generate name ideas that don't all sound the same? What government schemes and grants can an early Indian startup actually get? Why do meetings destroy my whole day of building? Should my startup name describe what we do or be an abstract word I give meaning to later? How do I define an ideal customer for a two-sided marketplace where I have to pick two of them? How should I set up a simple growth model or dashboard? Explore
12 Explore
The answers founders reach for: starting up, AI, go-to-market, consumer brands, their own money.

For founders in their first years, and after.
13 Hummingbird Talent
eChai's hiring arm: executive search and leadership hiring, from inside the network.

For founders hiring senior people.

Founder dinners

The Startup Grid

How do I track where my hours actually go so I know what to cut, without turning tracking into another chore? When is it worth investing real money in branding? When should I actually incorporate my startup? How much of my own savings is it actually sane to put into my startup before I raise or make revenue? How do I tailor the same deck for different investors without rebuilding it every time? How do I get customers who don't already know me when I have no brand, no audience, and no case studies yet? How soon after signup should I even worry about retention versus just getting more users in the door? What metrics actually tell me if my community is healthy, beyond member count? How do I brief a designer or an AI tool to generate name ideas that don't all sound the same? What government schemes and grants can an early Indian startup actually get? Why do meetings destroy my whole day of building? Should my startup name describe what we do or be an abstract word I give meaning to later? How do I define an ideal customer for a two-sided marketplace where I have to pick two of them? How should I set up a simple growth model or dashboard? How do I track where my hours actually go so I know what to cut, without turning tracking into another chore? When is it worth investing real money in branding? When should I actually incorporate my startup? How much of my own savings is it actually sane to put into my startup before I raise or make revenue? How do I tailor the same deck for different investors without rebuilding it every time? How do I get customers who don't already know me when I have no brand, no audience, and no case studies yet? How soon after signup should I even worry about retention versus just getting more users in the door? What metrics actually tell me if my community is healthy, beyond member count? How do I brief a designer or an AI tool to generate name ideas that don't all sound the same? What government schemes and grants can an early Indian startup actually get? Why do meetings destroy my whole day of building? Should my startup name describe what we do or be an abstract word I give meaning to later? How do I define an ideal customer for a two-sided marketplace where I have to pick two of them? How should I set up a simple growth model or dashboard? Explore

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What is coming up

Founders here come to know a few brands well.

Those are eChai’s partner brands. Over a year, founders across the network learn their names and their work, and when somebody asks around for what they do, theirs is the name that comes up.

Partner brand founders together at Zestard HQ, Ahmedabad

What a year inside eChai does for your brand.

Each partnership comes with presence across eChai, introductions to the right founders, and a team that stays involved through the year. And each one is shaped around what the brand wants out of it.

Who you meet

Founders learn your name, then your work.

Over the year they keep running into you: at the gatherings, in the series, on the pages they read through the week. So when one of them needs what you do, they come straight to you.
We introduce you to the people you want to reach.

After seventeen years of gatherings we know who has built what, and who works with whom. Tell us who you are after, or we come to you when the right person shows up, with your story and why you two should talk.
You are invited to the gatherings that fit.

Open houses, Demo Days, the AI sessions, FailCode, the curated socials and the smaller dinners, some of them by invitation. When one fits what you do and who you want to meet, you are on the list.

What we do with you

We sit down with you on your story, your brand and your business.

One to one, more than once in the year. We have heard a few thousand founders, so you hear fairly quickly what is working, what is not, and what we would change first.
We take your team through what AI changed for us.

Almost everything eChai builds now has AI in the workflow. We go through what we tried, what worked and what wasted our time, and then connect you to founders further along than us.
You can ask us anything, whenever it comes up.

Every week we hear what founders are building, what they recommend to each other and what they have moved on from. Twice a year we go through what it means for your category. In between we answer, or find a founder who can.

Where your name runs

Your mark comes round under every page on eChai.

The wall of partner brands under the site's pages draws a different ten each time, so yours comes round on the city pages, the event pages and the notes founders read, all year. Your page on echai.ventures stays up after it, and your name runs through our LinkedIn, Instagram and X.
The blue tick puts you first wherever founders are listed.

The tick and your company's mark sit beside your name across eChai, and lists of founders put the blue ticks first: your city's people, the directory, and the roster of every gathering you go to, after its hosts and speakers. Every blue-tick founder with a photograph is on the wall of founders a member sees on signing in.
Your company carries its mark on the Startup Grid.

Where your company is on a city's map of its startups, it is drawn by your mark rather than a dot, opens on your own words and pictures, and is a stop on the tour the map offers of its partner brands.
You write and speak here under your own name.

You come into the series we run online (How Founders Use AI, the founder conversations, the long reads) where you have something real to say, and you write in Founder Notes, where founders across our cities write about what they are building.

The brands working with us.

The founders behind them.

How it works.

A partnership is for growth stage founders who want to come in as a partner brand, and it runs one year at a time. The brand fee for the year is paid to eChai. An affiliate share runs alongside it, linked to the outcomes we drive together. Both carry GST.

Everything a partnership comes with

To come in as a partner brand, write to me at [email protected] and tell me what you want the year to do for your brand.

Jatin ChaudharyCo-founder, eChai Ventures

Founders who came to their first meetup years ago are still turning up, in cities they hadn’t moved to yet.

Joining is a profile: a photograph, your name and a way to reach you. With it, registering for a gathering takes one tap.

Join eChai

Where founders meet

It starts in your city.

India

North America

Global

What eChai runs, and who it is for.

Open to every founder in the city

On stage

Smaller circles

Between the gatherings

Founders here come to know a few brands well.

What a year inside eChai does for your brand.

Who you meet

Founders learn your name, then your work.

We introduce you to the people you want to reach.

You are invited to the gatherings that fit.

What we do with you

We sit down with you on your story, your brand and your business.

We take your team through what AI changed for us.

You can ask us anything, whenever it comes up.

Where your name runs

Your mark comes round under every page on eChai.

The blue tick puts you first wherever founders are listed.

Your company carries its mark on the Startup Grid.

You write and speak here under your own name.

The brands working with us.

The founders behind them.

How it works.

Founders who came to their first meetup years ago are still turning up, in cities they hadn’t moved to yet.