The Product Mind Behind eChai San Francisco

Over the years, eChai has grown from a small group of founders in Ahmedabad to a global network connecting entrepreneurs across cities and time zones. We have active chapters in India, growing ones in Dubai and Singapore, and a thriving community in the Bay Area. Each city carries its own setup, but what makes eChai special everywhere is the same: founders helping founders, without pretense.

San Francisco wasn’t always one of our most active chapters. We had done a few meetups when someone from eChai was visiting from India, but the consistency wasn’t there yet. That changed when Khyati Brahmbhatt decided to take the lead.

In February 2025, when Khyati was visiting India, I invited her to one of our eChai meetups in Ahmedabad. It was a typical founder evening, lively, curious, full of conversations that carried on late into the night. During that chat, she asked, “Let me know if you plan to do anything in San Francisco.” I said, “We already do, but not as frequently as in other cities.” She smiled and said, “I can help you with anything that you need.” That simple offer was the start of everything that followed.

Living in the United States, Khyati understood the founder diaspora, people who had moved for opportunity but missed the sense of belonging that eChai represents. She started small. A few mixers. A dinner. A food-truck social. Then partnerships with Zoom HQ, San José State University, and Playground Studios. She also brought key restaurants like Rooh, Fitoor, and Ettan into the mix for founder dinners. Each gathering felt intentional. She treated every event like a product, observe what works, improve what doesn’t, and make sure people leave feeling connected.

That steady approach transformed eChai San Francisco into what it is today: a familiar home for founders traveling from India and a local community for those building in the Bay Area. It carries the same openness as our Indian chapters, but adapted to a global context. And now, Khyati is extending that blueprint across North America.

She builds communities the way great product and growth leaders build teams: with empathy, clarity, and the confidence that small iterations compound faster than grand gestures. You can see that thinking in everything she does, in how she listens to feedback after every event, how she notices what keeps founders coming back, and how she quietly improves the experience without making it look like a strategy. It’s about designing trust, one experience at a time, until people start to feel like they belong without being told they do.

As Khyati now lays out her plans for eChai North America, I’m excited to see what’s next, for her, for the founders she connects, and for this journey we’ve started together. If the past eight months are any indication, the best chapters of this story are still to come.