# A chai meetup, every month. No slides. > Once a month Product Circle members meet in person over chai. Good conversation, no slides. What the meetup is, who it's for and how to get the most from it. Source: https://productcircle.club/membership/chai-meetups ยท Updated 2026-10-16 The Product Circle chai meetup is a monthly, in-person get-together for members: product managers and founders sitting down over chai for good conversation, with no slides. It's where people you've met in AMAs and teardowns become people you actually know. ## What is the Product Circle chai meetup? It's the one format in Product Circle that's explicitly in person. Once a month, members meet, order chai and talk. There's no stage, no speaker and no deck. The only agenda is the conversation. That's deliberate. Most product meetups are talks with networking bolted on at the end. The chai meetup is the networking, done the way people actually like it: a small table, a few people, and enough time to get past "so what do you do?" ## How the chai meetup works What we can say publicly: 1. It happens **monthly**. 2. It's **in person**. 3. The format is **good conversation, no slides**. Where and when each meetup happens is shared with members. We don't publish venues or dates on this site. ## Why in person still matters Online formats are efficient. The [weekly AMA](https://productcircle.club/membership/weekly-ama) and [product teardowns](https://productcircle.club/membership/product-teardowns) are great for learning. But trust tends to build faster face to face. The person who answered your question in a teardown becomes the person you call before you accept a job offer, and that usually happens after you've shared a table. In-person meetups also suit the conversations that don't fit a group chat: whether to leave a job, whether to raise now or later, how to handle a difficult founder or manager. Those are easier over a cup of chai than in a thread. ## Who the chai meetup is for - **PMs** who want peers outside their company. If you're the only PM at a startup, it can be the closest thing you have to a team of fellow PMs. - **Founders** who spend their days selling, hiring and fundraising, and want an hour with people who understand the job. - **New members** who've just been introduced and want to put faces to [taglines](https://productcircle.club/membership/member-intros). - **Anyone who's thinking about a change**, whether that's a new role, a new company, or moving from PM to founder. Our post on going [from product manager to founder](https://productcircle.club/blog/from-product-manager-to-founder) is good pre-reading for that conversation. ## How to get the most from a chai meetup ### Come with one question Not a pitch. A question. "Has anyone hired a first PM before Series A?" or "How do you run customer interviews when your users are small-town shopkeepers?" A good question gets people talking and tells them what you care about. ### Come with one thing to offer Know one thing you could help someone with: an intro, a tool you love, a lesson you learned the hard way. Conversations go better when both sides bring something. ### Talk to someone you haven't met It's easy to sit with the people you already know. Try to have at least one conversation with someone new each time. ### Use the taglines Before you go, look back at recent [member intros](https://productcircle.club/membership/member-intros). If someone's tagline overlaps with what you're working on, find them. ### Follow up within a day Send a short message to the people you spoke with: what you talked about and the one thing you said you'd share. It's the step most people skip, and it's what turns a pleasant evening into a relationship. Our guide to [networking for product managers](https://productcircle.club/blog/networking-for-product-managers) has more on following up without feeling awkward. ## An example of a good meetup conversation Here's an illustrative example of how a conversation might go. It isn't from a real meetup. A founder building software for clinics mentions she's about to hire her first PM and isn't sure whether to look for someone senior or someone hungry. A PM at the table has been the first PM at two startups. They talk about what that PM owned in the first six months, what went wrong the first time, and how the founder could test candidates with a small paid project. Another member suggests she post the role on the [jobs board](https://productcircle.club/membership/jobs-board), and someone else recommends booking [office hours](https://productcircle.club/membership/office-hours) with a founder who has hired before. No slides were involved. Three useful things came out of one cup of chai. ## How the meetup fits with the rest of membership The chai meetup is one of six things members get. It's the in-person counterpart to the formats that teach and connect, and it works best when you've also been showing up to those. See the full list on the [membership page](https://productcircle.club/membership). ## Frequently asked questions ### How often is the Product Circle chai meetup? Once a month. It's in person. ### Where is the chai meetup held? Venues and dates are shared with members rather than published. If location matters for you, mention where you're based in your application. ### Is there a talk or presentation at the meetup? No. The format is good conversation, no slides. There's no speaker and no deck. ### Do I need to know people already? No. The meetup is a good way to meet members you've only seen in intros or sessions. Come with one question and one thing to offer, and talk to someone new. ### Who can attend the chai meetup? The chai meetup is for Product Circle members. Joining starts with a short application. ## Pull up a chair If you'd like more conversations like this and fewer slide decks, start with a short application on the [how to join page](https://productcircle.club/how-to-join). Meetup details are shared once you're in.