Candle

Pivotes 5 times to hit $1M in 6 months

Raised $2M to build from AI shopping tool to many 10 ideas that all stuck. Their journey included: • Starting with Encore, a conversational AI shopping tool, which got them into YC but struggled with unit economics in the secondhand shopping market. • Experimenting with more than 10 different ideas over four to five months, including concepts in fashion and sports. • Facing personal and professional strain during this period of frequent changes. • Eventually landing on the idea for Candle—a swipeable deck of questions to spark conversations between partners—which gained traction after a viral TikTok post. Their final pivot led to the creation of Candle, a social app focused on helping couples and close friends stay connected through daily prompts and games. Now 6 months after launch, Candle has grown to 300,000 users, including 150,000 couples. More than 250,000 are active each month, with a DAU/MAU ratio of around 50%, a strong signal of engagement for a consumer social app and an early sign of daily habit potential. Candle has also ranked in Apple’s App Store top 25 multiple times.