These YC founders pivoted 5 times before building a social app that nabbed 300K users and over $1M ARR in 6 months

September 24, 2025

, By Techcrunch

Share via:

A couple of months ago, the founders behind YC-backed social app rel=”nofollow” href=”https://www.trycandle.app/”Candle were in “pivot hell,” cycling through more than a dozen ideas after joining Y Combinator’s Fall 2024 batch, while the clock on their seed money ticked down.

rel=”nofollow” href=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-ruber”>Alex Ruber, previously an engineer at Apple, and rel=”nofollow” href=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/parthematics/”>Parth Chopra, formerly an engineer at Asana and Twitter, had built multiple projects together, including Encore, a conversational AI shopping tool that got them into YC and with which they raised $2 million.

However, while the tech worked, the unit economics…

Disclaimer

We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We StartupNews.fyi want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.

Previous News

Android PC is coming: Google confirms new project as Qualcomm CEO calls it ‘incredible’

Next News

The Case for Microfrontends and Moving Beyond One Framework

Popular

More Like this

These YC founders pivoted 5 times before building a social app that nabbed 300K users and over $1M ARR in 6 months

September 24, 2025

, Published By Techcrunch

A couple of months ago, the founders behind YC-backed social app rel=”nofollow” href=”https://www.trycandle.app/”Candle were in “pivot hell,” cycling through more than a dozen ideas after joining Y Combinator’s Fall 2024 batch, while the clock on their seed money ticked down.

rel=”nofollow” href=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-ruber”>Alex Ruber, previously an engineer at Apple, and rel=”nofollow” href=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/parthematics/”>Parth Chopra, formerly an engineer at Asana and Twitter, had built multiple projects together, including Encore, a conversational AI shopping tool that got them into YC and with which they raised $2 million.

However, while the tech worked, the unit economics…

Disclaimer

We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We StartupNews.fyi want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.

Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at office@startupnews.fyi

Previous News

Android PC is coming: Google confirms new project as Qualcomm CEO calls it ‘incredible’

Next News

The Case for Microfrontends and Moving Beyond One Framework

More like this

Popular

Block title