How two Y Combinator cofounders pivoted to a $1 million app

Alex Ruber and Parth Chopra met through Y Combinator's Co-founder Matching Program in January 2024. Both were full-time engineers when they built an AI-powered shopping tool and joined Y Combinator's fall 2024 batch, but the app ran at a loss. After roughly five months in the program they entered three months of intense pivoting, testing five to six ideas and coming close to quitting.

They imposed tight cycles: build a solution in one to two days, validate with user interviews, and run each concept for two to three weeks. Their rule was simple—do people return or pay? If not, move on. The constant industry hopping left them exhausted and prompted a pause that brought them back to a single lesson: stay in a consumer problem space they cared about.

That focus produced Candle, a one-question-a-day app designed to help people feel closer to loved ones. Early organic retention from friends and family led them to publish on the App Store in March 2025.

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