Candle App Founders Champion Direct Customer Engagement for Trust Building

Alex Ruber, co-founder of Candle, an application dubbed "the Duolingo for relationships," recently underscored the critical importance of direct customer support for early-stage startups. On "day 189 of building Candle," Ruber emphasized that founders should "never delegate your customer support," advocating for close engagement with early users to understand their challenges firsthand. This philosophy, he noted, helps in building trust and resolving issues effectively.

Candle aims to combat emotional drift in relationships by providing a private space for couples or friends to connect daily through prompts, games, and shared memories. The app, co-founded by Ruber and Parth Chopra, addresses the growing difficulty of maintaining consistent emotional connection amidst busy modern lives. It offers daily rituals designed to foster presence, play, and curiosity between users.

Ruber articulated his belief that founders must "get close with your early users, regardless of where you are and feel their pain when things crash." He cited an instance of co-founder Parth Chopra, known as @parthematics, joining a Google Meet call just before a five-mile hike to assist a user. This hands-on approach is central to Candle's operational strategy.

According to Ruber, solving "the long tail of user issues" not only fixes immediate problems but also builds "trust at scale." This direct interaction also provides users with a unique opportunity to meet the founders, creating a "win win" scenario for both the company and its community. This strategy is particularly vital for new ventures seeking to establish a loyal user base.

Candle has demonstrated notable early traction, reporting 110,000 monthly active users (MAUs) and 46,000 daily active users (DAUs) five months after its beta launch. Ruber, an ex-Apple and NASA engineer, and Chopra, an ex-Asana and Twitter engineer, bring extensive technical backgrounds to their venture, focusing on creating a platform that fosters genuine emotional momentum.