Introducing Candle

What are we doing?

Candle is infrastructure for supporting marketplaces. It is a simple to use, comprehensive API that lets you build & manage two-sided marketplaces.

Imagine you're a talented mobile developer with an idea for a marketplace. You come up with an innovative new experience that only truly works on mobile - like Tinder's swipes. No-code builders are great for building in the browser, but you're also limited by the design decisions of the platform. With Candle, you can unleash your creativity and ship something innovative in weeks, not months. You focus on developing the user experience, fostering the community, and all the aspects that go into building a successful marketplace. We will ensure our platform facilitates your process without hindering it.

Motivation

Marketplaces are notoriously difficult to build. We want to provide as much value as possible without getting in the way. I believe that what makes a marketplace successful is the strong emphasis on building a compelling brand and user experience (online and offline) that nurtures a thriving community.

In many ways, focusing too much on your infrastructure can be a distraction.

You could use no-code builders, but I think your ability to control the experience for your community matters. In other words, what does one do when the design sensibilities of a particular no-code builder do not align with your own? The alternative should not be to build everything from scratch.

The focus is simple: to provide the most possible value to people building marketplaces and to stay out of their way.

In order to be effective, Candle needs to provide a few things:

1. Make Building Marketplaces Suck Less

The development of marketplaces is a complex endeavor, plagued by numerous backend challenges — from handling user authentication to managing product listings and processing transactions. Candle aims to drastically simplify this process by abstracting the complexities of backend infrastructure and offering a suite of RESTful APIs designed for various functionalities essential to marketplace operations.

2. Improve Founders' Chances of Success

A marketplace's success hinges not just on its idea but also on its execution. Candle provides a comprehensive toolkit that aids in iterating quickly, testing hypotheses, and scaling effortlessly — vital components for a founder's success. Regardless of the product you wish to build, Candle's wide API scope should be able to support it.

3. Support Across Platforms / Ecosystems

Candle is built with cross-platform support in mind. Whether your marketplace is web-based, mobile, visionOS, or even integrated into third-party platforms, it has the back-end support needed to function smoothly.

I would love to know your thoughts.

Utilizing Candle’s API, building cross-platform marketplaces is significantly easier.

If you are building a marketplace, I would love to hear from you. Join the waitlist or share your thoughts directly with me at uri@candle.so.