Celery
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Celery was a San Francisco 'pre-commerce' startup, a Y Combinator alum founded in 2013 by Groupon's former VP of business development Chris Tsai, with Brian Nguyen and Peter Shih (a key developer on LinkedIn's iPhone team). Built on Stripe, it offered beautifully customizable pre-order sites for creators and hardware makers — standalone sites, custom URLs, or a two-line-of-code widget — letting sellers capture payment information without charging until products shipped, plus order management, coupons and analytics. Charging a 2% commission versus 5% on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, it positioned itself as the home for selling products throughout their journey from crowdfunding to pre-orders to traditional sales, and later launched Celery Launch, a self-hosted crowdfunding option used by partners including Disney, Timex and Lockitron. It raised $2 million from Y Combinator, SV Angel and Max Levchin.
02 / Celery FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Celery never fully failed as a business so much as it was absorbed out of existence. First, it occupied a thin slice between giants: 'pre-commerce' was defensible as long as the big crowdfunding platforms stayed out of it, but once Indiegogo launched InDemand in January 2015 to sell products post-crowdfunding, Celery was competing directly with a better-funded incumbent serving the same customers. Second, the niche was structurally constrained: pre-order software is a feature of the checkout layer, and platforms like Stripe and Shopify — on top of which Celery itself was built — could capture the value without a standalone company. Third, rather than fighting a war of attrition, the founders took the exit: in May 2016 Indiegogo acquired the pre-order business's IP — domain, logo and licenses to the source code — and folded it into InDemand, ending Celery as an independent venture.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Founded in San Francisco by Chris Tsai, Brian Nguyen and Peter Shih; went through Y Combinator and launched the pre-order platform.
- Funding
Raised $2 million from Y Combinator, SV Angel and Max Levchin for its 2%-commission 'pre-commerce' platform.
- Celery Launch
Launched self-hosted crowdfunding tools, trialed with Disney, Timex and Lockitron.
- Acquired by Indiegogo
Indiegogo acquired the IP of Celery's pre-order business — domain, logo and source code licenses — and folded it into its InDemand post-crowdfunding product.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
2013: founded in San Francisco by Chris Tsai, Brian Nguyen and Peter Shih; went through Y Combinator.
- 02
2013–2014: launched the pre-order platform (built on Stripe) with 2% commission, two-line-of-code embeds, and no charge until shipping; raised $2 million from Y Combinator, SV Angel and Max Levchin.
- 03
2015: launched Celery Launch, a self-hosted crowdfunding option, trialed with partners including Disney, Timex and Lockitron.
- 04
May 2016: Indiegogo acquired the IP of Celery's pre-order business — including its domain, logo and licenses to its source code — and absorbed the assets into its InDemand post-crowdfunding product; Celery ceased to operate independently.