Building Celevo in public — here's what changed since my last post
Hey IH 👋
Quick update on Celevo, my all-in-one event planning tool for the German/DACH market.
What's new since last time:
The feature list has grown significantly. On top of guest management, RSVP links, drag-and-drop seating chart and budget tracking, I've now added a full event website builder, bring-a-dish lists, carpool coordination, AI onboarding that generates a custom checklist per event type, and WhatsApp bulk messaging with personalized templates.
I also spent time thinking about something that most event planning tools get wrong: the person model. Right now a "guest" is just a row in a table. What I'm building toward is a proper person layer — the same human can be a guest at one event, a co-organizer at another, and eventually run their own events. One identity, multiple roles across events.
Where things stand:
Coming soon — waitlist is open. 47 people have signed up so far. Early bird pricing locked for the first 200.
Honest challenge:
Positioning. "Event planning" is accurate but too broad — no one thinks it's for them specifically. "Wedding planning" drives signups but misrepresents what Celevo actually does. Still working on this.
Question for the community:
Has anyone successfully launched a product in a non-English market first and then expanded? Curious how you handled the messaging shift when you went international.
This is really interesting! The “person layer” idea sounds like it could be a huge differentiator — thinking about users across events instead of just rows in a table is smart.
Regarding your question: I’ve seen founders start in one language/market and then expand by first localizing content and marketing messaging while keeping the core product the same. Some also run small beta tests in the new market to validate terminology, cultural context, and feature expectations before a full launch.
Would love to hear how you plan to handle user support and communications when moving into new markets that often surprises people more than the product itself.
Love seeing the updates. Celevo is getting really robust! The “person layer” idea sounds especially smart; it’s such a clean way to manage identities across events.
About launching in a non-English market first: from what I’ve seen, the key is to focus on the core value in your messaging, then adapt the language and cultural context when expanding. People respond to benefits first, language second. Curious, are you planning to keep the same feature names and terminology for the international launch, or localize them?