How did WeGlow start? A candle and a family

WeGlow began with a family ritual: lighting a candle to support someone. Here is how a father's idea grew into a platform for non-profits.

WeGlow started with a candle. In founder Quinten Dockx's family, lighting a candle had long been a way to support someone, and his father turned that into an idea: bring all those candles together on one world map. A platform for non-profits grew out of it. Here is the story as Lovable published it about the founders.

One honest note: this story comes from Lovable, the company behind the tool WeGlow went on to build with, and Lovable published it as a customer story. It is therefore a supplier's story, not an independent source.

The candle ritual

According to the story, lighting a candle has meant something in Quinten's family for as long as he can remember. His father has lived with a serious illness for 15 years. Before each hospital check-up, Quinten sent him a message saying he was lighting a candle for him. His sisters and his father's friends did the same, and the candle became a way to show support.

His father's idea

His father suggested bringing all those candles together: a map of the world where every act of support glows, each candle standing for a donation. Quinten says that idea is where WeGlow started and why it exists.

Jef joins

Jef Janssens had met Quinten at school years earlier, and they were close friends. Quinten called him in December 2023, and by January 2024 Jef was working full time on WeGlow. Neither of them is technical, so they hired people to build the software.

The outsourced first version that failed

That did not go well. By the story's account the first version was expensive, slow and did not work, and the money to keep working with the agency ran out. Nearly 3 years and almost €100,000 went into trying to get the product right.

Still, they got a basic version into the hands of non-profits. They offered the first customers lifetime access for a one-time fee, with early access to new features. In that version a donor gave to a cause and lit a virtual candle next to the donation, which then appeared on the map.

Listening to non-profits

Organisations liked the idea. But as Jef puts it, it was a fun feature, not a product they would pay for. So the founders stopped pitching and started asking: how do non-profits raise money, which tools do they use and where do those tools fall short?

They heard that software was too expensive, too technical or a poor fit for smaller organisations, and that free platforms came with trade-offs around money and donor data.

Quinten says the mission is still to make the world glow, but they also saw non-profits stuck without the right technical tools. They wanted to give every non-profit what it needs to start fundraising.

The five-minute experiment

Then Jef found Lovable, a product for building apps, on LinkedIn. He described what he wanted and within minutes had an interactive sales dashboard.

Quinten tried it too and within a day had working donation campaigns with a virtual candle on a world map, logins for non-profits to create campaigns, and payments through Stripe, with a far better user experience than before. In his words it was much more than they expected in a single day, and from then on they could keep iterating themselves.

A toolkit that grew with what non-profits asked for

A whole toolkit grew around what organisations requested. The story lists WeGlow Mail, an integrated email tool, a donor CRM, and an AI assistant that helps non-profits create campaigns, newsletters and emails. The story calls it Glowy AI; we write Glowie. Jef sums it up: they started super small with one feature, building a campaign, and then they listened and optimised.

How far a candle travels

Candles travel far. A campaign with a Dutch radio station brought candles from the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Germany, Spain and beyond, and support also came from Mexico, Jamaica and Australia. A candle can mean remembrance, good luck, a birthday or solidarity, or simply that you are thinking of someone. Jef says the idea of lighting a candle is understood in every culture.

Quinten's father still follows the team's work as an advisor from the sidelines, and Quinten says feedback from non-profits is what motivates him most to keep going.

Frequently asked questions

Who founded WeGlow?

According to the Lovable story, Quinten Dockx and Jef Janssens, two friends who are not technical.

Why a candle?

In Quinten's family a candle was a gesture of support, and his father wanted to bring all those candles together on a map, one candle per donation.

Where does Glowie come in?

The story mentions an AI assistant that helps non-profits create campaigns and emails. How Glowie works today is covered in our article about Glowie.

What went wrong with the first version of WeGlow?

According to the Lovable story, the team had an agency build the first version. It was expensive and slow, did not work well and the money ran out. In total nearly 3 years and almost €100,000 went into trying to get the product right, before they could iterate themselves with Lovable.

Sources

Quinten & Jef, founders of WeGlow (Lovable): the full founder story, published by Lovable (checked on 3 October 2026).