A Digital Journal feature on how a #1 Amazon devotional funded by Forbes 30 Under 30 founder Alexander Debelov and Brazilian creator Stefania Leão is quietly becoming one of the year’s most unusual social ventures, feeding a village in Malawi and putting books into hands on Larkin Street.
There is a version of the modern founder story that everyone already knows. Immigrant kid. Y Combinator batch. Series A. A quiet exit, a Forbes list, a second act.
Alexander Debelov has done all of it. He arrived in the United States from Russia at 13, raised a $6.6 million seed round at Y Combinator for the ad-tech company Virool, grew that business to a reported $120 million valuation, made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and today runs Go X, the largest B2B micromobility platform in the United States, operating scooters in 15 plus cities with more than 350 business partners. (National Law Review press release)
There is also a version of the modern creator story that everyone already knows. A young Brazilian woman on TikTok and Instagram, building a Portuguese speaking women’s community around faith and slow living, monetizing through an online hub.
Stefania Leão has done that too. Under @stefanialeao on TikTok and @stefanialeaoofficial on Instagram, she founded Stefania Hub, a digital community that gathers women and Christian readers around writing, art direction, and quiet faith rooted living. (Author page, readtheprayer.com)
What is interesting is what happened when these two ordinary founder and creator arcs collided.
They wrote a book together. It was never supposed to be a business. It has now hit #1 on Amazon in three languages, won three international book awards in a single year, and been translated into seven languages. And they are not keeping any of the money.
The Prayer: Rise with Jesus, the illustrated 30 day devotional at the center of the story
The Book
The Prayer: Rise with Jesus is a 30 day illustrated Christian devotional. Five to ten minutes of scripture, reflection, prayer, and original watercolor per morning. Debelov painted the watercolors. Leão wrote the manuscript, initially in Portuguese, during what she has described as the hardest year of her life. (Goodreads listing)
They published it independently in 2025. No agent. No publisher. No launch strategy.
Within roughly a year, the book had won:
- Best Indie Book Award 2025, Christian Prayer and Meditation (Official Best Indie Book Awards)
- Storytrade Award 2025, Christian Devotional
- Readers’ Favorite 2025, Devotion and Study
And hit #1 on Amazon in three separate markets: Christian Prayer Books in English, Religion in Portuguese, and Religion in Italian. (Press kit, readtheprayer.com/press) The Portuguese edition, Oração, Erga-se com Jesus, has been a perennial bestseller across Brazil and Portugal. There are now editions in English, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, French, and Russian, plus a free Chichewa language edition prepared specifically for readers in Malawi.
Three international book awards in one year
The Money Trail
This is where the story stops looking like either founder theater or creator content, and starts looking like something else.
From the beginning, the authors publicly committed to redirecting every royalty, in every language, to two missions.
Mission one, San Francisco. Copies of The Prayer are handed out with pizza and bottled water in the Tenderloin. In a written statement carried by the Commercial Appeal on August 3, 2026, Leão said, “What people in the Tenderloin need most, more than anything we can hand them, is hope, and belief that they still matter.” (Commercial Appeal)
Mission two, Malawi. After a pastor named Edward Mikwamba in Blantyre wrote to ask for a few extra copies for his village, the authors printed a full free Chichewa language edition and began shipping copies, food, and food money to his congregation. (Akron Beacon Journal)
“I never imagined it would be read by anyone, let alone carried into villages in Malawi,” Leão told the Beacon Journal. “The book was meant to reach the people the world forgets. In Malawi, it finally has.”
The Chichewa edition, Pemphero, Dzuka ndi Yesu, was printed for free at the request of a pastor in Blantyre.
Two Backgrounds, One Ledger
The interesting thing, from a Digital Journal angle, is how differently these two people arrived at the same decision.
Debelov’s route is a founder route. He describes, in his own Medium essay, the specific psychology of what happens after a major exit. The dashboards fill up, the trophies come in, and the quiet stays quiet. His pivot to giving is written in the language of a man who spent 15 years optimizing metrics and discovered that the metrics were not the point.
Leão’s route is a creator route. She spent years building a following on TikTok and Instagram, teaching, posting, showing up. Her pivot is written in the language of someone who spent years pouring outward through a camera and discovered that the deepest audience was not the follower count but a woman on Larkin Street who hugged her for a full minute without speaking. (The Prayer press kit, readtheprayer.com/press)
They meet, essentially, on the same ledger line. A #1 Amazon bestseller with the royalties zeroed out on purpose.
What Coverage Has Looked Like
For a small independent devotional written by two first time book authors, the media footprint is unusually broad. Between May and August 2026, the book was covered by:
- The Christian Post, including a feature on Leão personally delivering 30 copies to Brazil’s national team at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami before the team’s 3-0 win over Scotland at the 2026 World Cup.
- Baptist News Global, which reported that TikTok reviews of the book came from people “overcoming addiction, handling grief from the death of a son, those recovering in a hospital.”
- Church Timesin London (church-times.co.uk), Vision Christian Media in Australia, UCB Asia Pacific, Revista Pernambuco in Brazil, Christian Tribune in Taiwan, CVandaag in the Netherlands, Christian Daily Español, AP News, and a US TV block including FOX and CW affiliates. (Coverage index, readtheprayer.com/press)
Leão personally delivered copies of the Portuguese edition to the Brazilian national team at Hard Rock Stadium before the 2026 World Cup match against Scotland.
The Tenderloin, Firsthand
The clearest way to understand what the two authors are building is to describe one afternoon.
They park in the Tenderloin. They unload pizza, water, and boxes of small blue books. They walk block by block. On a good afternoon, they will spend two or three hours giving out food and copies. On the block, the food usually goes first. And then, and this is what has surprised them the most, the book goes second, and it goes the fastest.
In Debelov’s own account, he approached a woman near a tent, offered her a meal, water, and a copy. She took only the book. She walked into the middle of the street. She stopped there and started reading. Traffic slowed around her. He drove home with chills.
A neighbor settles in with the book as meals are handed out on the block.
That afternoon has now happened, in different forms, dozens of times. A man in a red sleeping bag. A young woman under a hoodie who hugged Stefania Leão in silence for a full minute. A tent block on Larkin where three copies moved hand to hand before the pizza boxes were fully unpacked.
Why This Matters for the Sector
For readers who track social entrepreneurship and impact economics, the ledger here is worth noting. This is not a corporate CSR carve out. It is not a founder’s late in life foundation. It is a first book from two first time authors who committed to zero personal upside before the first sale, and then executed a mainstream commercial success anyway.
Independently published faith books, as Baptist News Global pointed out, rarely crack a national bestseller list. (Baptist News Global) When they do, the standard next move is a publishing deal and a personal brand acceleration. This author pair did neither. They kept the operation independent, kept the ledger public, and pointed all of it at unhoused neighbors in one American city and one hungry village in Malawi.
If it holds, it is a small but useful case study in what a mid career founder and a mid career creator can do when they stop optimizing for personal upside and start optimizing for the same downstream reader.
What Is Next
Leão is planning to travel to Malawi in the coming year with a suitcase full of copies, to hand them out in Pastor Edward’s church in Blantyre in person. Debelov is continuing his weekly Tenderloin outreach. A Russian edition is in production. (readtheprayer.com/authors/stefania-leao)
They are also, in the meantime, still running their day jobs. Go X keeps expanding into new cities. Stefania Hub keeps growing. TikTok keeps posting.
The dashboards, in other words, keep filling up. The interesting thing is that this time, both authors say, the quiet has stopped being quiet.
Learn more – Press kit and imagery: readtheprayer.com/press – The Malawi edition and ministry: readtheprayer.com/malawi – Stefania Leão, TikTok: @stefanialeao, Instagram: @stefanialeaoofficial – Alexander Debelov and Go X: gox.com
