Origins

Concept

After grad school in 2012, I decided to skip the security of a full-time job and build a startup with a friend. We were really struggling to make it take off and stress was compounding. To manage the mountain of pressure, I searched for tips and tricks to try to improve my mental health. Positive psychology was incredibly new at the time, but I discovered a few helpful blogs that explained recent research. One of the most common mood-boosting practices was called "3 good things" or gratitude journaling. The simple act of recording and reflecting on three positive moments (or things you are grateful for) each night.

I tried a few different ways to gratitude journal - in a small paper notebook, a Google Doc, and even Post-It notes. It became clear that there just had to be a better solution:

• Forming a new habit is hard, especially with challenges like how to hide a notebook from your roommate, forgetting a document password, or accidentally deleting an Apple Note.
• There's nothing like the feeling of pen on paper, but it's not always practical. Our phones are secure, always in our pockets, and often overfilled with photos we forget all about.
• Looking through old journals is a such a joy, but how often do we actually do this? With an app, you can create ways easily surface the past moments that really mattered.

The first version of Happyfeed was a simple iOS app - you couldn't edit or delete moments, add photos, or share anything with friends. Nevertheless, people discovered and started using it. Since then, I've had spoken with hundreds of journalers and have added all sorts of new features ranging from an edit button to video support, group sharing, and the Happiness Jar.

Mission

Happyfeed was created by a mechanical engineer with a passion for design and love of experimentation. Every new feature is constantly improved upon and takes advantage of the latest technologies. We value feedback from users above all else. Though we may not build every single suggestion, each conversation helps us learn more about how Happyfeed is used and how to steer the product in the right direction.

We recognize that technology has the power to both help and harm mental health. When you see a beautiful sunset, you shouldn't worry about how many likes it could get you. It's most important to savor that feeling and remember that little moments like that exist everywhere.

We believe that mental health is better with support. Friendship and social support are major factors in our well-being and happy moments should be shared (appropriately). We're constantly trying to find the balance between creating private memories and selective sharing to enhance those moments.

Our goal is to build something that will last a lifetime while you find more happiness. We get excited about finding new ways to bring positive psychology research into simple, delightful experience in our little app.

Happyfeed has a tiny team behind it, but we're thrilled to have some very passionate users - many having added years of memories in the app Hearing from people in the community almost always leads to improvements in the app. That could mean coming up with new feature idea, having an honest conversation about how someone uses Happyfeed, or just using the product and telling your friends.

To get involved send us a message.

Or try out the Plus version to support this journey 😄

To get in contact for any other reason (feedback, issues, outlandish feature requests), send us a brief message at [email protected].

We'd love to hear from you! Every little detail and fresh perspective matters.