Why we built Happy

Today, we announced the release of Happy - the People & Coaching platform we have been building for the last year.

When we founded Happy Companies, our dream was that the Happy platform would make the future of work genuinely better by improving how people and teams interact, while enhancing manager and leadership effectiveness. And most importantly, connecting teams.

Over the last two years, we've dreamed, discussed, brainstormed, and coded like mad (we may have even cried a bit) and we are so excited to be finally sharing Happy.

Here is Happy's official press release.

The Happy team (check them out here) has worked their butts off–but the part I'm most proud of is that they all so determined to build something that contributes to the world and creating happier people at work. Our work is far from done. This is v1 of the platform, and we realize we are in the first quarter of a four quarter game. But we've had a great start.

What did we build?

Happy's People Engagement Platform helps individuals and teams work better, together, accelerating organizational performance by activating employee engagement.

The platform allows employees to create a "Happy Profile," essentially a personal user manual that details their work motivations, values, and preferences to facilitate better workplace relationships. When combined with Happy NxtGen, a behavioral assessment tool built inspired by DISC and decades of EQ research, anyone can view their coworkers workstyle and learn how they interact with their team.

Happy also features Coach, which offers confidential personalized guidance and coaching at scale. Drawing from expertise provided by top leadership coaches & generative AI, the Happy Coach can help resolve conflicts, offer insights for improving relationships with coworkers and managers, and provide in-the-moment guidance within existing workplace tools.

The most awesome part - all of the coaching is individualized, and uses smart algorithms to deliver insights automatically on the people who most frequently interact together at work.

Our goal: empowering people and organizations to reach their fullest potential

Since we developed this idea in 2021, we’ve been committed to assembling an amazing team to join this mission.

Unlike traditional solutions that primarily offer coaching and consulting for senior leadership, Happy aims to use technology to democratize access to individualized coaching and insights for everyone at work. The Happy platform is designed for all levels—individual contributors, managers, and senior leaders—looking to unlock and improve communication.

The world of workplaces has changed forever, so we built Happy to enhance and power all types of workforces–remote, onsite, and hybrid, or anything in between. Whether you are starting a job for the first time, or an experienced senior manager, Happy is here to help you become more engaged, more connected, more productive, a better communicator, and fundamentally happier at work.

To achieve our goals, Happy focuses on three core strategies:

1. Building a killer product that is intuitive and easy to use, eliminating any friction in the organization’s improvement journey.
2. A relentless focus on improving team productivity, communication, and collaboration at scale, using technology and science.
3. Building a team that is passionate about Happy’s mission, who are willing to push the limits to do genuinely good for the world.

How Happy is going to help the world of work

At Happy, we believe we've created something useful. We realize that we're just at the beginning of this journey, but over the last year, we've worked with over 200 CEOs, HR directors/leaders, and over 1,000 managers and employees, and many pilots, to know that people see real value in getting coaching, insights, and building connections with their coworkers.

When teams integrate Happy to improve how their people work together, and to begin a process of unlocking self-awareness, understanding, and connection - we know they will be significantly better off than they were before.

Our job is to build something remarkably easy to use that makes people’s working relationships better, helping them learn, and become better communicators at work. But our job is also much more than that. It is also to understand the type of relationships and connections that people want at work and then translate the value of Happy into their organizations.

Defining a New Market

Thousands of brilliant and talented people are working on improving how people work together through coaching, consulting, or engineering solutions in this general space.

Yet, we find ourselves in a unique position – we are not competing in a large, well-defined market with clear incumbents. Instead, we believe we have created a unique platform that transcends conventional boundaries.

The Happy platform is designed to help CEOs, Leaders, and Managers with the process of organizational metamorphosis–transforming their companies for the future of work. A world where people come first, and where they work, when, and how they work, doesn't define them any longer. It's a future where people are valued as individuals, and evaluated based on their productivity. But, creating connection and understanding in the new world of work is much more difficult, as in many cases, we aren't working together in the same physical locations.

We aim to focus on what people and companies can become with Happy. No CEO, HR, or employee awoke today with a burning desire to login to another tool at work. Happy has to be great. Not just good.

When a company embraces and integrates Happy, they're not just buying a product with a list of features–they will be unleashing a platform that shifts their people’s approach to working together, provides an always-on coaching resource, and improves communication at work. This transformation is evident in people’s enhanced interactions within the organization, in improving productivity, effectiveness, and connectedness.

Honor the past, innovate the future

We want to partner with people and organizations that care deeply about creating better companies, better teams, and better people. This community must be inclusive and not exclusive. It’s partners, coaches, CEOs, people from the mailroom to the boardroom; HR and thought leaders, to engineers, writers, and anyone who has a passion for getting better every day. Even existing and new competitors.

We must think through with deep respect all of the work that has been done in the last hundred years by unbelievably talented coaches, writers, psychologists, advisors, and mentors. There are many schools of thoughts on how to drive transformation and the future of work.

We must seek to honor this community, learn from them, but also, seek inspiration, that the Happy team can use to improve, refine, and develop the platform to meet their needs.

The payoff is immense.

Happier companies. Happier people.

If you'd like to talk to us about Happy, we'd love to talk with you.

With Love,

James Lawrence // Cofounder & CEO