I want to tell you how Happy Daze started, because I think the honest version of the story is more useful than the polished one. It starts with a person who couldn't code, a blogging platform, and a highway sign.
The problem I couldn't stop thinking about
In 2021 I was fresh out of college with a bachelor's in Kinesiology, sports medicine track. Not computer science. Not journalism. Kinesiology.
What I did have was a persistent frustration. We were deep in a political cycle, and the corporate news media felt like absolute filth — scare-mongering, outrage on a loop, everything oversensationalized. There are plenty of outlets that will give you balanced coverage. That wasn't what I was missing. What I personally needed was a break space: somewhere to step out of the negative narrative for a while and remember that people are also curing diseases, discovering things, and building the future.
So I set a goal that sounded simple: build the perfect good-news app.
And I had strong opinions about why the existing ones didn't qualify. In my view a good-news platform had one job, and it needed three things to do it:
- Present information cleanly, without clutter.
- Use beautiful visuals to inspire the reader's imagination about the topic and what it might make possible.
- No intrusive, annoying ads.
Put simply: the most aesthetic and useful website I could make.
No skills, so I started anyway
I lacked the technical ability to build what I saw in my head, so I did what I could with what I had. I picked Ghost, a publishing platform that felt competitive and — this mattered a lot to me — supported custom themes. I found a theme called Nurui that matched the look I wanted, and it's part of the reason I chose Ghost in the first place. I'd used Squarespace on other projects, but for this idea I didn't try anything else. Ghost, Nurui, go.
In June 2021, Happy Daze went live, made with ❤️ in Pleasanton, California, and I slowly started posting articles.
The name
I love a play on words, and "Happy Daze" is exactly that. It's happy days, but it's also the idea of entering a world where everything is positive and being entranced — caught in a happy daze, if you will. It's not reality. It's a much-needed break from it.
I was almost sure of the name. Then one day I was driving on the highway and passed a sign for Happy Daze RV, a local RV business, spelled exactly the same way. A combination of synchronicities. That sold me.
Finding the niche
I started general — any good news — but the niche found me quickly: positive science news.
Part of that was taste. But a big part of it was practical. Early on, almost everything on the site was sourced and shared with attribution, and I needed content that satisfied two constraints at once: it had to be genuinely positive, and it had to come from institutions and companies that didn't mind me sharing it with credit. Research institutions, universities, and educational journals were happy to have their breakthroughs amplified. Science was where the mission and the material lined up.
Deciding what counts as "positive" was harder than it sounds. Where do you draw the bar? I settled on a guiding principle: the story least likely to elicit a negative response. It's not perfect. But it's honest, and it works.
Later, as I wanted to increase production, I stopped waiting on other people's coverage and went straight to the source myself — journals, research institutions, the primary material. Today almost everything on Happy Daze is custom.
The design philosophy
Having no ads helps immensely. Only valuable content is seen. No garbage.
Every article gets a beautiful feature image or video — something meant to inspire curiosity about the subject and hook the reader more naturally than a fake headline ever could. That's the whole trade I'm trying to make: replace clickbait with actual wonder.
The hardest part
Being consistent. Not the tech, not the writing — consistency.
Overall I've been pretty steady in publishing, but there were fluctuations. School, life, and other things had to take priority at times. I would always come back to it, though.
The lowest point came in the final few months of my didactic coursework — I was studying to become an echocardiography technologist — and I was spending nearly all my time studying. I hadn't posted in a while, and I felt genuinely unsure about my commitment to pushing the site and the mission to the next level.
Then someone subscribed to the Gold tier.
The perks were minimal back then; that tier was basically "I support this." And someone did that, out of nowhere, while the site was quiet and I was doubting myself. It was incredibly inspiring. I don't know who you are out there, but thank you for your support. It mattered more than you know.
What it built in me
Running Happy Daze is like taking an antidepressant. I'm working on automating parts of the process, but I'm still constantly researching, constantly surrounded by positive science stories and glass-half-full perspectives. It's an escape I get to live inside, and it's deeply fulfilling knowing other people enjoy it too — students, educators, enthusiasts, the list goes on.
It also taught me how to build. Every feature I'd envisioned and couldn't make in 2021 became a lesson. The iOS app started with WebViewGold, a service that wraps your existing website into an app. Today Happy Daze is completely custom on AWS, with next-level integrations for AI, analytics, and more. From the bottom to a state-of-the-art site — and I did all of it myself.
What's next
I want to keep shining a light on positive science stories and help inspire the next generation of doers and action-takers: people who move forward, glass half full, one step at a time toward their goal.
Concretely, that means continuing to upgrade production capacity and quality — more custom content, from interviews all the way to complete docuseries.
Supporting the site is what makes that possible. Lord knows how much I've spent on hosting, domains, stock imagery, AI coding subscriptions, custom code support from freelance professionals, and the dozens of regulatory requirements for the iOS app. Every bit of financial help goes a long way when one person is carrying the whole thing.
If you're where I was
If you're sitting where I sat in June 2021 — an idea, a mission, and no technical ability — here's what I'd tell you:
Start with what you can, and day by day take steps toward your perfect vision. You may never reach it. There will be times of stagnation. But even if you stay only somewhat consistent, it is incredible what you can create, and the level of effect you can have on other people's lives.
That's how Happy Daze came to be. It's still becoming.
Read Happy Daze at happydaze.io.