How We Came To The Name, HappyHQ

30 March 2026

My previous company was a B2B ecommerce software company. Our name was kinda long, two words, and sorta techie. I loved it. Our branding colors and site were not very common for our space–softer and lighter blues and pink. It worked. The truth is, though, that I have secretly always wanted to create a more consumer-friendly brand. I have always admired B2B apps that have fun, consumer-ish identities. I’m tired of the boring blues, greens, and generally bland business sites and applications. Where is the creativity? Where is the fun? Why can’t a business that focuses on selling to other businesses and professionals be whimsical, loud, and bright?

When I sold my company to Mailchimp, one of the more satisfying things was getting to join a fun, bright B2B brand with a storied voice in the world of design. Mailchimp was the leader in creating a cheerful B2B brand. The bright yellow (aka cavendish!), the monkey (Freddie!), and even the offices were filled with color and imagination.

The original idea for HappyHQ was born out of frustration. One of the last things I did before leaving my corporate, public-company job was to lead the annual performance review and calibration process for all of Product and Design. My job was to corral hundreds of performance review slides from managers. Each slide represented an individual and listed out accomplishments and opportunities. Each slide also documented a performance rating. Gathering these slides together was like pulling teeth. Heck, even putting my own slides together was incredibly challenging. I found myself spelunking around calendars, docs, slides, analytics tools, Figma, and beyond, trying to remember what had happened to be able to put together the most compelling information. This wasn’t my first rodeo of doing performance reviews and calibrations, but this last time was especially painful. I will have to write more about that in a future post, but the headline is that I knew that there had to be a better way for individuals, managers, and teams to generate more meaningful digests, and then discussions, of their work.

A few months after leaving that product leadership role, I missed building products and teams. I just enjoy designing, building, and shipping products! I also wanted to experience building in the age of AI. It just seemed too interesting to not participate. I had an urge to build something, and the pain of the performance review process was still fresh in my mind. I started to have conversations with other leaders about their experiences with reviews (quick synopsis: every single person despises the process!). The idea of trying to solve the pain of performance reviews started to take shape, but I knew that in order to solve this problem, it required solving a much bigger problem around how and where information in companies is stored, surfaced, and shared.

I began by drafting a doc that outlined my product and company thoughts, and it quickly ballooned into a fun, free-flowing multi-page document of ideas, including about the brand I wanted to create. I shared it with a few friends to get feedback. The name HappyHQ hadn’t yet surfaced, but I did have the idea to create a fun and colorful brand that was loud and happy, and in fact delightful, to use. I wrote these company principles in my initial doc:

Delightful

We believe products and brands should look great and be fun to use. We’re a B2B app, but designed with a playful consumer experience.

Fun

Our brand is bright and happy. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. The work we do is important, and we do it with a smile on our face.

I started to riff on the word, happy. Happy App and Happy Appy came to mind. I liked how those two rhymed, but I didn’t love being locked into the word “app.” As one does, I would think of a name and then check to see if the domain was available. Call me old school, but I still really wanted to have a .com URL.

I then remembered that Slack’s first domain and social handles were “SlackHQ.” There were other companies that also used the “HQ” for their URLs and social accounts. I liked that the “HQ” of “HappyHQ” could actually be relevant to our product (i.e. this is a product that can help your headquarters to be happy!). I did a quick check to see if HappyHQ.com was available, and although it was taken, it appeared as though I could submit a request to purchase it from the owner. I felt like it was probably a slim chance that I could get it and it would likely be too expensive, but I felt like I had nothing to lose by trying. I submitted a bid via the escrow service. I decided to go with an amount that I felt would gather some attention and separate my bid from the noise, but one that was still within my budget. The next day, I got a counter bid that exceeded my budget. It wasn’t too astronomical, but it was still out of my reach. I decided to counter with a final offer that was nearly at my budget, but we were still thousands of dollars apart. At that point, I felt like it wasn’t going to happen. Then, a day later, I got an email from someone at the escrow service with a request from the seller. The seller was asking what I was planning to do with the domain. The person at the escrow service made it clear that I was under no obligation to reply and that my reply would be anonymous. Again, I figured why not try, so I wrote this:

We are building a product to help managers and teams be more intentional and effective leaders. The general thesis is that managers today are poorly equipped to manage people. They don’t have the tools or skill sets to help their employees learn and grow. They are often thrown into the deep end and expected to navigate all the complexities of people management. Our product aims to help managers build engaged and high-performing teams, inspire winning cultures, and in turn, make companies more successful.

One of our founding principles is that we believe that work done well can make people more happy, businesses more successful, and the world more peaceful. (We know, it’s ambitious!) We are a small team of 3 and are completely bootstrapped (i.e. we’re using our savings to build our product!). We love the name HappyHQ. The domain cost is a bit outside of our budget, but we love it so much that we wanted to see if we could get it. We have other domain and naming options, but HappyHQ is our favorite. Thanks, again, for considering.

I sent it off still thinking that my chances of getting the domain were slim, but the very next day I got a note from the escrow service saying, “Congratulations, the seller has accepted your offer.” I was ecstatic! The seller met my counter (going lower than what they had first countered!). At that moment, I just knew that HappyHQ was meant to be!

It’s now about six months later. We’ve incorporated as a C-corporation. We’ve held a few product brainstorming sessions, and we’ve launched an initial splash page with some details about our product and company. We’ve spoken to more potential customers, and we are now working to get an early version of our product launched. Oh, and our first brand workshop is scheduled for next month! I can’t wait to see HappyHQ come to life! I know it’s going to be, and look, fun.