Our Story

It started with five words in a diary.

It was a Sunday evening in 2015. Janis sat down to write in his diary — nothing fancy, just a notebook he'd been keeping since university. As he looked back on the weekend, the same phrase kept appearing: "Wow, what a day!"

He flipped back through the pages. There it was again and again — after hiking trips, after long dinners with friends, after lazy Saturday mornings that somehow turned into adventures. "Wow, what a ___ day." It was his default way of marking the moments that mattered.

That pattern sparked an idea.

What if every day could be a WOW day?

Not in a toxic-positivity, pretend-everything-is-perfect way. But in a deeper sense — what if you could train yourself to notice the extraordinary in the ordinary? What if the simple act of looking for your daily "wow" could change how you experience your whole life?

This became a love project with Sveta, his fiancée at the time. Together, they started experimenting. They went on 50 consecutive travel weekends — not luxury trips, just intentional adventures. Weekend after weekend, they practiced finding wow in the small stuff: sunrise over a lake, a perfect meal in a town they'd never heard of, getting lost and stumbling into something beautiful.

From app to journal — eleven years of evolution

At first, Janis imagined WowDay as an app. He sketched features, explored digital solutions. But something didn't feel right. The magic of the original diary entries was the handwriting — the slowness of pen on paper, the imperfection of crossed-out words, the physical weight of a book filling up with your life stories.

So over eleven years, the concept evolved. It was refined through thousands of personal entries, conversations with other journalers, and a growing body of research on gratitude, storytelling, and habit formation. What emerged wasn't just another gratitude journal — it was a storytelling journal. A place to write the story of your day, not just list things you're thankful for.

The WowDay 90-Day Journal is the result: a guided, beautifully designed A5 journal that walks you through six daily practices — from morning intentions to evening reflection, with the centerpiece being your daily WOW story.

Why we made it

Because we believe everyone has stories worth telling. Not just the world travelers and the Instagram-famous — everyone. The parent who had a breakthrough conversation with their kid. The programmer who saw a sunset on the walk home and actually stopped. The retiree who tried a new recipe and surprised themselves.

Your life is more extraordinary than you think. You just need a place to capture it.