roy hod

Building for curious minds.
Discover what you wouldn’t think to look for.
Make it stick.

Founder of

[roy hod @imroy2143]

Curiosity has a blind spot.

It only points at things you already have a name for. Whole fields sit outside it, and they don't feel absent. They feel like nothing at all.

Day 1 of building for the blind spot, in public.

What did you find that you'd never have searched for?

[roy hod @imroy2143]

X-rays. Penicillin. The afterglow of the Big Bang.

All three were found by people looking for something else.

We plan learning like a search. Some of the best stuff only shows up when you stop searching.

Which accidental discovery is your favorite?

[roy hod @imroy2143]

@logerhaus I’m happy about that! Check out my app! https://t.co/zaQFf9M0AX
It’s all about discovering new topics

[roy hod @imroy2143]

What's the best rabbit hole you fell into by accident?

Mine: the software that flew Apollo 11 was woven by hand. Women at Raytheon threaded wire through tiny magnetic rings. Through the ring = 1. Around it = 0.

Engineers called it "LOL memory." Little Old Lady.

[roy hod @imroy2143]

@PAHoyeck Makes sense. "Clockwork Kant" is a better story than the real person, so it sticks.

Is there a biography you'd recommend for the real version of his life?

[roy hod @imroy2143]

@reymond______ Gotta own the numbers lol.

You find where products lose revenue, so I'll ask: is a 5% onboarding finish rate usually fixable with better copy, or is it a sign of something deeper?

[roy hod @imroy2143]

@progFilthi Glad it helped. Easiest test: open it on your phone with a VPN set to another continent. If the first screen takes more than a few seconds, people are gone.

Good luck with the DirtyBucket launch.

[roy hod @imroy2143]

@smm_aryan Exactly. Now the real work is finding which screen they quit on.

With the 240+ founders you've worked with, what's the most common onboarding mistake you see?

[roy hod @imroy2143]

@FilipPanoski Agreed. Nobody cares about your app yet, but everyone loves talking about their own problem.

Reddit worked for me. Saw you do a lot there too. What makes a problem post take off vs die quietly?

[roy hod @imroy2143]

@nonamme145 Animal Farm right after The Republic is a great combo. The pigs are basically Plato's guardians with none of the virtue.

Which one shifted your view the most?

[roy hod @imroy2143]

@Omgemeraldddd The Greeks didn't need the theme park. Around 240 BC Eratosthenes compared noon shadows in two Egyptian cities and worked out the size of the Earth. He got surprisingly close.

[roy hod @imroy2143]

@Grantblocmates Building solo, I learned this fast. The app took weeks to build. Anyone could clone it in less.

What took time: the first people who came back to it on their own. You can't copy that overnight.

[roy hod @imroy2143]

@fchollet Where does serendipity fit in this? X-rays, penicillin and the cosmic microwave background were all found by people looking for something else.

Do accidental discoveries also get exponentially harder, or is that the one part of the loop that doesn't?

[roy hod @imroy2143]

@readswithravi The catch: you can only go after what you already know exists.

Most of what changed how I think, I found by accident. A footnote, a random link, a wrong turn. Valuing learning means leaving room for those too.

[roy hod @imroy2143]

Last night I posted once and replied to 6 posts from other people.

My post: 5 views.
My reply on a thread about Kant: 420 views and 6 likes.

At 28 followers, replies are the real timeline. Most of the authors even answered back.

Small accounts: where do you spend your time?