How do founders actually discover tools when they’re in the middle of solving something
Not sure if it's just me but a lot of ads feel kinda random. Usually when I'm working on something, fixing up analytics or improving onboarding, the things I actually need at that very particular moment are very contextual. Most discovery that seems to happen still comes from generic ads directories, whatnot.
I've been thinking a lot about how founders actually discover useful tools in practice, especially during problem solving or when they're actually trying to create something. I just wanted to ask a few questions :
- You're actively trying to solve something. Where do you get your tools from?
- Do you rely on search bars, communities, LinkedIn, or friends?
- Have you ever just come across that eureka moment where you're like, "Trying to solve some problem and then at that particular time somehow you just get the magical answer to it"?
Just wanted to know
honestly for me its like 80% communities and 20% random twitter threads lol. google search is basically useless now for discovrey, its all SEO spam and listicles
the contextual thing u mentioned is so real tho. i never go looking for tools in advance, its always "oh crap i need this RIGHT NOW" and then i scramble. found most of my fav apps that way - stumbled on an article-to-audio app when i was tryign to consume more content during commutes, found a personalized horoscope podcast app just scrolling twitter at 2am
i think the best discovrey happens in places like this tbh. ppl sharing what they actaully use vs what they think they should reccomend. ads and directories feel so disconnected from real usage
the eureka moment is real. its never when ur searching, its always when ur not looking for it
YEP THE SHOWER THOUGHTS LIKE MOMENT
I’ve actually been building something around this idea instead of promoting tools broadly, it surfaces them inside the exact contexts where people are already expressing the need.
Basically trying to make those accidental discoveries happen more often but at the right moment.
I had this eureka moment....I was heads down working on gobananas.dev for months and finally was at about 90% and decided I need a break. I called up a friend and we went for an afternoon cigar. I was fully relaxed, committed to not thinking about the build. Then my friend got up to go to the bathroom. When he did that, I could help but look at my phone and there I saw that Anthropic has just released SDK. They literally just built what I was working on as the engine of my platform. I finished my cigar went home and gutted my architecture and swapped it out with Claude SDK. Lots of people would have felt discouraged but I was actually excited because at least it didn't get released AFTER I had launched.
I think to answer your question you should stay heads down but come up for air often enough that you don't miss big things. Basically be a dolphin lol.
Yep dont go too deep in your man cave
The dolphin framing is honestly perfect , head down long enough to build something meaningful, but surfacing just enough to not miss shifts in the layer you’re building on.
AI especially feels like this right now. Entire primitives can appear overnight and suddenly change what makes sense to build vs integrate.
I’m building in the discovery / intent layer myself (AXL), so this balance has been very real lately deep focus to shape something new, but also staying aware of how fast the surrounding stack is evolving.