Hi, I’m Diego Dotta

Sprinting, stumbling, and learning as I go.
Riding horses, not unicorns. (っ-,-)つ𐂃

  • Right, then left

    The e-Título app checked my face and my GPS to excuse me from voting in Brazil's runoff, but it couldn't let me vote. More than 30 million Brazilians didn't vote either, in a race decided by 4 million. So, I looked into how Estonia votes online and naively built a prototype for voting on the plan instead of the person.

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Projects

A living trail of the last things I’m building, breaking, or pretending to finish.

  • Now: September 2026

    • Life
      • We took the train from SF to Chicago. People say it’s one of the most beautiful train rides in the world (the typical American thing to say), and the best part was meeting people along the way, mostly retired couples and a young tech guy afraid of flying.
      • Chicago surprised us. Public transportation, bike lanes, a lake that looks like a beach, cheaper rents than the Bay and a shorter flight to Brazil. It seems too good to be true, so there must be something we haven’t found yet (the winter, probably). We’re strongly considering moving there next year.
      • Back in the Bay, now house sitting in El Cerrito with Ellie, in a house with one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen and nothing within walking distance except trails. The neighbors walk together every morning at 7:15, which is a great excuse to wake up early. Waking up before 7 is so cool, the mornings get so much longer.
    • Work
      • Finished moving all my sites off Namecheap, which was way easier than I thought, and wrote about it in Cloudflare Built EmDash. I Built NeighDash. NeighDash is public now, in case it helps someone else leave WordPress. Reddit, as usual, either removed my posts or sent the haters 😛
      • Started two new alarms: Exercise Alarm, which you can only stop by doing your squats or push ups, and Loud Birds, for people who sleep through everything. Before building more of them, I ran small ad tests for each idea. Bird Rise still beats all of them, and Loud Birds came out as the most expensive one.
      • Biggest ads surprise of the month: running the Bird Rise campaigns worldwide, optimized for an event right before the paywall instead of installs, found the winning ads much faster. Downloads spiked and the trial start rate dropped by half, so now I’m waiting to see if the volume makes up for it.
      • Made a new batch of Bird Rise ad videos with my own AI video editor, it edits real footage, not generative sloppy videos, and they turned out good enough that I didn’t have to touch a single one. I also made a little tool that generates simple ad images, so I can test ideas without opening Figma.
      • Our bird articles show up on Google, sometimes in first place, but almost nobody clicks (thanks, AI summaries). They’re a long term bet anyway.
      • Playing with a little photo app that sharpens zoomed in pictures of birds and landscapes. It’s mostly for me, and it has been giving me some deep thoughts about what a picture even is (a post is coming).
      • BirDJ is on its way to the App Store, after fixing both things App Review didn’t like.
      • Working on too many projects in parallel on the same day is not good, I’m learning that one again.
    • Relaxing
      • Slow afternoons in Berkeley, hopping between coffee shops and daydreaming about where we’ll live next.
    • Exercise
      • Mostly walking. Chicago is so walkable that we overdid it, and in El Cerrito I joined the neighbors’ 7:15 walk with Ellie, which turned me into a morning person (for now).
    Leandra in a denim jacket sitting by the big window of a train observation car, looking out at dry desert scrub and brown hills
    The train to Chicago
    Tilted selfie of Diego in sunglasses lying on a striped picnic blanket with Leandra sitting behind him, Lake Michigan and a blue sky in the background
    A lake that looks like a beach
    A man in a cap and a patterned blue shirt working on a laptop at a café window, with an elevated L train passing between old brick buildings outside
    Chicago people watching
    The Chicago skyline at night seen across dark water, with lit windows reflecting on the lake
    Chicago at night
    Over the shoulder view of Diego on an armchair with a laptop full of ad charts and a small black scruffy dog on his lap looking up at him, a window to a lakeside park behind
    Checking ads, with supervision
    Diego smiling on a brown couch in purple glasses, holding Ellie, a small black and white long haired dog with a name tag, who looks away from the camera
    Ellie

Open Goals

2026

  • ✅Profitable App V22 new apps profitable already, yep, yep.
  • ❌Exercise every dayMissed many days already, and I'm not making this a priority.
  • ✅Live in different places
  • ❌Write once a weekFailed to keep up with this, but I want to get back to it
  • ⏳Read 50 Books

Why am I writing here?

Every time I start writing about something, I end up doing some pretty unexpected research or connecting the dots to an insight. Those things usually turn into rabbit holes, which I totally love falling into.

I wish I had written more when I was younger, especially as a teenager (since I hated reading and writing). Still, I always have so much fun reading the rare pieces I wrote in my twenties.

It also helps me lock in some memories. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and sometimes provides closure as well, which I think is really important these days. I hope it can also help someone else on their journey.

Plus, it helps me practice my English, makes me feel grateful, and helps me remember the people who were somehow part of it.