Coming soon to iOS

The internet is a wilderness. Scout the good stuff.

Scout replaces infinite algorithmic feeds with goal-driven Trails you curate yourself. Pick a direction: get better at cooking, understand AI, start a fitness routine. Then scout the best videos, articles, and podcasts to get you there. When you can't decide, spin The Compass.

You're on the trail. We'll be in touch soon.

Free early access for waitlist members. No spam, ever.

🏔 Cooking Trail

🧭
Trail: Get better at cooking
5 of 8 explored · 62% along the trail
All Quick Deep Chill
Gordon Ramsay's knife skills basics
YouTube · 8 min
Video
The science of seasoning food
NYT Cooking · 5 min read
Article
Joshua Weissman budget meals
YouTube · 15 min
Video
Easy fresh pasta from scratch
TikTok · 3 min
Tutorial
The Splendid Table: Building flavor
Spotify · 32 min
Podcast

You love learning.
You hate the algorithm.

There are things you genuinely want to watch, read, and learn. But every time you open an app, the feed hijacks your intentions.

Feeds never end

There's no "done." No closure. Just one more video, one more scroll, forever. You close the app feeling worse than when you opened it.

🎯

The algorithm chooses for you

You saved that cooking tutorial weeks ago. Instead, you're 40 minutes into videos you never asked for, picked by a system designed for engagement, not your wellbeing.

Decision fatigue wins

2,347 videos in Watch Later. 63 open tabs. You're overwhelmed by choices, so you default to scrolling the feed. The things you actually care about keep waiting.

You're not alone in the wilderness
300K+
r/nosurf members rethinking screen time
6.7 hrs
average daily screen time worldwide
2M+
members across r/nosurf, r/digitalminimalism, & r/productivity
0
apps that replace your feed instead of blocking it

Follow the trail.

Every great adventure starts with a direction. Here's yours.

1
⚑ Trailhead

Choose a Trail

"Get better at cooking." "Understand AI." "Start a fitness routine." Every Trail starts with a direction worth heading.

2
📤 Collect

Scout it

See something good? Tap Share → tap Scout it. Two taps and it's on your Trail. Works from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Safari. Anywhere you find things worth keeping.

3
🧭 Navigate

Explore it

Open Scout instead of social media. Pick from your finite list, or spin The Compass and let it choose for you. No decision fatigue. No spiraling.

4
🏔 Summit

Reach The Summit

Finish your Trail and hit The Summit: confetti, your earned Badge, a shareable card, and the satisfaction that doomscrolling never gives you.

5
🪙 Progress

Rank up

Every Badge moves you toward your next Scout Rank: Tenderfoot → Explorer → Pathfinder → Ranger → Trailmaster. Your next adventure is already calling.

Everything you need.
Nothing you don't.

Unlike bookmarks you forget and feeds you can't escape, your Trail is a living path designed to be completed.

  • 🧭

    The Compass

    Can't decide what to watch? Spin The Compass. It picks one random find from your Trail. No more decision fatigue.

  • Scouting Missions

    15-minute timed sessions to browse and scout new finds. Go in, collect, get out. No spiraling.

  • 🏘

    Basecamp

    Long-term storage for finds that aren't on active Trails. Save things for your kids, for next year, for "someday." Basecamp is forever.

  • 🍂

    The Weathering

    Saved something 90 days ago and never watched it? It gently fades. Your Trail stays fresh, not a graveyard of good intentions.

  • 📝

    Field Notes

    "What stuck with you?" Quick prompts after exploring that turn passive watching into something you actually remember.

  • 🎉

    The Summit

    Finish a Trail and reach The Summit. A celebration screen with confetti, your earned Badge, and a shareable card. The moment that makes you want to start your next one.

  • 🪙

    Scout Ranks

    Every Badge you earn moves you up: Tenderfoot → Explorer → Pathfinder → Ranger → Trailmaster. Your cumulative journey has a progression arc, not just individual wins.

  • 📤

    Scout It (Share Extension)

    See something good in any app? Tap Share → tap Scout it. Two taps and it lands on your Trail. Lower friction than scrolling past it and hoping you'll remember later.

🧭 The Compass

🧭
The Compass picked...
Joshua Weissman budget meals
YouTube · Video · 15 min
Explore it
Re-spin

Replacement, not restriction.

We're not here to block your screen. We're here to give you a better way to explore.

Doomscrolling

  • Algorithm picks for you
  • Infinite, no endpoint
  • Reactive and impulsive
  • Guilt and regret after
  • Feeds your insecurities
vs

Scout Mode

  • You choose your Trail
  • Finite, with a summit
  • Intentional and deliberate
  • Satisfaction when done
  • Feeds your genuine interests

You're not exploring
this alone.

Monthly Expeditions with shared Trails, shared progress, and shared accountability. This is what turns an app into a movement.

  • 🏔

    Monthly themed Expeditions

    "The Learning Sprint," "30 Days of Mindful Media," "Hobby Kickstart." New Expedition every month.

  • 📈

    Troop progress board

    See how many explorers are participating, how many reached the summit, and where you are on the Trail. No rankings. Just momentum.

  • 🌟

    Shareable Badges

    Finish a Trail and earn a Badge you can share: your goal, what you explored, and the time it took. Every Badge is an invitation.

  • 👥

    Friends' Picks

    See what your friends are scouting. Not a feed, just a quiet list of their latest finds. Social discovery without the social pressure.

  • 📱

    Home Screen Widget

    Your active Trail on your Lock Screen or Home Screen. See your progress, spin The Compass, or jump straight in. All without opening the app.

⛺ Active Expedition

The Learning Sprint

Explore 10 educational finds in 14 days. Pick your own topic. Just make it something you've always wanted to learn.

👥
Live participant count
🏆
Badges earned
14
Day expedition
73%
Your progress along this Expedition
🏔
Trailblazer
Get Better at Cooking
8 videos · 3 articles · 2 podcasts · 21 days
Scouted with Scout · scoutmode.app

"You have 1,440 minutes today. Roughly 1,411 of them will be spent the same as any other day. The other 29 could change everything."

Inspired by Designing Your Life by Dave Evans & Bill Burnett

Most of us spend 98% of our time in the transactional world: routines, obligations, autopilot. The other 2% is where growth lives. Scout exists to make sure those 29 minutes aren't lost to an algorithm.

🌱

Your Trail, your rules

No recommendations. No algorithm. No engagement tricks. You decide what goes on your Trail.

🔒

Privacy by design

We never see, track, or sell what you scout. Your Trails are encrypted and yours alone.

Built to be finished

The best app is one you eventually close. We optimize for your satisfaction, not our engagement metrics.

Protect the 29

You have 1,440 minutes today. 1,411 are spoken for. Scout guards the 29 that could actually change your life.

One Trail is free.
Unlimited Trails are $3.99.

No ads. No data selling. We charge for features so we never need to sell your attention.

Scout

$0 / forever
  • 1 active Trail
  • Up to 20 finds
  • 3 Compass spins / day
  • Completion tracking
Join Waitlist

Scout Pro

$6.99 / month
  • Everything in Scout+
  • Troop Expeditions
  • Friends' Picks feed
  • Trail analytics
  • Platform integrations
  • Priority features
Join Waitlist

Free tier is free forever. Paid plans include a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.

Got questions? Good.

Bookmark folders are where finds go to die. You save things and never look at them again. Scout is designed to be finished. Trails have a clear endpoint, The Compass removes decision fatigue, and The Weathering gently clears out anything you've ignored for months. It's the difference between a junk drawer and a curated field guide you actually explore.
Screen time blockers restrict you. Scout replaces the feed with something better. We're not telling you to stop watching videos. We're giving you a way to choose them intentionally. Think of it this way: a blocker is a "trail closed" sign. Scout is a map to somewhere worth going.
Anything with a link or a title. YouTube videos, TikToks, Instagram Reels, Spotify podcasts, Netflix shows, articles, blog posts, online courses, tutorials. If you can share it or paste a URL, it goes on your Trail. You can also manually add things like "read chapter 3 of my book" or "try that recipe Sarah sent me."
No. Your finds stay on your device. We track that you scouted something and whether you explored it. But we never see the titles, URLs, or actual media. We charge a subscription specifically so we never need to monetize your data. Your Trails are yours alone.
The Compass is for when you're brain-dead and can't decide what to watch. Tap it, and it randomly picks one find from your Trail. Don't feel it? Re-spin. It turns the moment when you'd normally start doomscrolling into a fun, one-tap choice. No decision fatigue, no spiraling. Just a compass pointing you somewhere good.
The approach is based on behavioral science: finite choices create satisfaction, infinite options create anxiety. When you pre-select 10 things and work through them, you get the closure that doomscrolling never provides. People who use the analog version (a physical notebook) report spending significantly less time in feeds. Scout brings that same framework to your phone and makes it fun with Badges, The Compass, and Expeditions.

You have 1,440 minutes today. Only about 29 of them are truly yours. The ones not claimed by routine, obligation, and autopilot. Now ask yourself how many of those 29 you're losing to mindless scrolling. Not watching things you chose, but things an algorithm chose for you. Even if Scout helps you reclaim just 30 minutes a day, that's 15 hours a month you get back. Time to cook, to learn, to build, to rest, to become more of the person you actually want to be.

That's what you're paying for. Not an app. Sovereignty over your own attention. Every free platform profits by keeping you scrolling longer. Their product is your time. Scout is built by Veritasity Labs, a company founded on one principle: veritas, meaning truth. The truth is that your attention is the most finite resource you have, and you're giving it away for free to algorithms designed to exploit it.

$3.99 a month funds a tool that works for you instead of on you. No ads, no data selling, no engagement tricks. We charge you so we never have to sell you.

Dr. Nicole LePera writes in How to Do the Work that healing begins when you start making choices your future self will thank you for. Scout is one of those choices. Your future self. The one who actually finished that cooking trail, who finally understood AI, who built the habit instead of just saving the bookmark. that person will look back and be glad you made the switch. That's the deal.

Stop scrolling.
Start scouting.

Be first on the trail when Scout launches. Free early access, no credit card required, and a free tier that's free forever.

You're on the trail. We'll be in touch soon.

No spam. No data selling. Unsubscribe anytime. We respect your inbox like we respect your screen time.