No one is doing it like this, so I created my own AI companion app
Hi IH!
Just launched my first startup as a teen and wanted to share how I got from an idea to a visible product.
The idea
I'd been looking at existing AI companion apps and kept noticing that conversations felt like a one-time experience. Nothing carried forward, everything felt artificial, nothing felt like an actual connection. So I thought why not make Knot focused around making the conversations as human as possible, with features including a mood system, proactive texting (Your Knot messages you first when your away), double/triple texting, and natural language.
Crafting the product
I started working on Knot and after around 2 months of development I finally had a MVP to show to people. Around this development period I had a few burnouts but what I always told myself is that even if this fails there's no pain in building it and gaining some experience rather than searching for another idea only to be paranoid again.
I have to admit that this period was very grindy but if that's what it takes then why not right?
Stack, if you're curious: Next.js + Supabase + Prisma, running on Groq (Llama 3.3 70B) for generation but I do plan on investing in a better paid model once I gather enough audience. All on free-tier infra since I wanted to validate demand before going all in.
Decisions
I did also have to make some crucial decisions while creating Knot. Some were easy and others were difficult to say the least. Looking at my competitors, I knew that they all offered romance/roleplay in some kind of way, be it unfiltered or filtered. So I had to make a decision. I choose to not include any romantic themes or roleplaying just because I think it ruins the conversation and makes my app part of thousands of other that do just the same thing. The quality matters most to me, I wanted to make this app the best I could.
Where it's at now
live, free to use, no subscriptions yet, I'd rather find out if there's real demand before building out a paid tier. Would genuinely love feedback from this crowd, does Knot read as a real differentiator, or does everyone say that about their companion app?
https://knot-companion.vercel.app
