Dusk AI

Hey IH 👋

I'm a solo founder building Dusk AI (duskai.io) — an AI companion web app where

characters actually remember your relationship over time.

The gap I spotted:

AI companion apps are a massive market, but almost every player targets male users.

Meanwhile, female communities — otome games, AO3 fanfiction, interactive fiction —

spend real money on character relationships. C.AI restricts content. Replika pivoted

away from romantic companions. Kindroid and others don't prioritize long-term memory.

Women in these communities don't want 50 characters to swipe through. They want

1-2 characters who know them — who remember the fight you had last Tuesday,

the nickname they gave you, the slow arc of your relationship.

What I'm building:

Persistent memory is the core product, not a feature. The stack:

- ChromaDB for semantic memory retrieval

- SQLite for structured relationship state

- DeepSeek extractor that pulls facts, emotions, and relationship dynamics

from each conversation and stores them

- Characters that can reference 200+ conversations of shared history

Where I am now:

- Phase 1 (Wizard of Oz validation) ✅ — recruited 5 external beta testers

from Reddit communities (r/ChaiApp, r/replika, r/JanitorAI_Refuges)

- Phase 2 (real memory backend) 🔨 — migrating from manual to automated

memory extraction

- LLC registered in Texas, setting up payments

What I've learned so far:

1. The female AI companion audience is extremely underserved and vocal about it

2. Memory > model quality for retention. Users forgive mid responses if the

character remembers them.

3. Reddit community outreach works, but you have to be a genuine participant

first — not a drive-by poster.

Happy to answer questions about the market, the memory architecture,

or the solo founder experience. 🌙