Sacred Quest

Inspiration

I've gone through major ups and downs in my life, from suicidal ideation to traveling the world, starting businesses, and everything in between. Both when I've been at the bottom and when I've been at my highest, I've always benefited from having wise mentors, friends, and loved ones with me, even though I might avoid them and be at home a lot of the time. Currently, in the world, there is a major issue with a lack of meaning. Particularly for young men, the leading cause of death is suicide. So I've made this app to hopefully help with this — a place where people can always have a companion to help point them back to themselves. My years of training in mindfulness, yoga, and other modalities have influenced it. I bring all of these into the app.

Right now in the world, there's this deep crisis that barely gets talked about. It's not just about money or politics — it's that people don't feel meaning anymore. Especially young people. Especially young men. There's this silent epidemic where we're so disconnected from ourselves, from each other, and from anything that feels real or sacred, that we're literally dying from it. Suicide is the leading cause of death in young men. That's insane. That's heartbreaking. And honestly, it doesn't have to be that way.

We have so much potential. Like truly, humans are amazing. We have the ability to create beauty, to build things, to heal, to love in ways that are profound. But we forget. We get lost. We get isolated. And I just think — what if we had a little companion to walk with us through those dark moments? What if something reminded you that you're not alone, that you're not broken, that this moment is part of the journey?

That's what I'm trying to do with Sacred Quest. Not just make an app. But build something that can light a little fire again inside people. Something that reminds them they're powerful and sacred and part of something much bigger. Because I know what it's like to forget. And I also know what it's like to remember.

What it does

Sacred Quest is a conversational AI app which not only acts as a companion, soothing, reflecting, and offering a second opinion, but also gathers insights about what's going on for you. It suggests meditations and contemplations that you can do. You can select from different quests that you want to pursue. For example, if you want to find love in your life, you'd choose that quest, and it would take you through different actions and reflections to open that up. These are inner journeys. They focus on removing blockages, shadow work, and opening your heart.

How we built it

I built it starting with Bolt.new, and then moved into Cursor for more extensive development. I integrated it with ElevenLabs and Supabase. When one tool wouldn't work, I'd just switch to the other and keep going.

Challenges we ran into

It took me a while to really understand how the app works and how to effectively use AI. Also, UI and UX design were a bit new to me. I eventually realized that I'm a great artist, so I followed that path and stumbled on a UI I liked. For me, the biggest challenge was implementing conversational UI with ElevenLabs. As a beginner in coding and app-making, I made so many mistakes and did a lot of unnecessary things. But eventually, I kind of got it to work. I think I was literally working up until the last hour. In the weeks to come, I'll make it better.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Just the fact that I made this app at all — I'm incredibly thrilled. I already love speaking to it, and the potential is massive. That it's conversational and can capture insights, meditations, contempaltion etc from your conversations is awesome. Hopefully, a lot of people who are really in the dark night of the soul right now can find some comfort in it. A companion that can help them out of a tough situation.

What we learned

I've got pretty much an endless amount of ideas when it comes to making apps. I'm really stoked that I can now just duplicate this and keep creating other things. I also now know how to work with the AI coders better, and I'm excited to keep going.

What's next for Sacred Quest

What's next for Sacred Quest? I want to create different Sage personalities to speak to. I want to improve the insight generation, build a community meditation space where we can all gather, and finish the quest generation system from scratch. The list goes on. But right now, I can't remember everything because there are about 15 minutes left until the deadline and I've got very few brain cells left.

Thank you

Built With

• elevenlabs
• elevenlabs-react-sdk
• eslint
• framer-motion
• lucide-react
• next.js-13.5.1
• next.js-api-routes
• openai-gpt-4
• react-18
• shadcn/ui
• supabase
• tailwind-css
• typescript
• vercel
• web-audio-api