Vouch

Inspiration Most people know more than they can say. You've built real things, done real work, and then someone asks you to explain it and your brain goes blank. We've both been there. Vouch exists because that gap between what you know and what you can say is costing people opportunities they actually deserve.

What it does You talk to it about your skills. It interviews you, not gently. Based on what you can actually explain, it builds a live knowledge graph of what you know, what you're shaky on, and what you're not ready to claim. Paste a job description and it tells you exactly where you stand against what they need. No fluff, no hype, just an honest picture of where you are.

How we built it Next.js frontend, D3 force graph, Framer Motion orb, Web Speech API for mic capture. FastAPI backend with Claude running the interview logic and assessments. ElevenLabs for TTS so it actually speaks. Session data in flat JSON files. Built in under 10 hours.

Challenges we ran into Making the interview feel human and not robotic took a lot of prompt work. The graph kept mushing into a ring until we tuned the D3 force simulation properly. We also wasted time trying to configure ElevenLabs agents before realizing TTS-only was simpler and faster.

Accomplishments that we're proud of It actually works. You talk to it, it listens, and the assessment it gives back feels real. The job description overlay on the graph, seeing your gaps visually against what a role needs, is something we hadn't seen done this way before.

What we learned Cut faster. We started with a much bigger idea and kept trimming until one thing worked end to end. That one thing is the product. Everything else is a future feature.

What's next for Vouch Resume upload that seeds your starting graph automatically. Profiles that grow over time. A shareable skills card you can actually send somewhere. And the accountability layer we originally envisioned, committing to verify a skill by a deadline with real stakes. That's the full vision. Today we built the foundation.

Built With

• claude
• elevenlabs
• fastapi
• next.js