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Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

techcrunch.com

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Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#51

Post by echelon »

soco wrote: post #24
andybak wrote: post #12

It's a wrapper for Claude. What's the moat here? Why this and not one of a dozen similar products? Why not reproduce from scratch? $80M would buy you a decent development team and it doesn't seem like these kind of apps are hard to make. Is there something especially good about Base44? Or are they paying for the user base or the time to market advantage?

For us in the back, what is a vibe coding platform anyway? I know and use Claude, if that helps anchoring.

> what is a vibe coding platform anyway?

Right now they're something that lets all of those "I have an idea for an app" people actually make the app themselves.

In a few years, they might be much more than that.

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#52

Post by fidotron »

cj wrote: post #42
fidotron wrote: post #31

Anyone remotely familiar with Wix should not be surprised by this, or be happy that they are familiar with Wix. The maintainability of the output of your average vibe coder is going to enormously exceed that of your average Wix site. LLMs are a massive threat to their whole model which relies on increasing levels of esotericism.

I think the implication here is that the Wix platform sets the bar so low, that even a vibing LLM can surpass it. Companies like Squarespace set the bar much higher. Wix has always been a nightmare to use and customize.

> I think the implication here is that the Wix platform sets the bar so low, that even a vibing LLM can surpass it.

I'm not implying anything! Wix is clearly actively designed to be that way.

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#53

Post by wslh »

Retr0id wrote: post #16
Fokamul wrote: post #6

As a "red teamer" ;-), I approve this message. Vibe coded apps? The more the merrier, guys.

Don't get too excited, there are vibe-security-audit platforms now too.

Not only audit, but offensive security tools such as XBOW [1], backed by Sequoia and that finds and exploits vulnerabilities. I am on the waitlist though.

[1] https://xbow.com/

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#55

Post by jan_Sate »

noosphr wrote: post #4
theHolyTrynity wrote: post #2

8 people team does not look like "solo" at all

Reading the actual article reminds me of the old soviet joke: Q: Is it true that Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov from Moscow won a car in a lottery? A: In principle yes, but: 1). it wasn't Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov but Aleksander Aleksandrovich Aleksandrov; 2). he is not from Moscow but from Odessa; 3). it was not a car but a bicycle; 4). he didn't win it, but it was stolen from him.

bwahahaha! How come that'd be a "yes" then? It's all wrong!

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#56

Post by Sytten »

wslh wrote: post #53
Retr0id wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get too excited, there are vibe-security-audit platforms now too.

Not only audit, but offensive security tools such as XBOW [1], backed by Sequoia and that finds and exploits vulnerabilities. I am on the waitlist though. [1] https://xbow.com/

Don't get your hopes up, I am in this market and most of it is not good. It is even doubtful that it is a step up from a regular scanner.

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#57

Post by csomar »

fidotron wrote: post #31

Anyone remotely familiar with Wix should not be surprised by this, or be happy that they are familiar with Wix. The maintainability of the output of your average vibe coder is going to enormously exceed that of your average Wix site. LLMs are a massive threat to their whole model which relies on increasing levels of esotericism.

What's the game plan here? Buy every chatbot LLM SaaS?

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#58

Post by csomar »

rasz wrote: post #46
d--b wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a bit of everything. It’s good enough, it’s got a growing user base, it’s already there. It is likely profitable. And probably wix can afford it. Also the founder possibly spent a bunch of his own money it. I mean he hired 7 people already.

>It is likely profitable /s

From the article

> the company was profitable, generating $189,000 in profit in May even after covering high LLM token costs, which he also documented publicly.

Still a crazy multiplier even if we do not assume accounting shenanigans.

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#59

Post by csomar »

soco wrote: post #24
andybak wrote: post #12

It's a wrapper for Claude. What's the moat here? Why this and not one of a dozen similar products? Why not reproduce from scratch? $80M would buy you a decent development team and it doesn't seem like these kind of apps are hard to make. Is there something especially good about Base44? Or are they paying for the user base or the time to market advantage?

For us in the back, what is a vibe coding platform anyway? I know and use Claude, if that helps anchoring.

LLM chatbot with a VM. The front-end is a file explorer with a preview window. Kind of like bolt.

They do not work, from my experience; or the experience of people using them: https://github.com/stackblitz/bolt.new/issues

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#60

Post by mattfrommars »

Does anyone know how start up or project like these are built from ground up? I have very very command of react and I can write rest api using spring or express.js. I know finger too about prompt engineering. What does it take to make something like this?
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