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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

#91

Post by stonemetal12 »

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.

As far as I can tell it is one of those low code or no code platforms, only it uses Claude as the interface instead of the usual.

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#92

Post by danr4 »

Coming from someone who doesn't really love the product.. nor wix. but the snark in the comments is insane.

Basically everyone in the israeli tech community know about this guy because he pretty much shared everything about his journey from the moment he started. One of the most genuine and no-bs entrepreneurs i've ever seen (and israel has it's fair share of grifters).

Yes, he really did basically built everything by himself. Yes, he did manage to build a huge client list worth a lot of money, in just 6 months. Yes, he was previously a founder (without an exit). Yes, there were a few (very recently hired) employees.

This is one of the rarest solo-founder exit stories in the world. dumb-founded by negativity.

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#93

Post by scrollaway »

steveBK123 wrote: post #77

Congrats to the team, but the media coverage is a bit silly here. "Solo unicorn.. well, ok it was $80M not $1B.. and, sure ok it wasn't 1 guy, he had a team of 8.." LOL. Guy lists himself as an "angel investor" and "Forbes 30 under 30" on his Linkedin, so clearly not his first rodeo and has good connections, likely a stronger ingredients than the tech. So you know, not bad money, and I'd certainly take it. But doesn'…

To be an angel investor you can open a wefunder account and yolo some cash on some startups. Forbes 30u30 is a PR thing that simply requires some cash and a bit of charisma.

Neither of these are signals :) It looks like there are much stronger different signals out there for this guy.

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#94

Post by Marsymars »

Jackpillar wrote: post #79
pc86 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because they didn't prioritize a feature that most of their users won't care about doesn't mean its a low bar, it just means you care about something they don't.

All of the existing WYSIWYG site builders are walled garden garbage.

What’s the best option if you’re a non-tech-savvy small business owner, you need a web presence, and you can’t afford to hire someone to do it for you?

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#95

Post by nickdothutton »

If you are interested in what kind of company gets acquired for big bucks with a tiny product, can I say "micro product"?, and with few staff... look no further than Tegic, and their T9 product. 30 staff, ~$630M acquisition (today's dollars), back in 1999. I'd love to know how many LOC it was. I'd imagine it would still hold some kind of record for most $ per LOC.

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#96

Post by reaperducer »

billy99k wrote: post #70
skeeter2020 wrote: post #65

Everyone focused on the "vibe-coded, solo-preneur in 6 months" headline is being tricked. First, the details show this is not a "hallucination" but a misrepresentation of the facts, aka a lie. Second - and far more important - Wix did not buy the code output of an LLM, which anyone could easily reproduce, they bought the subscribers, funnel and team that built the business, not the code.

This is the true value of any software-based business, not the code.

This is the true value of any software-based business, not the code.

A pithy statement that is like candy to VC ears, but falls down if you think about it even a little.

Nobody is going to buy Adobe for its client list.

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#97

Post by haiku2077 »

Marsymars wrote: post #94
Jackpillar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the existing WYSIWYG site builders are walled garden garbage.

What’s the best option if you’re a non-tech-savvy small business owner, you need a web presence, and you can’t afford to hire someone to do it for you?

If you can't hire someone overseas to make a website, probably run your business off a facebook/instagram page. A lot of small businesses around me do that.

Re: Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash

#98

Post by hombre_fatal »

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.

This isn't a good analysis of the value here.

My dad has a Shopify site. He'll sometimes accidentally break his theme by making simple modifications in the editor, and it's not obvious why. Maybe a missing quotation mark or a wrongly nested closing tag. He usually had to revert it or even ask for help.

99% of the things he wants to change about his Shopify site would be better done by asking an LLM to change the template for him.

Frankly, I don't want to be editing HTML by hand to make simple edits, either. I just get Cursor or Claude to do it. If I were using a platform like Shopify or Wix where I don't have the templates sitting in my filesystem, I'd like an LLM integration there too.

Almost all of us have an LLM integrated into our code editor, yet when people want to integrate an LLM into the workflows of non-software-devs, suddenly there's cynicism.

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