How a Breakfast Burrito and a Big Idea Turned Into $80 Million: The Rise of Vibe-Coding
Imagine building a fully functional app while eating your breakfast burrito—or, as some folks now call it, “vibe-coding.” That’s exactly what Maor Shlomo did. He spent six months crafting Base44, a bootstrapped, AI-powered platform that lets anyone describe an app in plain English—and instantly turn that idea into reality. Then, in the kind of plot twist Silicon Valley dreams are made of, he sold it to Wix for a cool $80 million in cold hard cash.
No board, no investors, no five-year roadmap. Just one guy, a laptop, and the right vibe.
What Is Vibe-Coding?
Vibe-coding isn’t about grinding 100-hour weeks in some VC-backed meat grinder. It’s about tapping into a creative flow, using tools that remove the boring parts of building, and letting intuition lead. It’s coding that feels good. Think: less “debugging third-party APIs at 2am,” more “I had a cool idea over coffee and shipped it by lunch.”
It’s powered by large language models, generative design, and intuitive interfaces that let builders skip the plumbing and jump straight to prototyping. With platforms like Base44, you don’t write a line of code—you describe what you want, and the app just... manifests. It’s prompt-as-code. It’s expressive, fast, and a little bit magical.
Internet-Worthy, Publishable Genius
So how did Maor do it? In short: he built in public. Shlomo shared everything on LinkedIn and X—user milestones, LLM token costs, even uptime metrics. He posted about partnerships with eToro and SimilarWeb, responded to every comment, and pushed updates 13 times a day. Every micro-win became a breadcrumb trail others could follow. That transparency turned into trust. That trust turned into hype. And that hype? It turned into $80 million.
Wix didn’t just buy a product—they bought momentum. And that, folks, is the real vibe.
Why It Matters
Solo-ish Unicorn: Okay, not a unicorn ($1B), but Base44 proves that solo AI-native ventures can get very close.
All-in-One Magic: Base44 bundled database, auth, analytics, email, LLMs, and deployment. “Integration hell” was replaced by a single, dreamy interface.
Validation for a Movement: Vibe-coding, no-code, prompt-as-code—whatever you call it—it’s no longer a niche. It’s how the next generation is building.
What Comes Next? Hint: Santa Cruz Vibes Incoming
Speaking of vibe-coding—word is, Santa Cruz Works is about to drop some serious summer magic. Multiple vibe-coding events are on the horizon: beachside code jams, AI builder workshops, burrito-fueled brainstorming sessions. Whether you’re a professional dev or you’ve never written a single line of code, these events are your chance to jump in.
Picture this: the ocean’s right there, the sun (or fog) is shining, and you’re vibing out your next million-dollar app idea with a community of like-minded creators. That’s the Santa Cruz way. That’s the future of building.
Final Thought
Maor Shlomo didn’t just build a tool—he lit the fuse on a new way of working. Base44 is proof that fast, focused, transparent building isn’t just possible—it’s powerful. The vibe is real, the wave is building, and if you’ve got an idea that won’t leave you alone, this might just be your moment.
Santa Cruz is ready. Are you?
