Base44

A PM built a Base44 quiz game to drill his weak spot. Zevi Arnovitz struggled with product segmentation questions, so he built a Base44 quiz web app that generated segmentation questions and made him choose segments. He played it on the bus to work.

Base44 sets up Google sign-in and a database for you, so a small app like this needs little setup. His takeaway is that small custom tools make deliberate practice cheap. He said: "I created a game in Base44, which helped me".

Lenny's Podcast▶ 23:30

Base44 makes building easy by making decisions for you, which limits control. Bolt, Lovable, Replit, Base44 and v0 use the same underlying models but add layers that decide things like sign-in and database. That makes building easy but gives less control. Arnovitz moves to Cursor or Claude Code when he wants control.

Cursor and Claude Code give full tool access and the latest model abilities, at the cost of making those decisions yourself. His own limit came in Bolt, where connecting payments felt too opinionated. He said: "I think that the main difference between all these tools is basically the harness."

Lenny's Podcast▶ 15:35