- Sharon Hafuta
- 4 hours ago
- 7 min read
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This case study explores how Gift My Book used Base44 to turn a simple side project into a profitable $1M ARR business in just three months.
By leveraging AI-driven development, rapid iteration and smart validation, the team behind Gift My Book proved how fast a modern product can go from idea to profitable reality.
Gift My Book is a powerful example of what’s now possible when founders use an app builder to launch, test and scale digital products.
TL;DR: Base44 case study x Gift My Book
Gift My Book is a personalized gifting platform that lets customers create custom comedy books using AI. What started as a side project became a profitable $1M ARR business in just three months.
Here’s what made it work:
Built end-to-end in one week using Base44.
Validated demand with $100 in Meta ads.
Reached 6–8% conversion rates.
Hit $1M annualized revenue in under 90 days.
Stayed profitable without rebuilding on another platform.
Key results at a glance
Metric | Outcome |
Time to MVP | 1 week |
First validation spend | $100 |
Conversion rate | 6–8% |
Time to $1M ARR | ~3 months |
Profitability | Achieved in December |
How a side-project setback led to building with Base44
After spending eight years at Fiverr, Yoav Hornung was ready to build something new.
Along with two friends, he began exploring side projects rooted in a shared love of gifting and physical products. They wanted to experiment with different ways to learn how to build a product quickly and see what could gain traction.
Their first attempt followed a traditional development path, working with developers, long timelines, and slow progress. Months passed, and the result didn’t justify the effort, leaving the team wondering if there was a faster way to figure out how to create an app and bring their idea to life.
Instead of repeating the same process, the team decided to try a faster, more experimental approach. That’s when they discovered Base44.
Base44 case study x Gift My Book
This case study breaks down the exact stages Gift My Book went through, from idea to profitability, and how Base44 enabled the team to move faster at every step.
Each phase shows how AI-driven app development reduced risk, sped up execution and supported real business growth.
01. Building the first working product in just one week
After months of slow progress using a traditional development setup, the team decided to take a different approach.
With Base44, they rebuilt their idea from scratch and had a fully working, end-to-end product in about a week, showcasing the clear benefits of an AI app builder for rapid development and prototyping.
Gift My Book was designed to guide users through a simple flow: answer a few questions, generate a personalized comedy book using AI and automatically send it to print and shipping through a print-on-demand integration.
“We launched it within a week. It took about a week to come up with a product that works end-to-end.”
What stood out most was the contrast with their previous experience.
“Just before Gift My Book, we worked with developers and it took a few months...and then we basically built it in a week.”
Base44 made it possible to:
Build a complete product without writing custom backend logic, streamlining eCommerce app development.
Integrate AI-generated content and visuals quickly.
Connect fulfillment and payments without complex setup.
Move straight to testing instead of prolonged development.
02. Validating demand with a $100 ad test
Rather than investing heavily before launch, the team focused on fast validation.
To test whether people would actually pay for the product, they ran a small Meta ads experiment using ad copy generated with ChatGPT. This step was a perfect example of learning how to create an app and make money quickly by validating demand before scaling.
The result came almost immediately.
“We generated an ad on ChatGPT, put $100 ad spend on Meta, then we woke up to a purchase. That blew my friend’s mind when it happened.”
That first sale confirmed two things at once: there was real demand for personalized AI-generated books, and the product experience built on Base44 worked exactly as intended.
This validation step helped the team:
Prove product–market fit with minimal spend.
Avoid overbuilding before demand was clear.
Gain confidence to move into growth mode quickly.
03. Achieving 6–8% conversion rates early on
Within weeks of launching, Gift My Book wasn’t just attracting visitors, it was converting them at unusually high rates.
By early October, the product was already showing strong performance across key metrics.
“We reached numbers like six, seven, eight percent conversion, turning a visitor into a purchase. We reached a really strong conversion with the product we built.”
These conversion rates gave the team a clear signal: the product messaging, user flow and gifting concept were resonating.
High conversion rates were driven by:
A simple, guided user journey.
Clear value proposition around personalized gifts.
Fast load times and smooth checkout.
AI-generated content that felt unique and relevant.
04. Scaling to $1M ARR in under three months
As the holiday season approached, the team increased their marketing efforts to meet growing demand. Personalized gifts perform especially well during peak gifting moments, and Gift My Book was ready.
By December, just three months after launch, the numbers spoke for themselves.
“We’re pretty close to annualized revenue of one million dollars. December is our first real profitable month. It took like three months.”
What started as a side project quickly became a profitable business, without the need for outside funding or a platform rebuild.
Key factors behind the rapid scale:
Strong early validation and conversion metrics.
Seasonal demand aligned with the product.
A stable product infrastructure that didn’t require rewrites.
The ability to focus on marketing instead of engineering.
05. Choosing to stay on Base44 instead of rebuilding
The original plan was to use Base44 only for validation, then rebuild the product on a different stack. Even the team’s CTO was initially skeptical about sticking with an AI-driven platform long term.
But over time, that perspective changed.
As AI models improved, so did the quality of Gift My Book’s outputs, especially around AI-generated book covers and text accuracy.
Base44 evolved alongside the product, removing the urgency to migrate elsewhere.
The team stayed on Base44 because:
AI models improved rapidly without requiring major changes.
The platform continued to support growth and scale.
Rebuilding would have slowed momentum unnecessarily.
Base44 proved reliable beyond the MVP stage.
06. Expanding the product beyond the initial launch
With a successful product and a proven system in place, the team is already planning what’s next for Gift My Book.
Their roadmap includes new formats, audiences and improvements to the overall gifting experience.
Upcoming plans include:
Shorter books for faster gifting moments.
Kids’ books and pet-themed gifts.
Improved design, UX design and app development.
Enhanced customer support and post-purchase flows.
Preparing for seasonal moments like Valentine’s Day.
Final takeaway: what this Base44 case study proves
The Gift My Book journey highlights a clear shift in how modern products are built, tested and scaled.
What once required large teams, long timelines and significant upfront investment can now be done by small teams moving quickly, without compromising on quality or growth potential.
By using Base44, Yoav and his team removed many of the traditional barriers to launching a new product.
Instead of waiting months to validate an idea, they were able to use Base44 to move from concept to a live, revenue-generating platform in days. That speed didn’t just save time, it reduced risk and unlocked momentum early.
Just as importantly, the platform didn’t become a bottleneck as the business grew. Gift My Book scaled rapidly, handled real customer demand and reached profitability without needing a rebuild or a migration to a more “traditional” stack.
The same AI app builder tools that enabled fast experimentation also supported long-term growth. This case study shows what’s now possible when AI-driven development is used intentionally, not just for prototyping, but for building real businesses.
Using Base44, the Gift My Book team was able to:
Turn an early idea into a fully working product in about a week.
Validate real customer demand with minimal ad spend.
Scale to $1M in annualized revenue in under three months.
Reach profitability without rewriting or replatforming.
For founders, builders and teams exploring modern ways to build products, this story makes one thing clear: AI-first platforms are no longer shortcuts, they’re viable foundations for serious businesses.
Want to build and scale like the Gift My Book team did? Try Base44 and see how quickly you can go from idea to launch →
Base44 case study FAQ
Can you really build a profitable product using an AI app builder?
Yes. This case study shows how Gift My Book used an AI app builder to launch quickly, validate demand and scale to $1M in annualized revenue without rebuilding the product. AI-driven platforms like Base44 can support real users, payments and growth, not just prototypes.
How long does it take to build an app with Base44?
With Base44, teams can build a fully working, end-to-end product in days instead of months. In this case study, Gift My Book launched in about one week, including AI-generated content, payments and print-on-demand integration.
Learn more about Base44:
Is Base44 only for MVPs, or can it scale with a business?
Base44 is designed to support both early validation and long-term growth. As shown in the Gift My Book case study, the platform handled increasing traffic, strong conversion rates and rapid revenue growth without requiring a rebuild.