# Doing every Maven data drill in Basedash

Tom Johnson · 2025-10-24

[Basedash](https://x.com/tomjohndesign/status/1981798141759471912)

Maven Analytics has data drills, small real-world challenges with sample data, and on YouTube they'd raced someone using SQL, Python and Excel against someone using Power BI. The day before this, I did number four in [Basedash](https://www.tomjohn.design/content/basedash) in about a minute and ten seconds, twice as fast as the fastest time, which was two minutes and ten with SQL [(0:27)](#t=27). So I tried all six at once.

![The Maven Analytics data drills page, captioned as I say: “do that. I did number four and I beat the fastest time I did it twice as fast. It took like a minute and 10 seconds versus the fastest with SQL was two minutes and 10 seconds. But I”](https://nlzkl2bo0qmd3uti.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/talks/clips/maven-data-drills/twice-as-fast-SBuUjTwiHza6FSIZRuLvWz5UXno71z.mp4 "Clip")

The data was in spreadsheets in a Google Drive folder, but the workspace also had a whole Databricks warehouse connected, more than 80 tables, which could've been a curveball [(1:34)](#t=94). I didn't tell it which tables to use. I pasted each question into its own chat, like how many users had Fight Club as the last film they watched [(2:22)](#t=142), and let them run.

![Pasting each drill into its own chat in Basedash, captioned as I say: “all data actually contains an entire Databricks warehouse, which could be a curve ball. I'm not telling it like this isn't just two tables in here. This is like over 80 tables,”](https://nlzkl2bo0qmd3uti.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/talks/clips/maven-data-drills/databricks-beHnuAy0pcohgbPGcvXRr44zBtbpPT.mp4 "Clip")

They came back one at a time, and it was six for six in about five minutes [(5:10)](#t=310). It was the first time I'd tried it, and I was worried I'd have to edit something to make it work, but I didn't edit it [(5:35)](#t=335).

![Checking the last answer against the drill, captioned as I say: “this is right. Six for six in five minutes.”](https://nlzkl2bo0qmd3uti.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/talks/clips/maven-data-drills/six-for-six-L1xIjMURq2Zqi1EtNKG7V9dv03WYiJ.mp4 "Clip")

When I posted it on X I wrote:

> I just did all of the Maven data drills in with 100% accuracy in Basedash in less than five minutes. 6 challenges. No mistakes. One prompt each. I can’t write SQL. No additional context, no guidance on what tables to use, how to structure things, where to look other than the root prompt. It had to join, aggregate, flatten JSON, and even (without asking) it generated visualizations for some of the data for better consumption. Crazy crazy crazy.