Who is Zero to Hundred for, now that building software got cheap
· Zero to Hundred
You can build working software in a weekend now. The hard part is what comes after. This is who Zero to Hundred pays off for, and what you get out of it.
What changed about who builds software?
AI did. 84% of developers now use or plan to use AI tools in their work, up from 76% a year earlier, across more than 49,000 respondents to the Stack Overflow 2025 Developer Survey. A feature that took a week takes an afternoon. Turning an idea into working software is cheaper and faster than it has ever been.
So there is more good software in the world, built by more people, than there has ever been. 152,922 tech roles were cut in 2024 and 122,549 in 2025, according to the layoffs.fyi tracker reported by TechCrunch, which means a lot of that software is sitting on hard drives instead of earning. That software has value. This is where you turn it into money, or buy it for a fraction of what building it costs.
So who is Zero to Hundred for?
Three groups, on two sides of the same trade.
| You are | What you want | What you get here |
|---|---|---|
| A Builder with software you made | Income from it, without running a company | List it, sell a license, sell that license again to the next Buyer |
| A team whose engineers keep rebuilding internal software | Your engineers back on the product | Buy a working build and own a license to it |
| A founder with an idea and no build team | To start without a raise and a hire first | Buy a built starting point and take it from there |
If you build software, you can sell what you already made
You built something that works. You can sell a license to it today, whether or not it has users, whether or not it makes a dime yet. No marketing, no support queue, no company to stand up first.
Here is the good part. The license is non-exclusive, so you sell the same build to one Buyer, then to the next, then the one after that. One build, sold more than once. You keep 92% of every sale. That is income from work you already did.
If that is you, read sell the software you built. Sitting on something good that nobody found? You built an app and nobody uses it is the one to read. And is SaaS passive income works through what selling a codebase to many Buyers actually earns you.
If you run a team, you can buy it instead of building it again
Your engineers keep stopping product work to build the same internal software every other team also builds. You can buy a working version and put them back on the thing that makes you money. Pay once, own a license, skip the weeks of senior salary a rebuild costs.
The win is the time you get back. Every day an engineer spends rebuilding a thing that already exists is a day they are not shipping your product. Buying hands that time back.
If that is you, read buy software instead of building it. And is it safe to buy a SaaS business shows how the money and the handoff are protected.
If you have the idea but not the build, you can buy the starting line
You have a product idea and you cannot build it yourself. You can buy a codebase that already runs and build your product on top of it, without raising money or hiring a team first.
Look at what the usual path costs. A technical co-founder takes equity, often 20 to 50 percent of the company you have not built yet. An agency build runs into five figures before you know anyone wants the thing. A built starting point is one fixed number, paid today, and you own the license to it. You get months of a head start for the price of a laptop or two.
If that is you, read launch without a technical co-founder.
What do you actually get?
A license to working software that someone already built and got running. You pay once for a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual license to use, modify, and deploy it. Run it, change it, ship it as your own. If you are the Builder, non-exclusive is the part that pays: you license the same build again and again.
Your money is safe while you check the software is real. A sale at or above $100 is held in escrow, and you get 7 days to try the software in a working test environment before the code is released and the Builder is paid. Under $100, you buy on the spot. Identity is verified on both sides, so you know who you are dealing with.
Which one are you?
If you build, start with sell the software you built. If you run a team, buy software instead of building it. If you have the idea and not the build, launch without a technical co-founder. Building got cheap. What you build, or buy, is worth more than the time it took, and this is where that value changes hands.
