List a project

For buyers

The best deals are on projects nobody finished.

Working code. Working deploys. Ideas that have been tested. Sometimes real users. All for a fraction of what it would cost in AI credits to build from zero. Founders just want closure and a fair price.

Browse projects Just for sale

The blank prompt is the new blank page.

Saturday morning. Coffee. Empty Cursor window. You can build almost anything in a weekend now. That's the dream. It's also a problem.

You scroll Twitter looking for ideas. You read three Hacker News threads. You read a SaaS newsletter. Two hours later you close the laptop with nothing to show. Picking what to build is harder than building it. Validating an idea takes months.

So buy where someone else left off. The code is real. The deploy works. The hard parts of the design are decided. Open it in your IDE, point your AI at the parts that need finishing, and you start at week 12 of building, not week 1.

Most listings on Failedups cost less than a month of your AI tool subscriptions.

From "what should I build" to shipped

Four steps. Email the founder, do your checks, take it over.

  1. Find a listing

    Filter by tech, AI tool, price band, or completion. Boosted listings sit on top with a distinct card. Most sit in the $300 to $5,000 range.

  2. Email the founder

    Their address is right on the listing. Ask about repo access, monthly costs, user count, and the real reason they stopped.

  3. Walk through the code

    Twenty minutes on a video call tells you more than the listing ever will. Get the AI tool name, the odd files, the tech debt.

  4. Take it over

    Sign a one-page asset agreement. Transfer repo, domain, hosting, customer accounts. Two weeks of light support and it's yours.

Buying half built apps got easier too

Five years ago, taking over someone else's codebase meant a week of "what is this even doing." You had to learn the seller's mental model from scratch.

Today you open the repo in Cursor, ask Claude to walk you through it, and have a clean mental model in an hour. The handover cost dropped at the same rate the build cost did.

Same AI that helped build it can help you finish it. The last 30 percent of any project, the launch page, the billing flow, the email templates, the small fixes the AI glossed over, that's the kind of work AI is best at.

Buy a project on Friday. Ship it on Sunday. That's a real path now.

Real projects, real builders, real prices

AI built MVPs in the $300 to $5k range

Apps prompted into existence with Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Lovable, Bolt, or v0. Most are 60 to 90 percent built with a working deploy. Cheaper than a month of AI tool subscriptions.

Hand crafted SaaS in the $1k to $25k range

Older indie projects with a real codebase, sometimes with paying users. The kind of thing that took six months to build and a weekend to take over.

Open source repos with momentum

Stars but no maintainer. Founders looking to hand off a repo to someone who will keep the issues open and ship the next release.

Cofounder seats

Some founders are not selling. They want a partner. No upfront cost. Equity only. A faster path than starting from scratch with a stranger.

Diligence in four short steps

Recent listings

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Buying a startup: common questions

Anything else, email hello@failedups.com.

Where can I buy a SaaS startup or half built app?
Failedups is a marketplace for unfinished startups, MVPs, and side projects whose founders moved on. Most are AI built with working deploys and priced between $300 and $5,000. Browsing and buying are free — we do not charge buyers anything. You email the founder directly from the listing and agree on terms.
How much does it cost to buy a side project or startup?
Most listings on Failedups close in the $300 to $5,000 range. AI built MVPs without users sit at the low end. Hand crafted SaaS with paying customers can be $5,000 to $25,000. Cofounder listings have no asking price — they are equity deals where you take over for a stake. For most builders, that is less than a month of AI tool subscriptions for working code.
Is it worth buying someone else's unfinished startup?
For builders who want to ship something this weekend, often yes. The hard parts — picking what to build, validating it, scaffolding the codebase, deploying it — are already done. You start at week 12 of building, not week 1. The catch is finishing the last 30 percent (launch page, billing, polish), which is exactly what AI tools are good at. Buy on Friday, ship on Sunday is a real path now.
What should I check before buying a startup or MVP?
Five things. Repo access — actually open the code. The AI tool used to build it (Lovable code looks different from Claude Code looks different from a hand-written codebase). Monthly running costs — the OpenAI key, Vercel, Supabase, the API the AI told them to add. User numbers and traction. The real reason the founder stopped. A 20-minute walkthrough on a video call answers most of these in one sitting.
Can I buy AI built apps from Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Lovable, Bolt, or v0?
Yes. Most listings on Failedups are AI built. Filter by tool on the browse page if you want to match what the codebase was prompted with so you can finish it with the same AI. Sellers are required to disclose which tool they used, so you know what kind of code you are inheriting.
How does the transfer of a startup actually work?
After you and the founder agree on terms over email, they transfer the assets directly: repo access (GitHub, GitLab), domain (registrar push), hosting (Vercel project, Railway, Fly), database (Supabase, Postgres), customer accounts if any, and the founder note. Most sellers stay in touch for a couple of weeks while you ramp. Failedups is the matchmaking layer, not escrow — money moves directly between buyer and seller.
Do I need a lawyer or contract to buy a small startup?
For sub-$10k deals, no. A one-page asset purchase agreement is plenty — Stripe Atlas and Clerky publish free templates. Bigger deals, or anything with paying customers and a real codebase, you should have a lawyer look at it. The contract should cover what is being transferred (repo, domain, accounts), what is not (the seller's other projects), and any post-sale support window.
What is a cofounder listing on Failedups?
Some founders are not ready to sell their project but cannot finish it alone. They list as a cofounder search instead. No asking price, equity-only deal between you and them. A faster path than starting from scratch with a stranger because the codebase, deploy, and idea direction are already in place.

Skip the blank prompt.

Browse projects looking for a new owner. Most are between 60 and 90 percent built. Most cost less than a month of AI tool subscriptions.

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