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The Minimum Viable Unit of Saleable Software

Brandur Leach · 31 May 2026

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Brandur Leach did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    Even with LLMs, building software yourself still costs real ongoing human time, so replacing a paid tool with an LLM-built internal one often does not pay off.

    Their wordsWhile LLMs have made software considerably cheaper to build, they haven't brought it to zero. Good LLM-built systems still involve a feedback loop, where an operator has the model work for a while, makes adjustments based on results, asks for another pass, refines further, and so on

  2. Our reading

    Software that is novel enough to be non-trivial to rebuild with an LLM, and priced within reason, will still be worth buying rather than building.

    Their wordsI'm contending (and/or hoping) that for a software package of arbitrary complexity, there's a zone of viability in which when priced within reason, it'll make sense to buy over build, even given the existence of the powerful LLMs that've become our daily companions

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