To make a side project is not to waste your time. It is learning to build. It’s testing an idea. It is understanding the basics of a product. And above all, it is train to be an entrepreneur without requesting permission.
For a young founder, a side project is often better than a diploma. He teaches what few courses can transmit: how to go from idea to reality. It is an MBA in real conditions, without theory, without checking box, without academic validation. Just a product. Users. And the brutality of reality.
1. Launch without leaving: Reduce the risk, increase learning
A side project, by definition, is launching alongside a main activity. Studies, employment, internship. It does not require to raise funds. No business plan. No institutional validation.
But it allows:
- Learn to code or build,,
- experience a market,,
- Publish an online product,,
- Recover user feedback,,
- Manage a small product cycle From start to finish.
What many call “side” is actually The heart of entrepreneurial training.
2. The best way to get out of the “passive consumption” mode
The majority of young founders consume information: podcasts, threads, articles, interviews. But they do little.
The side Project breaks this cycle. He forces to do, not to read. To be published, not to plan. To face technical, marketing, product problems. To test a market instead of talking about it.
There is no stronger theory than publishing something and waiting for feedback.
3. Learn without lifting
The fundraising is not a learning step. It is an acceleration step. If you do not know how to build a product, find first users and understand what they want, lifting is useless.
A side project allowslearn freely. Without external pressure. Without dilution. Without false hopes.
No need for board. No need for an investor. Just code, ideas, and a first user.
4. The side projects reveal the really motivated founders
Build alone, in the evening, without a team, without deadline, without frame … asks for a rare thing: initiative.
Many say they want to launch a startup. Little build a personal project in parallel. The side project acts like a filter. He distinguishes those who speak of those who do.
The best predictor of a future founder is not his school, but the fact that he should go for projects in his free time.
5. No MBA learns to deploy, Shipper, solve a bug
An MBA teaches strategy, finance, management. A side project teaches the product, friction, iteration.
An MBA teaches to analyze cases. A side project transforms you into a real case.
An MBA is paying. A side project costs you time, and brings you skills.
Knowing Shipper a feature, launch a landing page, follow a user, manage a bug: no school really teaches it. It is tacit knowledge, which is not acquired only by building.
6. Legal fear is overestimated
Many young people hesitate to launch a personal project because of non-competition clauses or intellectual property.
The rule is simple:
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- Do not use your employer’s computer.
- Do not develop on working time.
- Do not build in the same sector.
Respect these points and you are safe. Thousands of founders started like this. If it was really risky, nobody would.
7. The first user is more important than the first investor
The side projects allow you to learn what no deck tends: how to get a user who really wants to use What you have built. Even one. Even two. This signal is a thousand times more powerful than 100 likes or a passing on Product Hunt.
Before convincing an investor, you have to convince someone to use your product without having to do it.
8. Many side projects become companies
History is known:
- Gmail started as side project at Google.
- Product Hunt was born from a side project from Ryan Hoover.
- Notion,, Zapier,, Figma,, Superhuman have all been tested in light project mode before becoming companies.
Some projects become nothing. It’s not serious. They form. They train. They develop the fundamental reflex: Problem → Idea → Solution → Execution.
9. The side project is the laboratory of your ability to execute
It is not the concept that counts. It is the ability to implement it, to adapt it, to improve it.
A side project confronts you with all stages of creation:
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- Issue
- Idea
- Prototype
- MVP
- Distribution
- Feedback
- Adjustment
It is the Complete entrepreneurial cycle, in reduced version. And it is infinitely more formative than any course.
Build before lifting, execute before analyzing
The real MBA of the founders is practice. These are the errors made online. The bugs corrected at midnight. Users that we are going to look for yourself. The product that fails and which is revived.
THE Side Project is not a hobby. It’s theSchool of execution.
