Would you build a project if you're not sure it will make money or not?

Yes. You can gain a valuable experience and knowledge.

Yes! A side-project can give back in so many ways. Money is just one of those ways. Personally, I try to consider what I'll learn from a project, its value as a portfolio piece / resume item, as well as how I will remember this project when I am 80. :)

There is no way to make sure that the project will make money before you build it.

Just build it. What's the worst that could happen? You'll learn a bunch from building something, understanding how to design it, develop, deploy it, market it, share it and maybe even sell it! So much to be gained from that even if it doesn't make a dime.

Sure people will talk about validating ideas and customer interviews etc but really people just want to build stuff and often that's exactly what you should do. A huge number of successful products have been built by people who were just curious and never started out with the goal of making money.

Focus on building something useful that solves a problem and the money side of things will take care of itself.

@musab Your assessment if the project will make money or not is based on a bunch of assumptions. Everything at present is an assumption - what its product is? Who its customers are? How to make money? The only way is to start small and smart micro-experiments, besides customer interviews to test these assumptions. Mind you, in this you will not be coding to build project until you get some validation against assumptions; but in this you also may not miss a potentially good business opportunity just based on assumptions.

This comment was deleted 7 years ago