Consulting or building a product

I'd ask yourself a couple of questions:

1. How much do you dislike your current job? If you hate it, get out. The stress is too distracting to be thinking about anything else.
2. How chill is your current job? Is it really just 8 hours a day? That gives you plenty of time to work nights and weekends. If you don't hate it, that could be a nice environment to grow a side business.
3. How easily can you find consulting work? It's possible to find a gig where you work half the hours and make 1.5-2x the money (no benefits). If you quit your old job, this is a great way to pay the bills while you figure out your product.
4. Do you have any ideas? How big are they? If you already have a few smaller ideas to tinker on, why not start now? Bigger ideas (like a gmail replacement or anything hardware related) might require more focus. A few months "off" your current role could give you the creative space to figure this out.

Beyond that, I think it depends on your money/family situation and whether you have anything saved up. Going into your savings is a risk, but having the focus to work on just one thing at a time is amazing for productivity (for me at least).

Hope that's useful!

Hey @frankely good to see another SD IH'er here. Let us know what you decide. If you go the consulting route, I could use some advice on an idea I have.

Don't quit your job until you understand what it will take to achieve either one of these dreams. Try picking up a side gig or launching a small product. There's plenty of work out there for consulting but do you have the communication skills and ability to identify customer needs? Are you able to time up work so that you can pay your living expenses and not stress about where rent or mortage payments are coming up?

I have made this mistake before, jumping ship doesn't mean you'll be successful. Working for yourself needs practice for some (like me).

I'm afraid that you can't run a business of any type, let alone consulting or a product.

Why am I saying so? Because in any business, you've to READ the customers and extract from their chittar chatter what their true pain points are.

But here you're. Asking a question that has been answered so many times right here on these pages. Yes, I am a person like you too. I see everything in front of me, yet I wish someone said it in my name.

So here it is. The advice I've read everywhere on this site, and on many other places, is that you better build something on the side, grow it to a point where you can make the transition to full time.

I'm sorry for harsh words but trust me, you'll suffer far bitter things when you actually get to make something people would pay for. My best wishes for you.

Good luck 👍