[hardly_a_mirage]

I'm currently unemployed and getting a job is turning out to be really tough.

So I was wondering if it's a viable strategy to build a complete product, end-to-end and put it out on the market for someone else to purchase and operationalize.

I think "side-project" is misleading. What I really meant was "quickly buildable" projects. Some examples of such projects would include a unique LLM-powered content generator, or an AI-based Google Forms, etc

remove.bg is a good example of a project in the lines of what I have in mind.

[mattmanser]

No, it's probably not. It might be if you had great sales/marketing skills to reach the suckers who might buy that.

But you already told us you don't.

Have a go, but you should stay focused on getting a job. It's, unfortunately, a numbers game. I don't know your situation, smaybe you don't really need to yet.

But I did something similar when I got laid off in 2008, and in hindsight it was a massive waste of time and a way of making myself feel better without doing something actually productive to get a job.

[saluki]

Keep interviewing while building, you'll need to be making revenue to sell at a multiplier. So I'd think about building something you would enjoy running. Google and read about the slow SaaS ramp of death. It's probably not an immediate solution to not being able to find a job.

Check out Rob Walling and StartUpsForTheRestOfUs, great podcast and lots of great advice.

Check out his stair step approach. Basically start out with a simple product. An info product, plugin or package and then keep leveling up to get to a SaaS.

Good luck, keep those resumes going out.

[beardyw]

Remember that 99% of value comes from providing solutions to peoples problems, often quite down to earth ones. Keep that in mind.