In episode 35 of The Bootstrapped Tech Founder, Lucas and Luna explore how bootstrapped founders use side projects as a deliberate strategy to de-risk new product ideas, generate cash before committing full-time, and build leverage for their core business. Lucas walks through three real cases: a solo developer who built a $1.2 million/year niche tool purely on weekends, a two-person team that launched an internal analytics tool as a separate product now generating $800k ARR, and a founder who used side projects to fund the first year of his now $5 million bootstrapped SaaS. They discuss the 80/20 rule of side projects, how to avoid distraction, and when to kill a side project before it becomes a zombie. The episode also covers a simple framework for picking side projects that actually serve your main business, plus the one mistake founders make that turns side projects into time sinks.

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