I've never had a side project lead to anything profitable in the monetary sense, but they've been very helpful in me getting great jobs. I'm currently taking a

I've never had a side project lead to anything profitable in the monetary sense, but they've been very helpful in me getting great jobs. I'm currently taking a side project and going to attempt to make a business out of it. As far as building it goes, it's basically the culmination of about 5 other side projects I did over the past couple years. So I've been able to build the MVP extremely quickly. I totally get and appreciate the "don't code outside of work, have a life", but at least for me, side projects have been very valuable.