How to Make Money From Unfinished Side Projects
Updated 2026-07-06 · by HiddenMRR
Short answer
The fastest money from an unfinished side project comes from narrowing it, not finishing it. Cut it to the single feature someone would pay for, put a €9–29 price on that, and ship that slice this week. 'Done' is the smallest version a stranger will pay for — not your original vision.
Finishing is not completing your original vision
The reason a side project stays unfinished is almost always the scope you imagined for it. Redefine 'done' as the smallest paid slice a real person would buy today, and most of your unfinished projects are suddenly 80% closer to shipping than you thought.
The full vision can wait. The slice pays for the vision.
Find the one feature with a price tag
Of everything you planned, which single capability would a business pay €9–29 for right now? Sell that. Put the rest of the roadmap in a 'later' file and stop looking at it. A tool that does one painful job well beats a half-built platform that does ten things at 40%.
Charge before you polish
Put up a checkout (Lemon Squeezy, Stripe, or Gumroad) and a one-page pitch before you add a single feature. A pre-sale or a first sale tells you whether to keep going. Polishing a product for zero buyers is procrastination with good lighting.
The distribution reality
Building is 20% of the work; being found is the other 80%. Before you write more code, answer: where do the people with this pain already gather? Then answer their exact question publicly — a subreddit, a Hacker News thread, an answer page an AI can quote — instead of shouting into a feed nobody reads.
Decide your kill criteria up front
Write down what 'no' looks like before you start: for example, 'if 0 sales after I show this to 50 relevant people, I shelve it.' This is what protects you from the classic trap — eight months of building and posting for sixteen downloads — because it forces a validation checkpoint that your excitement will otherwise skip.
Frequently asked questions
What if the side project is only 40% built?
40% is often enough to sell if that 40% contains the one feature people actually want. Ship the working slice, mark the rest 'coming soon,' and let real buyers fund the other 60%. Finished-in-your-head is worth less than half-built-and-selling.
Should I open-source it instead?
Open-source is distribution, not revenue, unless you pair it with a paid hosted version or a pro tier. Use OSS to get seen and trusted; charge for the part teams won't want to self-host and maintain.
How do I price something half-finished?
Price the value of the one job it does, not the hours you put in or how 'done' it feels. A €19 tool that saves someone an hour a week is a bargain; 'it's not finished so it should be cheap' is the wrong frame and trains buyers to undervalue it.
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