Ask HN: Laid off –> solo founder. Do I look like I'm trying to hide something?

Before I was laid off, I'd been working on a side project and had been looking for an excuse to quit my job to commit to it fully. I have quite a lot saved, and now I can survive off severance alone for over a year.

My fear is that should I return to the job market, I'll look like I'm trying to cover up a long period of unemployment on my resume. Employers would see that I only committed to this project after being laid off.

At any rate, it wouldn't be much of a handicap signal.