I found that worrying about deployment automation early on is immensely valuable, especially for side projects. I don't always find time or interest to keep working on side projects after a regular day of work. Quite often there are weeks or even months where I abandon a side project only to come back at a later point when motivation is back or things have settled down and leave more time for my side projects. If I didn't take the time to automate testing and deployments (which makes a lot of what continuous delivery is about) I find myself struggling with getting things up and running and become frustrated before I even get started.
Then there's only one way to make sure that my test and deployment automation keeps working: running it regularly, e.g. in a pipeline.
So, yes, don't over optimise your deployment pipeline early on. But having one in place early can pay off really soon -- and maybe even keep your side project alive.