[monk_e_boy]

I chose to write a hugely boring open source product that no one in their right mind would bother with. Old tech, competing with a ton of other similar projects. I focused on the documentation, make it as simple as 'cut and paste this code to get it working' every time someone had a question, bam - a cut and paste example.

Did some serious SEO and soon was racking up a couple of thousand hits a week. This soon hits the million mark. That gets me interviews, even with people who don't want that old tech, they just see results.

I am currently doing a bit of Drupal for a client, there are a TON of half baked modules. Take some of them and make them work. Make them work with the backup module, the restore, the import.... then your CV is padded with a ton of neat stuff.

This is super common advice, the trick is to actually take it. Get all OCD about it and make it work.

[hardwaresofton]

If you're getting millions of hits per week, you might want to consider doing something to monetize the open source project...

[monk_e_boy]

No, sorry, not millions a week. It was a thousand or so a week. What I meant, is that those thousands add up to a more impressive number. The numbers have dropped off over the years.

[nordic_nomad]

That's what I was thinking. Find something 1 in 1000 would pay a dollar for and you're golden.

[acoard]

1,000,000 / 1,000 = $1,000. Hardly golden. Still, I take your point, with a million eyeballs you don't have to monetize much to make a pretty penny.