Comment by thrwn_frthr_awy
5 years ago
I think what would be quite effective is to simply stop giving away t-shirts. Or give them to everyone who registers. But I've seen how long engineers will wait in line for a free shirt at a conference and it is astonishing, so it's not a surprise to see what they are willing to do for a t-shirt here.
Step 1: Set up a website offering these shirts for $5 + S&H at some domain that seems like it's for DO outreach work.
Step 2: Set up a system that creates an account and automates some pull request.
Step 3: Tie the two together and drop ship the shirts to the person who paid for it through your site.
Step 4: Profit a small/moderate amount and have a repo you're the primary dev on that looks really attractive as a proof of work, resourcefulness, and willingness to ignore ethical questions to a lot of Silicon Valley startups.
You joke, but there are automated bots already submitting pull requests to try and get a massive number of shirts. Once they start shipping they end up on eBay and the like.
I joke, but I'm also fully aware that the best jokes have a healthy dose of truthfulness...
Regardless of whether they actually monetize the shirts much, I wouldn't put it past someone to use that as an interesting thing to offer up in an interview, depending on the company and how they perceive the interviewers. :/