Many web developers, especially Drupal developers (who are in particularly high demand these days), won't touch speculative work, period. With so many options available to us, we can choose work that will pay now over work that might pay some day. Still, not everyone who has an idea has the front money to build it. I have had some luck with speculative web development work over the years, and I thought I'd talk about why I do it and how I choose which projects are worth speculating on.

Not long after I diverted from my former career path to pursue life as a Drupal consultant, I received the following advice from a trusted friend: "Every good independent web developer has a project or two that is their own, besides what they do for their clients." It's turned out that he is right. Good speculative work gives me a chance to build a product I'm really happy with, free of portfolio-harming client compromises and NDAs. It also provides me with important experience following a project through its entire life cycle, so that I can jump into my consulting projects and easily answer "where do we go from here?" no matter what state the site is in. Finally, good speculative work gives me something potentially profitable to do when my consulting business slows down. Instead of having tons of work or no work, I have tons of paying work and a little speculative work to fill in the gaps, which is better than no work!

Despite the potential benefits of developing a few well-chosen speculative projects here and there, there will always be far more demand for speculative development than there are developers available to fill it. I, like every other developer who considers speculative work, must somehow separate the wheat from the chaff. There isn't a formula for a successful project (if there were, we'd all use it and be rich) but here are some key points to consider before taking (or offering) a speculative web development project:

Recently, I've recieved a number of job offers from people who make even this died-in-the-wool techie feel like business and marketing experts rolled into one. I'm all for finding work. As a matter of fact, I'm on the market right now. However, anyone who manages any of the following acts of cluelessness had better be starting their own job search ASAP. I present, for the sake of learning from one's (or better yet, others') mistakes, "How NOT to hire me"...