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Hi. My name is Adam. I am the co-founder of Pure Adapt, Inc in Albany, NY. We own Detailed Image, LockerPulse, and a bunch of other websites. I write about our company, entrepreneurship in general, work-life balance, and whatever else interests me.
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Category Archives: Bootstrapping
Now With a “Real” Office
Back in ’09 I wrote The Bootstrapped Office. At that time we had the simplest, most basic work spaces at our warehouse and at home. As should be the case, there were a million things more important than the aesthetics of our office: Thing is, our customers will never see our work area. So when things go good for us we invest in better technology, employees, new product lines, new marketing initiatives, and a little bit in ourselves. Those things matter in our business. The aesthetics of a work area don’t. That was 100% true back then. The office was … Continue reading
Obscurity is Your Friend
Last month during the Facebook privacy backlash, Jason Fried from 37Signals wrote a great post about Diaspora, the “open source” Facebook that raised $200,000 on Kickstarter before even beginning their project. They received publicity from mainstream media outlets like the NY Times and the fund raising took off. His argument, one that I agree with, is that Diaspora is taking the wrong approach: Diaspora has all the wrong things at the wrong time. Competition that kills isn’t pre-announced — it catches an unsuspecting incumbent by surprise. In particular, I found one of his points to hit home: The spotlight is … Continue reading
This is Why I’ll Probably Never Pursue VC Funding
From Rand Fishkin’s post about his long, expensive, and ultimately unsuccessful journey trying to raise VC money for his company SEOmoz (emphasis is mine): I tell this story about our VC experience to a lot of people – it seems to be a subject that attracts great curiosity and I, of course, love to share. Most of the time, folks follow up by asking “are you disappointed?” and my answer has been the same since October. I’m not disappointed we didn’t get funded. In fact, the more time passes and the more I think about the pitfalls that could have … Continue reading
snailmailr is Brilliant!
I recently discovered snailmailr, a nifty website that lets you send real mail (i.e. “snail mail”) online for only 99 cents per letter, postage included. As you can see from the picture, the interface is dead simple. You can write your letter with their online editor or you can attach a Word Document, PDF, Powerpoint Slide, etc. They use laser color printers, 100% recycled paper, and even purchase carbon offsets for their paper use. And it works internationally. You can opt to pay 10 cents extra to have the snailmailr.com logo removed from your envelope, and you also have to … Continue reading
Put a Site Up This Weekend, Generate Revenue Next Week
After I posted about my Broncos tickets arriving, reader Jakob quickly notified me to cover up the bar codes on the two tickets I showed in the image. I emailed him to thank him and we got into a pretty interesting conversation about a business he just started. The business is a real estate photo service in San Diego called Rancho Photos. He’s a full time engineering grad student in San Diego, so he’s able to do this while still meeting quite a few other responsibilities. Here are a few interesting quotes from our conversation (republished with his permission): Getting … Continue reading
The Bootstrapped Office
My favorite Lifehacker posts are their “featured workspaces.” If you haven’t seen it, people submit their unique work areas and they pick the best of the best to display on the blog. The ones they pick are usually some combination of simplicity, elegance, creativity, and affordability. If you have a few minutes, take a look at all of the recently featured workspaces. Being that we’re a bootstrapped company, our work areas are more focused on simplicity and affordability and not so much elegance and creativity. It’s all about setting up areas that get the job done. We need to be … Continue reading
Funding Your First Business
Hypothetically, let’s go back in time and say I’m about to graduate from college. I know that in my heart I want to be an entrepreneur, but I’m concerned about how to fund a new company and have enough money to live. What do I do? It’s a common position for potential business owners to be in. I think a lot of very talented people that would start successful businesses get scared away by the financial uncertainty of starting their own business. My advice – eliminate all of the uncertainty by using a job to fund yourself. Here’s what I … Continue reading