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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: Efficiency
Our Improved Inventory Zone System
A little over a year ago I wrote a post entitled New Warehouse Layout, Inventory Zones, & Efficiency where I explained our new “inventory zone” system. Prior to implementing that system, packing slips would just print out items in alphabetical order, potentially sending one of us all over the warehouse to pull the products for an order. We smartened up and assigned a “zone” to each shelving unit, which was then entered into our database to correspond with the products in the “zone” so that the packing slips printed products in “snaking zone order” like so: This helped pulling speed … Continue reading
Work Blitzes
Back in January I wrote about how I planned for 3 productive hours per day when developing. Things were a little different then…I was busier, and there was a little more pressure to get LockerPulse done quickly. These past few weeks things have really calmed down for me, to a level I don’t think I’ve had in a long time (if ever). All of the chaotic stuff from the LockerPulse launch has passed. For a while while Mike was in China we were having tech issues with LP almost every day and a few other things went wrong. Piggybacking that … Continue reading
My New Laptop
Last month I finally decided to upgrade my laptop. I’d been running the old Toshiba since 2007. At the time it was a powerhouse. It still served me well right up to the end, when a BSOD finally forced my hand. I probably would have upgraded in the next few months anyway. I’d been window shopping for a new laptop for quite some time. What stopped me from pulling the trigger was that I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted. First and foremost, I wanted a laptop that was light and small and had long battery life. I also wanted … Continue reading
Managing Out of Stock Products
Back when we were several magnitudes smaller, managing out of stock products was easy. If a customer ordered the product, we’d just send them an email and discuss with them whether they’d rather substitute a different product, get a refund, or have us hold their order until we got the product back in stock. If a product was going to be out for a while, we would just edit the description to say that it’s out and will be back in soon. Simple enough. However, as we grew, we realized that system wouldn’t cut it. Aside from the sheer volume … Continue reading
Not All Email is Created Equal
Despite getting less email with our recent changes, I still get a decent amount of email. Some of it needs a reply from me, some of it needs to be looked at and reviewed by me but doesn’t require a reply, and the rest of it isn’t very important at all. I’ve written before about how I handle my email. I still think that the majority of people leave their inbox open all day long with little alerts popping up every time new mail arrives, and I still think that doing so is a very very bad thing for productivity. … Continue reading
15 Productive Hours
I’ve instituted various time management and task management “systems” for myself over the years. I’ve almost always had a daily task list with automated reminders for routine things like “remember to check on backups”. I’ve grown into being very strict with how often I check and answer my email. Those things are pretty steady. But how I go about accomplishing the bigger projects changes based upon all sorts of variables, like how busy we are and what types of things I’m working on. During the holiday season I have to be very flexible and (gasp) leave my email open more … Continue reading
Productivity and Side Projects
As I’m sure you know by now, I’m a huge believer in side projects. They stimulate the mind, they open up new opportunities, they give you time to express a different type of creativity. They also have less at stake, so you can build things that don’t have to be profitable right away (or ever). I use Music-Alerts and Z.ips.ME every single day. They might not make us much money, but they were well worth the learning experience and the reward of letting other people in on a solution to a problem I experienced. Over the past few months I’ve … Continue reading
How We Communicate
One of the best arguments against having partners is that you avoid miscommunication. Not only miscommunication about the simple things (did that order get entered into inventory? did someone de-activate that product we sold out of?), but miscommunication about the grander vision of your company (what are our long term goals and why?). Over time, by necessity, we’ve come up with a pretty good communication system that works for us. We haven’t had any disagreements yet about the long term vision of the company, but if we do our system will ensure that we openly discuss it. Conversely, in a … Continue reading
Making Inventory Better
I think most retail outlets take a physical inventory every few months to know exactly what they have in stock. Those numbers then get plugged into accounting systems and are used to calculate a true cost of goods sold since the last inventory period, which is necessary to see the real profitability of their business. Up until now, for the most part, we’ve done the same thing. We have our inventory system that automatically deducts an item every time one is sold, but over the course of several months it becomes inaccurate. Either someone doesn’t enter in an order we … Continue reading
Setting Up Employees For Success
These first two weeks with our first employee have been a fascinating experience for us. John has picked up the job much faster than we anticipated. He’s getting more work done more accurately and in less time than we could have ever predicted. Now, a good portion of that is because he’s a very hard working, intelligent kid. I think we realize that not every employee is going to pick things up quite as fast as he has. But the other portion of that, the part that we have more control over, is how well I think we set him … Continue reading