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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: Motivation
Sex vs. Changing the World
One of my huge pet peeves is when someone is in a difficult situation and they whine and complain about it, but proceed to do nothing to change the situation. Usually this comes in two flavors - relationships and jobs – although it really can apply to anything. It drives me nuts. If you don’t like a situation in life get off your ass and do something about it. When it comes to starting your own business, everyone has a tendency to talk a big game. You might succeed, you might fail, but to me it’s unacceptable to talk about … Continue reading
Amazing What a Record Day Can Do For Spirits
As I mentioned last week, weekends have been our busiest time (which does seem counter-intuitive, but whatever, we’ll take it). Friday afternoon Mike sent out a newsletter with a code for 10% off and free shipping for orders over $75 on Detailed Image. Combined with some killer daily specials and the DI busy season, the flood gates opened and the sales came pouring on in. George took this photo mid-day of all of the domestic FedEx Ground orders for DI and TD. This doesn’t include a handful of international orders (we ship those via USPS) or FedEx Express orders. It … Continue reading
8th Grade Graduation
Tonight my little sister Jenna graduated from 8th grade. I accompanied her and my parents to the ceremony held at the high school that I graduated from back in 2000. Being twelve years apart with no siblings in between, I always feel like there’s a huge gap between my generation and her generation. In reality, there really isn’t. Much of what she goes through is the same as what I went through twelve years ago. Take tonight for an example: The principle gives a speech about reaching for your dreams, pursuing your passions, and striving to do something amazing. The … Continue reading
A Funny Thing About Positive Reinforcement
Back in February I wrote a post about positive reinforcement. At the time we were just realizing how important it was for all four of us to see the positive feedback that the others get. The prime example that I used were Detailed Image orders. At the time we weren’t yet in the warehouse and George and Greg were doing 100% of the shipping of the products. There was no real “need” for Mike and I to also see the emails every time a sale came through, but we started doing it after I realized that it was helping our … Continue reading
Productive Output: What the 9 – 5 Misses and Why I’m Done with a 40 Hour Workweek
As any college student will tell you, scheduling classes is an art form. My first semester I didn’t have much choice and had to take whatever was available. My second semester I loaded up on Monday and Thursday and had the rest of the week off. It sucked – Mondays and Thursdays wore me out and the rest of the week I had to spend 10 hours doing homework. My third semester I put large gaps between my classes so I’d have time to get work done during the day, but all I did was bone around on ESPN.com and … Continue reading
The Difference Between Being 20 and 25
Every once in a while I have one of those moments where I say to myself “holy crap, I can’t believe this – I’m 25 years old and my partners and I run a company. We’ve built our own e-commerce platform and have our own warehouse, and we did it without giving up any stock or taking any outside money. I am living my dream.” It’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day crap that I forget that sometimes. Things are going good right now for us. We weathered the storm of all of the moving … Continue reading
Downshifting Post-Launch
It’s a weird feeling that I always get around this time. Every single time I’ve launched a new site or project I’ve felt the same thing, best described by a post I wrote back in 2006 just after the launch of iPrioritize: From my limited experience as an entrepreneur, I’ve come to the realization that the day after the launch of a new business or product is a weird one. The initial excitement and relief of the launch has been replaced with a realization that you have exactly zero customers. Now, maybe for some people this doesn’t happen the next … Continue reading
The Focus of a Tiger
I’ve never been the world’s biggest Tiger Woods fan. I respect him, am in awe of his athletic ability, and admire his work ethic. However, I’ve always thought he came across a bit too ‘rehearsed’ and not ‘real’ enough…kind of like Michael Jordan. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but in sports, business, and in life I tend to look up to people who are a little more transparent and strong in their convictions. All of that said, his interview this week with Scott Van Pelt for the ESPN Sports Center Sunday Conversation was fantastic. Slowly but surely (likely because … Continue reading
Having Non-Work Related Goals
Today I was planning on writing a post about the startup life and the mentality required to live it, but Adam Gilbert stole my thunder…by using the EXACT same quote I had written on my index card this morning. Adam basically summed up my thoughts in his conclusion: If I’m going to do something then I might as well be doing something remarkable/great/worth doing/worth talking about. Otherwise, why bother? So let’s say you’re like Adam and my partners and I, and you have the privilege to be part of a company that embodies your passion. As much as you love … Continue reading
Cutting it Close – Time to Step Up
I bet you think I just haven’t been posting much this week because we’ve been busy getting acclimated to the warehouse. Right? Right? Nope – I caught a wicked cold and have spent most of the week home sick getting very little accomplished. This was supposed to be the week where I started my ‘new’ routine, but that’ll have to wait until next week. Speaking of next week, we could end up spending the majority of the week working with the oil company trying to figure out why our heater mysteriously stopped working today. That should be fun. With the … Continue reading