My girlfriend and I quickly grabbed a few bags, threw everything we could into them, sprinted out to my car, and took off for my parents house about 20 minutes away. With road closures to every road surrounding us imminent, all I could think about was getting out safely so that we wouldn’t have to stay in a shelter for an extended amount of time. Thankfully, the drive wasn’t too bad and we made it safely.

And then the waiting started. For the next several days we watched the news and saw the destruction unfold. Seeing nearby residents houses completely totaled, seeing some of our favorite local restaurants and shops destroyed. While we get a lot of snow up here, we almost never get anything resembling a natural disaster in the Northeast. It was a very surreal feeling.

Every few hours I spoke with the police department or the property managers. By Monday afternoon we had a pretty good idea that our area was hit hard. As the roads started to open across the area, everything near us was still closed with no timetable in sight. Then my girlfriend was sent this picture on Facebook of our apartment building:

That’s when we realized just how bad it was. Unfortunately her car was in one of those car ports and might be totaled (we’re waiting to hear back from the insurance company). Fortunately though, we live on the third floor so we weren’t overly concerned about losing our stuff. Because of the potential damage to the building, I began to wonder if we’d ever get to live there again. The frustration continued Tuesday as we received almost no new news. I’ve never been more frazzled and scatterbrained in my life.

Then finally Wednesday morning we were told that the water had receded, cleanup crews were on site, and our apartment would be ready by Thursday. We decided to take a drive out on Wednesday afternoon to assess the damage on the car. What we saw was completely devastating. Our neighbors on the first floor lost everything. The water levels reached roughly up to my waist. Seeing families sort through what’s left of their belongings is one of the saddest things I’ve ever experienced. It’s eerie to watch truck after truck come by and take away the water damaged stuff.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t that big of an inconvenience for us. We spent four nights at my parents house. Words can’t express how accommodating they were to us. I am so thankful that I have such a great family. My girlfriend’s car might be totaled, but it looks like her insurance will cover it one way or another. In the meantime we’ll rent her a car. We had to throw away all of the contents of our refrigerator. But otherwise our life will be more or less back to normal shortly.

Unfortunately there are many many people who weren’t so lucky. They will have to rebuild from scratch. Since most homeowners insurance policies don’t cover flooding, our neighbors and local businesses will especially be relying on the government and the community to help. Mike named the American Red Cross of Northeastern New York his Monthly Charity. I’ve also made a donation. They do great work in times of need like this – providing shelter, food, and counseling services for the displaced, and aid to help get them back on their feet, as well as cleaning crews to help sanitize people’s homes, doing blood drives to help supply hospitals, and much more. I know it’s a cliche, but every little bit really does help. If you’re in the Albany area, you can make donations during checkout at your local Price Chopper grocery store. You can also text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation. Or you can donate online.

During my tour of our warehouse I mentioned that we made the switch recently to anti-static biodegradable packing peanuts.  Part of the reason was to protect our products better.  Part of the reason was to create a uniform packing process (previously we had just been re-using all sorts of packing material from our vendors).  And of course part of the reason was because it is good for the environment and – in conjunction with using 100% recycled paper – we can tell our customers that we’re “going green” with their shipments.

George was able to strike a killer deal with our new distributor, so we stocked up:

Which left us with the question:  what do we do with the packing material that our vendors send to us?  We decided to temporarily fill garbage bags with it and then figure it out later.  However, after a few months it really piled up.  We’re receiving orders from our vendors on a daily basis, many times 2-3 in a day.

I had read an article somewhere about freecycle,  which is basically craigslist for free shit, so we decided to give it a shot.  In their own words:

It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them’s good people). Membership is free.

Pretty good idea huh?  They even have companies like Waste Management as their sponsors.  I signed up for the Albany, NY group and posted that we had packing material and pallets available to anyone willing to come pick them up.  I didn’t expect too much.

Instead I received about 8 inquires in the first 24-48 hours!  Within a week we had about 20 pallets and a whole bunch of packing materials cleared out of our warehouse.  We even made friends with a local company that makes signs and are currently working with them to improve our current outdoor signage (which currently consists of a few laminated sheets of paper).   Anyway, freecycle is an awesome site.  Highly recommended to anyone moving and about to take a trip to the dump.  Snap a few digital pictures of the things you’ll be getting rid of and do a quick post.   After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure

Merry Christmas Everyone!

When we started the program, we figured we’d pick a charity, mail a check, and that would be that.  Boy was I wrong.  This experience has been so much more than that.

It started rather innocently.  In the midst of our warehouse move and all the work involved in getting Tastefully Driven up and running, we didn’t have a chance to sit down and pick a charity.  Growing up I had always admired our regional food bank and had even done a little volunteer work there as a kid with my church.  The fact that some people in our area do not have food to eat blows my mind.  I absolutely cannot comprehend what it would be like to not know where your next meal will be coming from.  It’s so very sad if you stop and think about it.  So, I chose the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York as our first charity.

The plan was to make a series of smaller donations every quarter so that we made four donations to four different charities each year.  However, when I sent an email to the food bank notifying them of our impending donation, I received a phone call back from director Mark Quandt, someone who I knew from their TV commercials, news segments, and articles in the local paper.  That alone was really cool.  He told me that he had never heard of such a thing and that he wanted to know more about us and our business.   I told him how much I admired what he had accomplished with the food bank.   The conversation was really awesome.  Subsequently we decided to extend the food bank to the end of the year and give them our entire donation for 2008…especially because sales for a new site are so small for the first 3 months.  We wanted to make sure we gave them a substantial donation.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago.  I received an email from Mark about their annual auction event.  They sell 150 x $100 raffle tickets to raise $15,000 for the food bank.  Combined with the live auction, silent auction, and tickets to the event they planned on raising $90k.  Unfortunately they were short quite a few of the $100 tickets.  He mentioned that this year the demand is higher than ever before because of our hard economic times:

I know it’s a hard time to ask because the economic news is so bad. But it’s even worse for the agencies and people we serve (food pantries are being overwhelmed with a huge increase in requests and many people are seeking help for the first time). We are very concerned about the upcoming winter months.

I forwarded the email over to my partners and we decided to make our yearly donation in $100 raffle tickets.  We projected our sales for the end of the year and then added a bit of a cushion in.  I then contacted Mark and received the following response:

Wow! That’s great news. We would love you to make your donation through the sale of raffle tickets. The Auction is very important to us, and we want it to be a big success. Your donation will help immensely. We were worried about selling all the $100 raffle tickets in this tough economy. Now with your decision to buy tickets, I think we will make it.

That might be the best email I’ve ever received.  We then inquired about attending the event and decided to purchase four tickets, one for each of us, at $85 each with proceeds benefiting the food bank.  The event was Wednesday night at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Albany.  The food was amazing (plus there was an open bar) and the people were amazing. I was so impressed with the turnout – there were over 40 tables with 8 people per table.  Everyone was very generous in bidding during the live auctions.  Greg, George and I all won silent auctions with all of the proceeds again benefiting the food bank.  I got tickets to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY (one of my favorite places on earth, I’ve been probably seven times but none since the 2004 inductions), George won the entire series of Everybody Loves Raymond on DVD, and Greg won a very very nice mountain bike.

I just did a quick post on Tastefully Driven about the event:

With the struggles our economy is facing, more people than ever will go without food this holiday season.  Our Commerce with Conscience program donates 5% of Tastefully Driven’s profits to local charities in the Albany, NY area.  For 2008 we were proud to make our donation to the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York a few months early so that they would be able to use the funds to help families in our community this holiday season. This past Wednesday night our team attended the 19th Annual Auction to benefit the Regional Food Bank at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Albany.  In addition to the company donation, our team won several auctions to directly benefit the Food Bank.  Thank you to all of our customers who were able to make this donation possible.  The Food Bank estimates that for every dollar donated $10 – $12 of food is given to the hungry.

Here’s a photo.  From left to right:  George, me, Mike, Greg.  It’s not exactly my favorite photo of me, I was kind of leaning back and slanted.  I also never realized how much taller I am than Mike…

Of course, we all rocked our CwC wrist bands too:

When I take a step back I can’t help but think about how proud I am of our team.  With our raffle tickets, event tickets, and auction winnings we contributed quite a bit towards that $90k goal.  When I looked around at all of the faces and saw local business owners, CEOs, politicians, and local news “stars” I realized that we have no where near the net worth that these people do.   But that didn’t stop us from giving all that we could. I really hope we keep that mentality as we grow.

Hi Michael. I’m Claire from the American Red Cross. Thank you for your endorsement. There are many people in need right now and we are doing everything we can to help.

Then today Mike noticed that a link to his post was on the home page of RedCross.org!  That my friends is NOT an easy link to get.  Congrats to Mike!

This morning bright and early the Pure Adapt team participated in the annual “Climb UAlbany” event for the American Lung Association. Each of us raised money in sponsorships to climb the 22 story Colonial Quad at the University of Albany. Our team was formed by our kickass lawyer David Green, and the ten of us that participated on the team were able to raise over $1,000 to benefit the ALA of New York State. According to the website, the total raised was $27,531!

We originally planned on walking the stairs, but the competitiveness in us kicked in and we decided to race them. Our exact times aren’t posted yet, but I think we all finished in under 5 minutes. I sprinted the first 15 flights and then hit a brick wall and walked the rest…I’m not a huge cardio guy – most of my time at the gym is spent lifting – so it showed in my conditioning. Mike, who is in fantastic all-around shape, walked a few laps with me and then sprinted the last few.

George took a great photo of all of us after the event, but he can’t seem to find it on his computer so you’ll have to take my word for it that we all participated. We were all given shirts and medals: Greg plans on rocking his medal for the next few weeks (we worked together after the event and ran a few errands, Greg had the medal hanging from his neck everywhere we went…you could tell people were wondering why some dude was walking around stores with a medal hanging from his neck…freaking hilarious).

A couple of random thoughts:

• You would be SHOCKED at how many people are in horrible shape. Seriously, if you walked at a normal speed you would do 22 flights in about 8 – 10 minutes and wouldn’t be very fatigued at all. By the time I was at about the 5th floor I saw tons of (mostly overweight) people pulled over on the side struggling and contemplating whether or not they could finish. I spend a lot of my time around people who place a high emphasis on health and fitness, so I’m always a bit taken back by how much some people neglect their own health. Not to get all political on you, but to a large degree I see a simple solution to our health care problems: eat right, exercise, and sleep. Cancer rates would go down, type II diabetes would go away, and our reliance on expensive drugs with horrible side-effects would be eliminated. I’ve always felt this way, but sometimes I forget how bad it is because I don’t see it.
• A few days ago it was almost 60 degrees outside and I went to the gym in just a shirt and shorts. Yesterday and today it snowed and was cold as shit. So is life in upstate NY. Unfortunately, whomever planned this event must have thought that at 8 AM it would be 75 degrees out and not 20 and windy/icy, because we spent about thirty minutes outside reviewing the rules and stretching as a group as we all froze our asses off. My bald head can’t take the blistering cold for that long.
• The event was horribly unorganized and inefficient. For example, it took Greg 30 seconds to register and the rest of us about 30 minutes. Why? His last name – Pautler – falls under the N – Z category. The rest of us, along with about 90% of the people there, had to wait in the ridiculously long A – M line.
• And yet we all were there for less than 2 hours and freaking $27k+ was raised for charity. How cool is that?
• This all led us to conclude that we would absolutely kick ass at organizing charitable events. We have some cool stuff going on with Tastefully Driven’s “Commerce with Conscience” program (more to come soon) and I think this will become and increasingly important focus for us as we grow.

We all knew that she was one of the worlds largest philanthropists, and that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation does great things for the world. After reading the article, she comes across as what we should all aspire to be if we’re lucky enough to have wealth and power. Her and Bill are giving away OVER 95% of their money to help make the world a better place.

A couple of my favorite passages:

If you are successful, it is because somewhere, sometime, someone gave you a life or an idea that started you in the right direction. Remember also that you are indebted to life until you help some less fortunate person, just as you were helped. – Melinda Gates, valedictory speech, Ursuline Academy, 1982

———–

Her close friend Charlotte Guyman, a retired Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft executive who is now on Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway board, recalls a trip to Calcutta in 2004. One day, when Melinda had foundation meetings to attend, Guyman and a few in their group spent a half-day at Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying. There, they were captivated by one young woman suffering from AIDS and tuberculosis who was “just bones,” Guyman says. No one could break the woman’s zombie-like stare. The next day Melinda visited. “Melinda walks in, pauses, and goes right over to this young woman,” Guyman recalls. “She pulls up a chair, puts the woman’s hand in her hands. The woman won’t look at her. Then Melinda says, ‘You have AIDS. It’s not your fault.’ She says it again: ‘It’s not your fault.’ Tears stream down the woman’s face, and she looks at Melinda.” Guyman can’t forget the connection. “Melinda sat with her. It seemed like forever.”

———–

“My fatal flaw?” Melinda says, laughing, during our third and final interview. She sometimes wishes for a simpler life, she admits. “It depends when you catch me. Most days, no. But if you’d asked me yesterday if I would like a much simpler life, I would have told you yes.”

Even Melinda has days that she doesn’t want to have to live up to the responsibilities of the foundation. We all have our issues, and unfortunately it seems like too many people walk around saying to themselves “how do I get X” instead of “how do I use my talents to help someone else”. If we all let our problems dominate our thoughts, we’ll never make the effort to help those around us. Melinda is one of those special people who sees through the BS that encapsulates most people. I can’t imagine a person I’d rather see have the wealth that she does.

Not exactly what I expected from Fortune. Maybe I’ll actually renew this subscription.

Every entrepreneur gets their passion from somewhere different.  For some, the thought of wealth and independence is what fuels them, and that’s fine.  But the most successful entrepreneurs I’ve encountered truly believe that their endeavours are going to change the world and help improve people’s lives.

For-profit businesses force innovation and that that’s a good thing.  The majority of technological innovation comes from the for-profit world, and without it we’d be in trouble as a society.  Diseases have been cured, transportation problems have been solved, and education has been broadened all from for-profit ventures.  I love the for-profit world, and I always want to be a part of it.

But I also believe that the non-profit community meets needs that the for-profit world ignores.  Who is going to make sure that those without food and shelter tonight don’t starve to death?  Who is going to comfort those with incurable illnesses in their final days?  It’s complex to try to create a for-profit company to solve these basic human needs, but we are blessed to have people in this world who devote their lives to these causes.  Whether they are in the peace corps, a member of clergy, or just love helping, they also play a huge role in keeping our society from falling apart.  In many ways, these people are my heroes.  And so  I also want to desperately be a part of the non-profit world.

This isn’t really news to anyone who knows me.  However, as our success increases I begin to thing more about HOW to use our entrepreneurial skills to make an impact in both sectors.  Ten years from now I envision a full-fledged non-profit division of Pure Adapt (we’ve already purchased PureAdapt.org for that purpose), but I believe that there’s always something important you can do NOW regardless of how measurable it is to the outside world.

I’m happy to say that I think we’ll be taking that step with our next venture.  It’s pretty obvious to anyone that reads this blog regularly that our next move will be another foray into e-commerce given the success of the new Detailed Image.  So one day I was thinking “how could we leverage a successful e-commerce site to help change the world?”.  And then I came up with the simplest solution to a problem I’ve ever come up with:  donate a portion of revenue for every sale to charity.  Make it part of the culture of your site/store – every single purchase has a small impact in helping a non-profit that needs your money.  Sure, at first it won’t be much.  But it ensures that our non-profit impact is directly tied to our for-profit impact so as we have more money in our pockets we will also be making the world better at the same pace.

I’ll be honest – I was pretty nervous about bringing this up to my partners.  We are a for-profit company, and my partners have no real obligation to give a crap about the community and the charities that support it.  It’s one thing to buy PureAdapt.org and talk about what we’ll do when we have millions, but another thing to get everyone to agree to take action when we are all very much not settled in our lives.

Thankfully everyone has been very open to the idea.  After working out some kinks with the system, I think we’ve tentatively agreed upon donating 5% of profit (price – cost of goods sold)  for every transaction through our new site, which I anticipate launching in the spring.  We will likely change charities every quarter and cut the check for the previous quarter at the beginning of the next.  At first I wanted to do a percentage of the sale price, but we’d run into issues for products that have very small (or no) margins (some items we sell at cost to turn over inventory and bring customers into the store).  Either way – 5% of profit before all of our other overhead like marketing, rent, and salaries is still a pretty solid commitment.

I’ve never been more excited about anything in my entire life.  E-commerce is what we do best, and we’ll be able to do it in a way that satisfies our customers, provides a comfortable living for us, and contributes to the non-profit world.   I can’t imagine anything better than that.

1. I learned how to work in an environment with a lot of very intelligent individuals from across the world.
2. I was able to work with cutting edge technology.
3. I got a degree from a top 50 school in the US that was top 20 for my major.
4. I made invaluable personal and business connections that will last forever.
5. I was challenged above and beyond what I ever was prior to that, and it forced me to learn work ethic and focus and balance.
6. I probably made close to $120k back in work study jobs, research projects, internships, co-op’s, and my full time job (13 months) – all of which I got interviews through our career center…and most of which were only open to RPI students.

That said, there are a lot of people throughout the world who could cut it intellectually at some of the top colleges in the world but don’t have the resources to enroll and receive the education. MIT is now offering 1,800 classes from all disciplines online for free, many with audio/video or foreign language translations. These are valuable tools to those who don’t have access to a premium MIT education, and are even more valuable to professors in developing countries that cannot afford the teaching materials to put together proper lesson plans.

I took a look at the courses available for the Engineering Systems degree (the closest equivalent to my Industrial Engineering degree) and it looks like you could essentially piece together the entire curriculum – from entry level Calculus right through advanced logistics classes. Pretty freaking cool huh?

This could be the start of the way we look at education in the years to come (and consequently could be the beginning of the end of super high priced universities). Is anyone going to hire you if you take a full course load with these free courses? Probably not…yet.

Just connected to wi-fi, I’ll write a review after I’ve toyed with it…

The mission of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. In order to accomplish our goal, we need people who believe in what we’re doing and want to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege. Between November 12 and November 26, OLPC is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. During this time, you can donate the revolutionary XO laptop to a child in a developing nation, and also receive one for the child in your life in recognition of your contribution.

For $399 ($200 of which is tax-deductible) a laptop is sent to a child in a developing nation, and one is also sent to you. In addition, you also get one year of free T-Mobile HotSpot access (a $350 value).

For those of you who haven’t heard about the laptop, it is absolutely revolutionary. It can be built for under $200 (soon to be under $100), and runs a plethora of custom open source software on a special Linux operating system. To accommodate the developing nations ,the laptop has long battery life (and can be re-charged using a hand crank on the device), a screen that can be viewed outdoors, and antennas to act as relays for wireless internet access!

I became very intrigued by the mission of the program when I first heard about it, and once the Give One, Get One program was announced I was absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to donate one of these amazing machines AND get one myself. My hope is to eventually have Pure Adapt develop web applications to work specifically with the laptops unique resolution and web browser to help make the knowledge of the web more accessible to these kids, but in the short term it’s just going to be a fun toy. On top of that, I’m pumped to get the T-Mobile HotSpot access so I can finally get free wi-fi at Starbucks (Albany, like every other city in the country, has about 500 Starbucks and maybe 5 other coffee shops with wi-fi…it’s nice to have 500 more places I can get out to do some work and grab a good drink).

Some people have been critical of the mission of the organization, namely their focus on developing countries over domestic kids in need. From their FAQ:

Why are these laptops going to children in developing nations when there are needy children in the U.S.?

In the U.S., the average expenditure for education is $7,500 dollars per child. In developing countries, the average expenditure is typically less than $300 dollars per child. One Laptop Per Child is initially focused on where the need is most urgent. A number of U.S. states have approached One Laptop Per Child and expressed interest in the program, and in the long run, One Laptop Per Child hopes to work with those states and help children everywhere.

I can certainly understand the opposing view, but I happen to agree 100% with that sentiment – I view the entire world as one family and our brothers and sisters in the most need are in developing countries.  If you happen to agree too, there’s no better Holiday gift that you can give than the gift of education to a needy child.