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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: Pure Adapt
Using WordPress to Make a Secure Twitter for Business
**Update 9/16. I’ve fixed the one unprotected feed security issue mentioned below in Step 5. Please see the Micro Blog Security Fix after reading this post, before attempting to build a similar system.** – We’re growing fast right now, very fast. It’s exciting stuff. In 2007 we spent the majority of our time assimilating as a team, determining which projects could drive the most revenue, and looking for a warehouse. We had a very good year, but 2008 has been a whole new story. Everyone knows what to do and all four of us have just been executing all day … Continue reading
Pure Adapt Rocks The AMEX Plum Card
Have you seen the commercials for the AMEX Plum Card? It’s freaking unreal. Mike talked us in to applying for one earlier this year and it was one of the best financial decisions we’ve made. There’s no limit – we each carry a card around and we charge all of our purchases on it, with the exception of a few places that don’t take AMEX If you pay within 10 days of your statement closing you get 2% cash back. When you buy ~$30k/month in inventory and supplies, $600 back is no joke. We also get 5% off of our … Continue reading
Mike’s Post is on the Red Cross Home Page!
Each of us is so unique that I always am amazed by what my partners can accomplish. Anyone who follows Mike’s blog knows that he does a “charity of the month” where he profiles a charity and makes a donation. This month he chose the American Red Cross. The other day someone from the Red Cross left a comment: 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 … Continue reading
Wohoo a Paycheck!
Back in February we made the somewhat difficult decision to self-fund our move and expansion by not paying ourselves for three months. In retrospect, this was a riskier move than I think we all realized. It’s really, really stressful to see your bank account dwindling without anything to replenish it. It’s also really, really stressful to work 12 hour days and see nothing in return. That said, it was the best move we ever could have made. Taking no pay brought us together as a team – we united around the fact that we needed to work our asses off … Continue reading
Climbing UAlbany for the American Lung Association
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 … Continue reading
Trying Out a New Schedule
One of the things we were most looking forward to when moving to our warehouse was having FedEx come daily to pick up all of our shipments. Previously Greg and George were driving any customer orders over to the local FedEx from Greg’s house where the products were stored. It’s worked out great – FedEx comes around 3:30 every day, which in theory means everyone can leave by 4 if they want to. However – the flip side of the issue is receiving shipments, which has been quite a pain since moving. Mail doesn’t get delivered to our industrial park, … Continue reading
The Art of the Launch
I’m going to take a step back from our pre-launch marketing for Tastefully Driven to go over our overall launch plan – from conception to where we are now to what we have left to do. I’m not saying that there aren’t different or even better ways to deploy a site, just that this process is how we do things, in large part based upon prior failures, successes, and other professional experiences (I’d be lying if I said my engineering background didn’t play a large role in the way I structure a project). None the less, I’ve never in my … Continue reading
Moving Time Chaos
Today we finally start the move to our warehouse. All week long Murphy’s Law – whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way – has been in full effect. Among my favorites: The hard drive on George’s brand new laptop died yesterday, and his most recent backup was the end of January. He has been the main point of contact for everything move-related, so this was a big hit. Remember to back up your files kids! I’ve been jumping through hoops trying to get my identity theft situation cleaned up. … Continue reading
The Best Way to Raise Money? Don’t Pay Yourself
It’s the dirty little secret of running a business. I hear about it all the time, but rarely hear it publicized. It’s glossed over by Karen Northup of Corefino in this Churchill Club Video, and it’s mentioned by store owner Dan Fox in this article: founders of seemingly successful businesses who don’t take a penny of salary for themselves. The reasoning is quite simple: it’s expensive to run a business, and faced with the choice of paying themselves or furthering the business, most entrepreneurs will choose the latter 10 times out of 10. This past weekend we made a similar … Continue reading
We Finally Signed Our Lease!
Last night George and I went to the post office and mailed in the final copy of our signed lease. Wow does that feel great! We’ve been looking for a place since back in August, and after having a few places fall through we finally found the perfect location for us. First things first – in our struggles to find the right place we learned that there are a lot of grimey people in this business that are difficult to work with and try to rip you off. This location is managed by the Galesi Group and I wanted to … Continue reading