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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: Work Ethic
X != Y
From the time we start learning we’re taught that if we put in X (time) that we’ll get Y (what we want). In school, if you study and do your homework, you’ll get good grades and be able to get in to a good college. At most jobs, if you work long and hard and are a team player, you’ll get raises and promotions (regardless of whether or not the work you did positively effects the bottom line). These statements are correct in most situations for most people. So when those same people read about a business that took 3 … Continue reading
Teamwork in Action
I’m writing this on Wednesday morning. Up to this point my work this week hasn’t really resembled what a “normal” workweek looks like for me. At all. I’ve spent the majority of my time in the warehouse helping the guys pack orders (we had a really successful early early holiday sale), answering customer service questions (which spike during big sales like this), and interacting with job candidates for our customer service position. Kind of a far cry from the usual web development and web marketing stuff. Why? Because while I was away Greg closed on a new house. Mike and … Continue reading
How Our Team Pulled Together Quickly For Today’s Big Product Launch
At 6 PM EST tonight Detailed Image was among the first retailers to begin selling the new Meguiar’s DA Microfiber Correction System. Meguiar’s is arguably the most well-known detailing brand in the world, and this product line has been receiving tons of hype. The whole process has been fascinating to watch unfold. For the most part, everything has happened within the last week. Everyone has been working their ass off to ensure that at 6:01 PM tonight we had done everything we could to have an exhaustive online presence for these hot new products. My role in the whole thing … Continue reading
My Productive Fall
Towards the end of Summer I decided to sit down and make a list of things that I wanted to accomplish this Fall before the Holiday Season started. It was a lot – more than I thought I could get to – but I like to challenge myself. We consider our “Holiday Season” to start on November 1. I like to have every new cart feature in place by mid-October so we have some time to work any kinks out before the big rush. I’m taking some time off this week and next week to head back to James Madison … Continue reading
Giving Credit Where Credit is Due
Yesterday I had to go to the DMV to renew my license. Not exactly my favorite thing to do. I purposefully drive a little further to a rural area as to avoid any of the downtown DMVs because those places are a mess. When I walked in around 10:30 AM, my best guess at when it would be empty, I was greeted by a nice long line anyway. While I was waiting though, I noticed that one of the ladies helping people was really good at her job. I mean really good. She worked about as fast as a human … Continue reading
The Idea Chart
About once every year I find myself re-reading Getting Real, the first book by 37Signals from 2006 about their software development process. There’s so much good stuff in there. I could probably do multiple posts on each chapter. Anyway, one thing that caught my eye when I was flipping through recently was this “idea chart” in Chapter 6 by Derek Sivers, one of the many “experts” they reference throughout the book: Be An Executioner It’s so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want me to sign an nda to tell me the simplest idea.) … Continue reading
Lay Bricks
My good friend Adam Gilbert wrote recently on the My Body Tutor blog: When you give it your all every day, not only do you feel awesome for having done so, but you are making progress. And at the end of the day, I’ve never felt better from taking a day off of laying bricks than I have from a hard days work of laying them. Ever. One brick at a time. That’s so true. That article was in the context of dieting and exercising, but it just as easily applies to entrepreneurship. I enjoy taking time off. But I … Continue reading
What People Don’t Like to Hear
We often get asked about our e-commerce platform by other business owners. They like the functionality and want to know exactly what we’re using so that they can use it too. We reply with something to the extent of “our team built the platform in-house for solely our own use”. If I get the question, I also tend to then suggest Shopify and Magento as solutions that might work for them. I enjoy the question because it really validates the hard work that we all put into it. I often wonder how much more interested people would be if they … Continue reading
Looking Forward to 2010
I’m not really a big New Year’s Resolution guy. I mean, what’s the real difference between last week and this week? All that changed was the calendar. But in business it’s a little different. When your fiscal year aligns with the calendar year like ours does, it just makes sense to take a step back and evaluate 2009 vs 2008 vs 2007 and then put together a tentative game plan for 2010. Last year we did a good job of setting realistic goals. We got the new Detailed Image launched. We hired our first employee. We grew a lot in … Continue reading
The Difference Between School, Work, and Entrepreneurship
Effort. You need effort to succeed a traditional corporate environment. You need it to succeed in academia. You need it to succeed when you start a business. But when it comes to running a company, effort doesn’t guarantee that you succeed like it does in the other two. When you’re in school, your grades are – for the most part – tied to your effort. If you study hard, you’ll score higher on tests. Even if you do bad on tests, you get credit for attending class, asking questions, and doing homework. If you put in extra time after class, … Continue reading