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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
Growth and Time Management
If last year I started a project like this SportsLizard revamp that I’m working on now, it would have gone a lot differently. For one, it would have been programmed a lot worse and probably taken twice as many hours of work to get the same result. In my head I think that and say “cool, what was a four week project a year ago is a two week project now” and then I expect myself to fly through it and get it done in two weeks. Then I realize that I go to the warehouse three days a week … Continue reading
What I Do on the Weekend
No question the most interesting statement from the interview I posted earlier today with Jun Loayza was when he said: “As a young entrepreneur, you will have NO work/life balance. I am very serious about this. If you want to succeed, you need to be working 24/7 every day of the week.” That’s why I wrote such a long response prior to asking my next question: “It’s easy to be happy for a year or two working all day, every day. In my opinion, it’s hard to be happy doing that for a lifetime – one day you’ll wake up … Continue reading
You Don’t Have to Worry About That!
Anyone who owns a business like ours has been there. You’ve just met a new group of people and they casually ask what you do for a living. You give one of a variety of answers, based upon how web-savvy the crowd is and how interested you are in talking about your business at the moment. They think what you do is really cool and they ask a bunch of nosey-but-well-intended questions. In a way, it gets a bit old. Of course, in another way it’s pretty freaking cool. Having someone genuinely interested in what you do is a pretty … Continue reading
Productive Output Update
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my productive output post where I declared that I would never work more than 35 hours in a week again (see Productive Output: What the 9-5 Misses and Why I’m Done with a 40 Hour Workweek). It was only two months ago, but a lot has changed since then. At the time I had just come off of 2+ years of pushing my entire life aside. In college I worked hard, but I played hard too. I might not have partied as much as some of my friends (some of which are still … Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
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