Pure Adapt - the big picture

I tend to get caught up in talking about SportsLizard and the price guide, and really don't mention the overall shape of our business enough. We're at one of those points where you hurdle to the next level. We've only been incorporated for less than 4 months, but sites like SL and Detailed Image have been around for so long that they bring a lot of sweat equity with them and were far from babies when we started.

Detailed Image is doing really well, and is becoming our backbone. SportsLizard is still more of a home-run swing type of business - we're making money off advertising/affiliate sales, and premium subscriptions to the price guide. We're signing up several premium accounts each day, and about 100 free accounts so at that rate the money will be pouring in soon enough, but it's still just a blip compared to DI. Hotteeez, our t-shirt rating site (not sure if I ever even mentioned it before) is in place to drive traffic to our Cafe Press store, which is slowly but surely growing in sales. Mike is planning on continuing to make several t-shirts each week based on keyword research and what's popular at the time. We expect compounding sales from Hotteeez to the point where it's a major revenue source in the next few years, probably a little while after SL, which could realistically compete profit-wise with DI by the end of '07. Along the way I'm going to keep taking on the occasional SEO client because I enjoy it, I learn a lot, and it's good money (oh yea, and I'm good at it).

So how do we get there? It's been interesting conversation, but we all have agreed upon the necessary order of operations. First, we need to complete a new site for DI - not because the current one sucks, but because the current one requires too much work for Greg and George. I plan on automating everything, including accounting and inventory, which should save each of them a few hours/day. At that point, we are going to buy a warehouse to expand DI (and give me a place to go to work everyday rather than my basement), and possibly hire someone to do the packing and stocking of products.

Now we've freed up Greg and George to market DI, and I'm now back 100% on SL, and I envision Mike dancing between Hotteeez and some DI/SL...he's the versatile guy that knows enough about everything to do whatever the biz needs. From there we should be able to double our salaries by the end of the year, and we can stop living like we're making minimum wage :)

It's the most crucial point for us thus far because we should come out the other side with a highly efficient business that makes more than enough for the four of us to live comfortably off. At that point we can really focus on growing the way we want. We've decided we want to stay small, so I don't envision any other people besides our one full time packer for a long time.

It's extremely exciting to see everything fall into place like it has been the past few months, and the next few months should be fun as hell (entrepreneurial tip: in my opinion, if the next few months aren't ALWAYS the most exciting in your journey you are doing something wrong).