Adrian Pereira is a native of Victoria, BC who, like many Canadian kids, grew up playing street hockey with his brothers and neighbors. Raised by immigrant parents with a solid work ethic, he was brought up in a close-knit family that modeled innovation and creative thinking. Even as an adult, Adrian maintains a close relationship with his brothers and sister, as well as with many of the neighborhood kids he grew up with. In fact, to this day, many of them still play hockey together.
While attending the University of Victoria and majoring in Computer Science, Adrian began to develop a passion for the business world, and cut his teeth working for UVic, Motorola, and the Department of National Defense.
The Power of the Internet and Sports
It was during this time that Adrian started working on one of his first business endeavors, launching a business from the ground up. That business was a hockey pool web app known as HockeyDraft.ca. He designed it for the simple reason that it would help him, and countless others, manage and save time and energy while pursuing one of his favorite pastimes. Today, after almost 20 years, HockeyDraft.ca has had tens of millions of views.
The website automatically manages every aspect of a hockey pool with a user-friendly interface, which saves hours of weekly work for fantasy hockey pool enthusiasts all over the world. Adrian still owns and operates the business, although these days, the business doesn’t require much time and predominantly runs on autopilot.
After the success of this sports business, Adrian Pereira of Victoria B.C. honed in on the business of Internet marketing, and early on began to develop his skills in this area. Adrian went on to create and launch another online sports company, eDraft.com, an app that combines deep data with a user-friendly interface to provide fans with analytics on fantasy sports such as NFL Fantasy Football, NBA Fantasy Basketball, MLB Fantasy Baseball, and NHL Fantasy Hockey.
Adrian then began to branch out into other sectors. Along with his wife, Kelly, and close friend, Tomas, Adrian helped launch an innovative gaming platform called Donate2Play. This social enterprise utilized micropayments and social gaming to help raise funds and awareness for charitable organizations.
In 2008, still fueled by his passion for sports, Adrian invested in a Victoria-based start-up called SendToNews, a distributor of sports videos, and became active on its Board of Directors. Today, SendToNews is the #1 digital sports content and advertising platform in North America, generating over 150 million video impressions monthly ahead of titans like ESPN, CBS, Yahoo, and more.
Adrian’s wife Kelly fondly refers to her husband as a “serial entrepreneur.” He gets excited about an idea, then proceeds to fully educate himself on the topic, does all the necessary market research on it, and figures out how to launch it as a business. Along the way, he continues to invest his time and energy into gaining knowledge of the field, while bringing key people on board to expand the knowledge base and expertise and help get things off the ground.
Branching out in New Directions
Adrian Pereira’s latest entrepreneurial endeavor took him in a new direction as fatherhood brought its share of inspiration, and he co-founded a new business venture in partnership with his wife. The two launched The Eco Pea Company, which provides eco-friendly diapers and baby wipes made from bamboo. The products are both gentler on a baby’s sensitive skin and kinder to the environment as they’re made with more natural and sustainable materials compared to the competition.
The idea came when the couple’s youngest daughter had a reaction to the chemicals and materials used in traditional diapers and baby wipes. The two joined forces to find a solution that would not only solve the problems of children’s allergic reactions to chemical products, but that would also address the problem that conventional diapers cause in landfills, as they can take centuries to decompose. Adrian began researching and testing different solutions and came up with sustainably harvested bamboo as the material that would deliver both the soft texture and biodegradability that he and Kelly were seeking. Today, The Eco Pea Company has 4 warehouses operating in North America and has become a thriving direct-to-consumer enterprise. The brand is recognized for its natural ingredients, safety, and environmental consciousness, as well as the luxuriously soft feel of its products. The products also significantly reduces rashes and other sensitive skin reactions that many babies and toddlers have as a consequence of wearing conventional diapers.
The Drive to Learn and to Grow
Adrian is driven by his thirst for knowledge, as well as his entrepreneurial spirit.
“In order to bring an idea to life, there will usually be hundreds of little goals and milestones that you need to get done along the way,” he notes. “I like to analyze the idea, learn all I can about what it would take to get there, prioritize those tasks, and then dive in. I’m a spreadsheet type of guy and love to tackle projects and problems from an analytical point of view.”
He is currently excited by the direct to consumer market trend as an area that he’d like to continue to pursue, including the use of social media to move the brand and connect directly with the company’s consumer base. The Eco Pea Company includes a blog, where parenting tips can be shared between the company and its consumers. The company also uses social media, not only to promote its products, but also to spread the word about the importance of environmentally-friendly products and businesses, and to maintain an ongoing dialogue with their customers and supporters.
“From a brand’s perspective, there is no middleman,” he explains, pointing out the advantages of working with a D2C model. “You get to build relationships directly with your audience, which is super powerful. You get direct feedback from your customers and can really build a community of fans that share similar values and help fuel your marketing.”
Direct communication with his consumer base, as well as with other like-minded thinkers who share both his personal and entrepreneurial interests, provides Adrian with one of the things he loves most in life: information and data. “The more information you have, the more ways you can analyze things, and the easier it is to make a well-informed decision.”
Passion Provides Fuel and Energy
Adrian also believes that working on projects that you love and those that inspire your passion is the real key to success. “More often than not, the projects that you feel are interesting, fun or engaging, are the ones that will grow into something special,” he explains. “You will end up putting more into it and will likely get more out of it too.”
He also advises up and coming entrepreneurs to create products and services that they themselves would be interested in using, solutions to problems in your own life, as in the case of The Eco Pea Company which provided a solution to his daughter’s diaper rash problem.
“If you would be a customer of your own product, that is a really good sign, as you’d likely be in it to win it. Also, don’t be afraid of diving into new areas. We’re living in a time where information on almost any subject is readily available. It’s not all that challenging to find people that have the knowledge and expertise that can help you achieve the task at hand.”
A great deal of that information and knowledge can actually come from other successful brands, even your own competitors. Because consumers become loyal to brands even more than to specific products, it is important to understand what makes consumers choose and stick with a certain brand.
“Each unique brand has things they do very well and things they don’t. Pick and choose the things that you love about other brands, whether they’re in your vertical or not, and try and implement it in a similar fashion,” Adrian advises. “Whether it’s the way they handle customer support, the styles of advertising they utilize, or any other aspect of their business. Chances are they’ve spent a lot of money testing and figuring things out, so why go through all of that pain and cost? Learn from the companies you admire, but add your brand’s own flare so that you’re using a winning formula while still making it your own.”
He goes on to advise startups to not skimp on quality products and ingredients when working with manufactured goods, noting that maintaining a higher standard than generic brands will ultimately lead to more success than simply competing on price. With regards to The Eco Pea Company, he affirms, “We knew making our products healthier and more environmentally friendly would cost significantly more, but we felt customers would be willing to spend more for that added value.”
Facing the Future
When asked about potential ideas for future businesses and areas that he would advise newcomers in the business world to explore, Adrian shares, “Printables seems like such a great business model. If you hired a graphic designer, they can make invitations, party favor inserts, food labels, posters, thank you cards, etc. for a specific theme. For example, a kid’s superhero birthday theme. You pay a designer once to create the PDFs, and you could sell as many as you can without increasing costs. A quick email of the PDF and you’ve fulfilled the order. There are so many themes you can create.”
Adrian affirms that he’s been fortunate to enjoy a successful career as a businessman, but he admits that like others, he’s made his share of mistakes. “Sometimes people take on too many things at once and that’s something I’ve been guilty of as well,” said Adrian. “It’s challenging to have a meaningful impact on a business when you simply don’t have the cycles required to digest and analyze things effectively.”
His solution to this dilemma is to stay focused exclusively on the areas and interests that are truly fulfilling for each entrepreneur as an individual. This will ensure that you’re working with passion, commitment, and focused discipline, the three ingredients that are most essential to success in business.
