You Have to Do the Hard Stuff to Do the Fun Stuff

Last year Tyler Adams won The Amazing Race.

Actually it's not that impressive for a guy with a long history of winning.

In fact, it was winning Startup Weekend that first brought Tyler and his surfboard to Los Angeles.

We ended up winning, so I said "screw it." I was looking for a reason to quit my job. They gave us office space. I had another friend moving out here that I could live with for a bit, so I gave up my job and I moved to LA and I started the grind of building my first mobile application.

The application was called Horse - named after the pickup basketball game format. A dare-by-video challenge platform that preceded the now famous ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

Horse wasn't a winner. But to quote Eric Ries, "learning is the essential unit of progress for startups" and Tyler Adams learned a lot about what it takes to build great products.

"You'll see product managers that are like, 'Oh, I hate innovation. What is this, this whole customer journey, and understanding the consumer, and then ideating, and all of that?' I find it really interesting. It's where a lot of the vision comes, and the spark of potential ideas, but there is a lot of work that goes into it that doesn't turn into a tangible product."

100 PM sat down with Tyler at the Manhattan Beach offices of BCG Digital Ventures, where he's recently been promoted to Senior Product Manager.

In this episode we take a deep dive into the concept of Intrapreneurship and how businesses can leverage existing data, customers and assets to create new products that drive growth.

Tune in below or subscribe to our podcast and listen on the go.

Keep up with Tyler and BCG Digital Ventures on Twitter by following @tylerhadams, @BCGDV.