Press about Venice Beach Surf Club
“Today we’d like to introduce you to Will Adams
Hi Will, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was born here in Los Angeles, and grew up in the valley. I started surfing around the age of 16 and had no idea how much that would permanently alter the course of my life. I played sports growing up, and while I wasn’t an elite athlete, it was pretty easy for me to generally get functional at a given sport quickly. I had skateboarded a little and snowboarded from a young age. Surfing was such a different animal to me, I was terrible and none of my other sports translated. I’ve always been pretty hyper-competitive and it really drove me to try and get better. I wanted to be better than my friends and stepdad. But without much guidance, I just toiled for years.
I eventually went out of state for college and graduated from (The) Ohio State University with a degree in communications in 2009. I moved back to LA after school, spent a year and a half in Pasadena only to realize I needed to be closer to the ocean.
Moved to the westside in 2011, then Venice specifically in 2012, and I haven’t looked back since. Even though Venice has changed quite a bit over the years, I’m still hopelessly in love with this neighborhood. Venice has the history, the weird, the culture, the food, the natural beauty, the ocean access, the people, and this innate”… Click To Read More
“We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Will Adams a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Will , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?
My parents divorced when I was 7 and were very different people with a very big age difference, so growing up it often felt like I lived in two very different realities depending on the day of the week. At my Mom’s things felt relatively stable, structured, and supportive. At my Dad’s there was not a lot of structure, but there was a lot figuring things out on my own and independence. I think as most kids/teenagers do, I found a lot of ways to resent the differences at the time.
As an adult and particularly as an entrepreneur, I think the experiences really helped me become more well-rounded. The independence and necessity to problem-solve at my Dad’s made entrepreneurship a natural path for me. While learning how structure begets stability from my Mom helped my business become more solvent despite what can often be a rocky path in a small business’s journey. If I leaned too hard into the independence, things would devolve into chaos. If I leaned too hard into the structure, I don’t think we’d do anything groundbreaking. So I think the balance in these elements of how I was raised have really helped me create a business that I’m extremely proud of”...
We had the good fortune of connecting with Will Adams and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Will, what do you attribute your success to?
I think the most important factor for us is we put a strong emphasis on connection with our clients. When I worked for another surf school, ownership didn’t care about it’s clients unless their clients left them bad reviews or demanded refunds. That attitude permeated everything they did, and the end result was a tourist trap of an operation. For us, we intentionally keep our classes small so we can get to know each client individually. We teach to a system that has been refined over the course of the last 5 years and is meant to act as a springboard for improvement. Our students in lessons 2-3 are usually further ahead than if they took 7-10 classes elsewhere. We have more repeat business and regulars than our competitors and it all comes back to the connection we have with our clients. We adapt our system to different limitations and strengths of each individual, we figure out how they like to learn, and then meet them where they’re at.
Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
In its simplest form we are a surf school. While yes, we run surf lessons, as is true in…”