Critical Thinking: Nutrition For Innovators

Allen Lim is tenacious. When he first applied to the University of Colorado for graduate school, he did not get in. Rather than take no for an answer, he asked if he could visit on his own dime to present his credentials in person, hoping to impress the department and convince them to reconsider. The graduate advisor didn’t object, but made no promises. 

“Thank goodness it worked out,” Allen recalled.

Solving this problem—which many would have walked away from—is how Lim began his journey at CU, first in the pursuit of his master’s degree, and ultimately earning his Ph.D. studying the measurement of training intensity for serious cyclists.

But in a larger sense, it set the stage for his life and entrepreneurial career, which, Lim says, is really about solving problems.

Problem solving skills help Lim in work and life

His first educational challenge was data. It was easy to document training intensity in a laboratory. But “not what you could do in the field,” explains his CU graduate advisor, Bill Byrnes, “until portable power meters came along.”

Portable power meters, which measure and analyze strength, force, power output and energy expenditure, became Lim's best friends. With them, he overcame the challenges of data collection in the cycling world, and earned his doctoral degree.

Fast forward a few years.

“I finished my Ph.D. and I found myself on this next adventure of my life, which was living and working in Europe on the pro cycling tour.”

Despite wearing several hats, more than anything, Allen said, “I saw my job as solving problems.”

This meant thinking creatively to help riders. At one point, he even started cooking nutritious food from scratch for them, and mixing a homebrewed sports drink. Soon, other teams and other athletes were asking him for the products.

Lim thought creatively to help the riders on tour

One day, the inevitable happened. A rider he had coached suggested he start selling the products. Allen thought the idea had legs, and not long after, Skratch Labs, was born.

“Skratch Labs was really founded on two basic ideas. The first idea is that food and drink is just better from scratch. The second idea is that no matter where you are in life, it is never too late to start from scratch.”

And start from scratch he did. Propelled in part by his penchant for tackling problems, growth came fast. How fast? Fast enough for Inc. 5000 to list Skratch Labs as the third fastest growing food and beverage company on the country.

“Our core focus is creative innovation,” Lim said. “That really follows the paradigm of the scientific process, which is all about how you take a problem and go through a systematic way of solving it."

Innovative thinking is key to the success of Skratch Labs

Are the uphill battles over? Far from it. Fortunately, Lim never feels alone. “All my mentors have always been part of my life and career… Every time I need advice, every time I can’t figure out a problem, I call Bill.

 “For me, the most important thing I learned at the University of Colorado was how to think critically, and how to solve problems. And let me tell you, life is nothing but one problem after another," he said.

"And if you have that tool set, that way of solving problems, it is incredible what you can do.”