So I was able to get it to work. The instructions on github (found here: https://github.com/Microsoft/PowerBI-visuals/wiki/Hello-IVisual) are kind of lacking.
Here is what I ultimately needed to do to get it to work:
Follow the "Steps" provided by user getsetbro....
https://github.com/Microsoft/PowerBI-visuals/issues/270
For some reason, it doesnt properly build in VS2015 but it does build properly when using gulp.