I don't have any experience with these adapters, but I see some notes that they don't automatically put the ESP8266 into boot mode as is done by the circuits on the common complete ESP8266 boards. This means you must manually manipulate the GPIO0 pin in order to put it in boot mode before starting the upload.
There is some information about that here:
Did you connect the GPIO pin to GND before plugging the adapter into your computer in preparation for the upload?