"If I had listened to people around me, I wouldn't have proceeded after three months. This is a risky business and maybe it isn't going to work and I'm going to look back and say I spent $300,000 and four years of my life, but I do believe the end is in sight."

David Swan is the founder of PUR Golf—that stands for Producing Unmatched Results. PUR golf is a training aid designed to help golfers improve their swing. Just hitting the commercial market this year, the PUR Golf trainer was named "one of the three items golfers need in 2023" by the PGA . It sells online exclusively.

Swan started his career as a basketball coach, first college, then for a professional team in Norway. His career has been a winding road since he retired from coaching in 2002. Real estate, software sales, motivational speaker, founder of Bright Day Energy, a Minneapolis-based company that specializes in LED and solar lighting.

Only in the last few years did Swan add product inventor to that list, when his golf game started to tank. David is an entrepreneurial thinker, and in improving his own game, he came up with a product that would help others as well. When it didn’t work, he tried again, and again. On the 300th, he says PUR Golf finally ready for consumers. His friends think he’s nuts, but then, isn’t that the story with most successful founders?

Swan doesn't let the doubters get him down. He says this is just the way he’s wired.

Following our conversation with Swan, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Professor Alec Johnson differentiates inventors from innovators. "Inventors have a solution and go out seeking a problem to solve. Innovators listen to the voice of the customer and adapt their solution to fit the market. That's what David did by going to golf pros to make his product better." Johnson will teach a class next year on making the transition from inventor to innovator.