If you are an avid golfer, you’ll like this product. If you are an entrepreneur, you’ll be inspired and encouraged by Kelly Curry. Kelly is the inventory of a product called the Swingnature, a golf swing training tool. Kelly’s story is almost a text book case study in what happens when you have a brilliant ‘kid’, some great programs in both the government and the university environment, rounded out with raw entrepreneurial drive.
Kelly’s story begins when accidently left on a lifeboat in the Atlantic at age 3, he made his way to Canada. Okay, not exactly. The more reality based version:
As an engineering student, he reads an article about golf and the correlation to getting business done while on the course. He learns the game, gets nuts about it and, while watching a golf pro do some warm-up exercises, gets a brilliant idea. He heads down the the hardware store and builds what’s in his head. You can read the more polished version of the story here, but that’s essentially how the company got started.
Kelly got into McMaster University’s Engineering Entrepreneurship and Innovation program. This is an excellent program where the students arrive with a great product and the school teaches the business aspects of running a company along with getting more engineering brains wrapped around the product itself. It is an amazing program.
The Canadian Government stepped up with $60,000 in grant money, and off we go.
But beyond the great educational program and the seed funding, you have two things at the center of all this; a great product and an outstanding entrepreneur. Consider all the things that followed.
- Kelly rounded up some golf professionals and trainers to check out, love, then endorse his product. This includes a guy by the name of Hank Haney (yes, that Hank Haney, Tiger was a student).
- Kelly got Golf Town to sell the product at all their retail outlets and through the online store.
- Kelly is effectively using the internet by having a web portal with training exercises, videos, etc, for the customers of the product. It’s nicely done and focuses on post sale; i.e. making sure the customer can get the most out of the product through tracking progress, etc. This leads to happier golfers which hopefully are better golfers that turns into rabid fans recommending the product to anyone with a pulse.
- Kelly has won other entrepreneur competitions as well as raised additional capital.
And Kelly will probably have his “TV Show” (aka infomercial) on the Golf Chanel within weeks. Hundreds of the product are already in customer’s hands and the orders keep rolling in.
Finally, the product is made completely in Canada. Burlington, Ontario to be exact. If you are an entrepreneur, you can do yourself a favor by chasing down Kelly, buying him a Tim Horton’s coffee and get the story first hand. I suspect you’ll get some good insight and inspiration from somebody who is doing an amazing job.
Better still, get him out on the golf course. Well done, Kelly.
Except the videos are made with Microsoft Silverlight ("click here to down load and install!") !fail!
But having said that you should also add that with Canada's health care system he doesn't have to worry about health care while he is pursuing this dream. That is another $12K/year. I know a few entrepreneur types in the SF Bay Area who are going back to W-2 jobs just so they can have health care.
Posted by: Pat | June 01, 2009 at 05:35
Great story. Definitely a win for Kelly and Canada.
I've played golf for quite a while, and reading about the product here got me interested. But I had the same reaction as Pat - Silverlight stopped me dead in my tracks.
I ended up watching the only video Swingnature had on YouTube - a local TV news story shot on a cam-corder...
Posted by: Matt Cope | June 01, 2009 at 15:42
Matt/Pat,
I sent a note to Kelly re: Silverlight. Thanks for stopping by the blog.
Posted by: Rick Segal | June 01, 2009 at 15:51
Rick,
Thanks for forwarding our input to Kelly. I'm sure it meant more coming from you than it did coming from us.
Re: stopping by the blog - I do it almost daily now. However, I don't comment very frequently because I feel the TypePad system doesn't distribute my comments as well as Disqus or IntenseDebate.
I would definitely engage in more discussions on this blog if one of those systems were implemented here. I suspect I'm not alone...
Thanks again,
Matt
Posted by: Matt Cope | June 01, 2009 at 23:44
Hello everyone,
Thank you for taking the time to read the article and most importantly taking the time to comment. The only way to improve our business is to hear what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong.
We have tested the videos with Silverlight in many different locations with no issue but we will look into adding different video formats to the site. I was not aware of the "download now" failing but will look into this as well.
Regards,
Kelly
Posted by: Kelly | June 02, 2009 at 10:19
ummm Kelly....
it wasn't that the download itself was failing ... it is simply that Microsoft Silverlight has to be downloaded in order to watch promotional videos.
Not many people are going to download and install a monster hunk-o-code just to watch some marketing materials.
Posted by: Pat | June 06, 2009 at 05:53
i saw the video on youtube few days ago. me and my wife playing golf for some time now. she wanted to buy one and we are still arguing! :-) i mean... talking about it.
Posted by: mommy making money lei | June 22, 2009 at 01:06
If you do purchase one you will be surprised at how effective overload/underload training is...
Kelly
Posted by: kelly | June 27, 2009 at 01:08