Idea Lawyer Blog

Still, any business is a gamble. Peter told himself he'd be cautious and reasonable; if the business wasn't paying his way by the time his savings ran out, he'd fold it rather than go into debt.

Peter nearly did fold. After its first year the company, despite having sold almost $60,000 in software, was still losing money. Less than $5,000 remained in his bank account and, good as the software was, Norton Utilities had no money left for promotion. He'd told himself from the outset that "he wouldn't walk over the edge of the cliff," but now the cliff's edge was in sight.

Just in time Peter had an insight worthy of the best professional marketers. He realized that the very technological glitter of computers had left an opening for somone who could humanize them. A "clumsy, klutzy, ill-speaking person" would make the ideal spokesman for a computer software firm. He would become was Frank Perdue was to chicken, or Tom Carvel to East Coast ice cream--a spokesman who was tranparently not a professional, who appealed precisely because he was an ordinary Joe.

Does Peter Norton's idea of making himself the centerpiece of a massive advertising campaign seem contradictory for a self-described "shy person"? It probably does--until you realize that the "Peter Norton" writing the books and appearing on the software packages is largely a persona, a public image which perfectly preserved the private man.*

The advertising clicked swiftly, especially after Peter began writing newsletters dispensing exactly the sort of homey, trustworthy computer information his advertising promised. He gave brochures for free to user groups and computer stores, and that lead to another big break:

A publisher asked Peter to write an introductory text on the increasinly popular personal computer.

Not many computer nerds would have felt comfortable writing for a general audience, but Peter had decided as an Army first-aid instructor that he had a talent for communicating. That was enough: Inside the IBM PC was the first of a series of Peter Norton books which, working symbiotically with the success of the Norton software, helped make him one of the half dozen or so best-known people in the PC world. In this, he seems to highlight one of the true gifts of the most gifted idea people: He makes a strength of whatever he possesses.

*Interestingly, despite Peter Norton's success as an inventor, businessman, and patron of the arts, we could find only one published article about him--and that dealt mainly with the workings of the Norton Foundation.

Excerpted from
The Great American Idea Book: How to Make Money from Your Ideas for Movies, Music, Books, Inventions, Businesses and Almost Anything Else!
Authors: Bob Coleman & Deborah Neville
Copyright: 1993; 1995
All Rights Reserved