Bill Guthy

Bill Guthy: turned a self-help book into a billion-dollar infomercial empire

Sam profiles Bill Guthy (Guthy-Renker), who bought the rights to Napoleon Hill's 'Think and Grow Rich,' built infomercials and direct-response campaigns, then scaled celebrity-partnered products like Proactiv to $1 billion in sales.

“originally they bought the rights— this guy Bill, I think he bought the rights to, um, Think and Grow Rich, uh, like a self-help book by Napoleon Hill. And he created infomercials and direct response marketing campaigns on the internet to make it popular. Then he was like, okay, this self-help stuff is working, let's keep going. So he partnered with a variety of other products and he started selling them. And then eventually he was like, okay, let's try this. Like someone brought to him like Proactiv and they're like, all right, let's try Proactiv. And he grew that to $1 billion in sales.”