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By William Underhill
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James Dyson's favorite sales pitch is a bit of a paradox: it's time to replace the standard washing machine, he says, because the future belongs to the past. His new invention, the Contrarotator, mimics the action of a human hand on a washboard: twin drums spin in opposite directions, thrashing the clothes together like Grandma on wash day. By flexing the fabric rather than merely tossing it back and forth, Dyson claims, the machine cleans cleaner in half the time.
Is this merely marketing hype? Maybe not. Dyson, British inventor and entrepreneur based in the countryside of Wiltshire, England, is no ordinary industrialist. He is an inventor--the Contrarotator sprang from Dyson and his research staff and took shape in their workshops. More to the point, he is that rare type of inventor who turns his ideas into serious profits. Years ago he reinvented the wheelbarrow and the vacuum cleaner--and then built them for the mass market. Another favorite saying: business is for everyone, not just for the "suits." "A lot of people who have ideas think they aren't businessmen," he says, "and that's something that businessmen are keen to promote."
Dyson's record proves his point. Dyson Appliances is now among the fastest-growing manufacturing businesses in Europe. Sales have climbed exponentially to more than ??200 million in 1999 (Dyson hasn't released 2000 figures). The staff of 1,800 at his Malmesbury, England, plant work round-the-clock shifts, turning out 30,000 machines a week. Another factory opened last year in Malaysia to serve the Southeast Asia market. The British media regularly hold him up as a rare example of an entrepreneur who's designed, engineered, built and marketed his own products--without ever appearing in the bankruptcy courts. At 53, Dyson is said to be worth ??500 million. If his new washing machine makes as big a splash as his vacuum cleaner did, Dyson may soon be a household word.
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Dyson started out studying art but quickly joined London's Royal College of Art to take up furniture and interior design, which better suited his talents. He is obsessed with detail, and he has a never-say-die approach to problem solving. "I think I have stamina and a certain amount of obtuseness," he says. "I do believe that once you begin to break down a problem into little bits and tackle each one you find a solution." Before leaving college--and without engineering qualifications--he helped design a flat-bottomed landing craft that sold round the world. (In 1973 Egyptian troops stormed across the Suez Canal in Sea Trucks, a modified version of his design.) He then worked for four years at an engineering company. By the age of 27 he'd patented the easy-to-trundle Ballbarrow--a wheelbarrow that has a cylindrical plastic ball instead of a wheel, which makes it easier to maneuver and is more stable than conventional models. And this time the revenues were flowing into a company partly-owned by Dyson.
From there, Dyson's route to success was rife with potholes. In 1979, in a fit of frustration with his own clogged Hoover, he conceived his big breakthrough: the world's first bagless vacuum cleaner (it uses centrifugal force to separate dirt from air). He got part of the initial capital from a long-term backer and the rest from Dyson's share of the Ballbarrow business, a mortgage on his home and from the sale of the vegetable patch in his backyard. Dyson proclaimed his hyperefficient Dyson Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaner to be the biggest design breakthrough since Hoover hit the market in 1908. Yet all the big-name companies--including Black & Decker and Electrolux--rejected the chance to build it under license. "They never gave me a good reason," says Dyson. "I came away thinking, 'Why can't they see the opportunities for coming out with something different and better?' " Now he has plenty of imitators.
Dyson is quick to identify the lessons he has learned and to name the villains. When he tells his story, his easy-going charm strains at the roiling indignation underneath: big corporations are too lazy or complacent to change. Investors are too timid or greedy. Patent laws are too weak to protect the small inventor. By 1987 Amway had begun selling its own vacuum cleaner that worked much--too much, Dyson thought--like the Dual Cyclone. Dyson sued to protect his patents, but the court battle stretched out over five years and brought him to the brink of ruin before the two sides settled. In the meantime he had secured a licensing deal with a Japanese company to make and sell the cleaner in Japan. It quickly achieved cult status, bringing him some financial relief.
Despite his success in Japan, investment bankers and venture-capital firms refused to open their wallets for a manufacturing plant in Britain. In the end, his local bank put up the cash. (The bank manager's wife, Dyson folklore has it, was crazy about the idea of a bagless vacuum cleaner.) The first Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaner rolled off the assembly line in 1993. It had taken 15 years and thousands of prototypes to bring it to market. But the battle still wasn't over. Dyson sued Hoover for cribbing his design. The action took 18 months to reach the court and cost him ??500,000. Last year a London court awarded victory to Dyson and is assessing damages. Says Dyson: "My experience of long-distance running at school taught me a lot: you shouldn't stop when you want to; in fact you have to accelerate."
The suits, we now know, had it all wrong. The Dual Cyclone is now the Continent's best-selling vacuum cleaner; in Britain, it outsells its nearest competitor nine to one. And with its many user-friendly gizmos and its sleek, high-tech, colorful look, it is hailed as a masterpiece. Better still, consumers seem to be willing to pay a premium for a Dyson. "I have often had people buying two Dysons at a time--one for the office and one for the home," says Michael Rosenthal, a sales assistant at a London store. "They sell themselves." More Dyson lore: his vacuum cleaner is said to ply the red carpets of Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street.
As a former designer, Dyson worries about the divorce of design and engineering. Good looks are too often seen as a bolt-on extra rather than an integral aspect of his product. His own heroes are the great British engineers of the 19th century who planned elegance into their designs. Then there's the can't-do attitude of the British, especially when it comes to cutting-edge engineering. Says Dyson: "There's a terrible sense that we British just can't do these thing anymore. Industry is seen just as a churner-out of goods to make money for the stock market, not as the exciting product-based area that it is."
His own employees won't be making that mistake. He has taken pains to avoid creating a white-collar sweatshop and instead to make his firm a place that nurtures creativity. His plant, nestled in the countryside, has plenty of pioneering architectural features, from its wavy roof to its interior space the size of an aircraft hangar. Memos are forbidden, and nobody wears a jacket and tie unless he wants to. (Dyson has worn a tie only once to the office: to greet the Prince of Wales.) "I don't want people putting on airs and graces when they come in to work," says Dyson. "We design products for use in the home, and when people are at home they don't wear suits." And the lines between jobs are deliberately blurred. All staffers--from researchers to salespeople--begin their Dyson careers by building a vacuum cleaner for themselves. There are no costly ad agencies, no consultants and no outside marketing professionals. The one quarter of the staff that work solely on research and development often take a sideways route to problem solving. In their pursuit of a better way to wash clothes, Dyson's researchers tried bombarding them with microwaves, ultrasound and electro-magnetism before settling on the simpler design of the Contrarotator.
What next? Dyson isn't giving much away, though he won't stray far from the domestic. "My affinity is with the home because I have one myself," --actually, he has three: two in Britain and one in France--"and I don't think household products have received the attention they deserve." Already in development is a robotic vacuum cleaner that will steer its own path around the room, dodging the furniture and kids. Meanwhile, he must still persuade the public to pay out ??1,000--more than twice the price of a conventional model--for the bigger, cleaner wash promised by the Contrarotator. Says retailing consultant Richard Perks of the Corporate Intelligence Group: "It has really got to perform well to justify that sort of premium." And that's still uncertain. A report last week from the Consumer Association approved its technology but questioned the price tag. Dyson is confident. "There is an odd assumption among manufacturers and retailers that manufacturers and retailers will only succeed if you are the cheapest," says Dyson. "That's an extraordinarily arrogant attitude towards the wishes of the consumer." Besides, they said the same of the Dual Cyclone. If consumers show the same faith in innovation, Dyson may soon be cleaning up again.
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