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took 5,127 prototypes before Sir James Dyson succeeded at creating the first bagless vacuum cleaner. Nearly half a century later, his company sold more than 20 million products in 2024 alone. In the landscape of British industry, few figures have occupied the space between design and manufacturing like Dyson. Now 78, the inventor has spent five decades dismantling the way household products are built and sold. His trajectory, from a drafty Wiltshire coach house to a global tech empire centred in Singapore, is a case study in how a singular, often difficult, engineering philosophy can change global markets.
Prototypes and persistence Dyson’ s career began at the Royal College of Art in the late 1960s, where design was often treated as an aesthetic pursuit rather than a structural necessity. Under the influence of structural engineer Anthony Hunt, one of the fathers of high-tech architecture seen in buildings like the Waterloo International Terminal in London and the Eden Project in Cornwall, Dyson learned that, if engineering is elegant, it shouldn’ t be hidden. Hunt’ s influence, which Dyson noted“ did more than anyone to turn me on to engineering”, inspired him to follow a combination of visual form and rigorous mechanical discipline.
His early inventions include the Sea Truck, the Ballbarrow and the Wheelboat, all of which solved problems in an unconventional way, ignoring established industry blueprints to engineer rugged, high-performance tools. When his vacuum cleaner kept losing suction, Dyson’ s most famous work came to be. But not until he had first failed thousands of times. When he finally succeeded in creating a bagless vacuum cleaner, he faced rejection from the consumer electronics giants of the day. Dyson finally launched the DC01 commercially in 1993, which became the fastest-selling vacuum cleaner in British history. Writing about these experiences in his 2021 memoir, Dyson said:“ No doer can be successful without failing. If you never fail, you aren’ t experimenting or taking risks. And if you aren’ t taking risks, you will never make progress.”
Scaling and relocation In 1979, after losing control of his Barrowball company, Dyson retreated to a Cotswolds coach house.“ I was covered in dust for five years”, he says of the period spent working through 5,127 cardboard and plywood prototypes, supported by his wife Deirdre’ s salary as an art teacher. businesschief. com
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