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David Senra · Dec 7James Dyson: 5,127 Prototypes
Founder James Dyson built 5,127 prototypes over about five years, with the first working dual cyclone on 2 May 1992. He funded it with bank loans against his house, makes about 30 million motors a year, refuses to sell motors to others, and dropped a 750 million dollar electric car.
Tips
- James Dyson built 5,127 prototypes and treated every failure as a lesson▶ 4:29It took about five years of prototyping in the coach house, and the first working dual cyclone came on 2 May 1992.
- James Dyson took each rejection from vacuum makers as proof he was onto something▶ 1:28:28Hoover, Electrolux and others declined; the bag business was worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year to incumbents.
- James Dyson says experts know why things won't work, so he prizes naive questions▶ 12:45Dyson's incumbents said that if a better vacuum existed, Hoover and Electrolux would have made it.
- James Dyson turned a clogged factory filter into the cyclone vacuum idea▶ 38:00The cardboard prototype was the first vacuum cleaner that never lost suction.
- James Dyson went after a product everyone used and hated, because performance faded▶ 50:50At Dyson today the team aims at motors turning at 130,000 to 140,000 RPM when existing motors manage about 15,000 to 30,000.
- James Dyson decided to stay single-minded and refuse to do everything▶ 1:15:25Vacuum cleaners were the only product for about eight years before others followed.
- James Dyson refuses to sell motors to other companies even though it would make money▶ 1:13:00Dyson makes about 30 million motors a year and about 150 million in total.
- James Dyson spent 10 years developing his own high-speed electric motor▶ 1:02:30No one had made a motor reach 140,000 RPM before, apart from a dentist drill that lasts a few seconds.
- James Dyson shut his electric car after spending 750 million dollars because he lacked scale▶ 1:05:10About 750 million dollars was spent on R&D, and he says he learned nothing from it.
- James Dyson priced his washing machine too high and lost money by listening to marketers▶ 1:17:00The machine sold no more at the lower price; Dyson says he should have raised the price instead.
- James Dyson abandoned licensing after seeing that inventing without manufacturing failed▶ 1:32:00Licensing brought only a drip of income, such as about 70,000 a year from the first Japanese license.
- James Dyson has his engineers build and test their own prototypes▶ 59:50
- James Dyson got a 600,000 pound loan after a bank officer saw his five-year lawsuit▶ 1:25:05The loan was for tooling, secured against his house, during a housing recession.
- James Dyson ranks dogged determination above intelligence and never feels satisfied▶ 1:32:48The first working Dyson dual cyclone arrived about 11 years in, on his 45th birthday.
- James Dyson hires 17 and 18 year olds into his own university and pays them▶ 18:00About 170 students; government approval forced seven years of working with another university that saw Dyson as a competitor.
