Cyclones made him a billionaire

Staring up at the enormous 30 foot tall cone that towered above him, James had no idea it would make him a billionaire.

All he knew was that he was losing money. And lots of it.

An extraction unit in his factory needed cleaning every hour, otherwise it would spit waste all over the floor. But cleaning it meant shutting down the entire production line. 24 times a day, James could practically see his profits evaporating in front of his eyes. He was desperate for an alternative.

That’s what led him to the cyclone - a massive cone that larger factories used to spin dust out of the air through centrifugal force.

This was it, he realised. This is what he’d been looking for. But he wasn’t thinking about factories. He was thinking about his home.

For weeks, he’d been renovating his house and he’d run into a frustrating problem: vacuum cleaners sucked. Or more accurately, they didn’t.

His new, top of the range vacuum lost suction annoyingly quickly. The bags clogged up and needed changing constantly. James hated this.

But staring up at the 30 foot metal cone, James had a thought: ‘could vacuum cleaners use cyclones instead of bags?’

He rushed home, gathering cereal boxes, hose pipe, scissors and masking tape. He sat at the kitchen table and got to work.

He crafted a foot-long cone with a hole at each end. He covered one hole, leaving a small hole for clean air to escape. He attached the other to his vacuum cleaner using a hose pipe. He tore away the old bag and replaced it with his tiny, homemade cyclone, using masking tape to stick it all together.

He switched the vacuum on, expecting an explosion of dust.

Nothing.

Just the loud, steady hum of the vacuum. He pushed it around the house, room by room, stopping only to empty small deposits of dust. He vacuumed the whole house from top to bottom. Then he did it again. He had something.

It would take five long years and 5,127 prototypes for the dual cyclone to go into production, but in that moment, James Dyson was the only man in the world to own a bagless vacuum cleaner.

Dyson would go on to sell more than 70 million machines in 80 countries, become a billionaire, and the fifth-richest person in the UK. All from taking a machine that was well-known in industry and repurposing it for the home.

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If you need advice on your startup from a former founder who’s been in your shoes, book a paid call with me and we’ll get you on the right track. I’ve raised $1m from VCs, I’m an advisor to a bootstrapped startup and I’m also an angel investor.

Speak soon,

Nelson

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