In Praise of Failure #2 - Sir James Dyson
“Like everyone we get frustrated by products that don’t work properly. As design engineers we do something about it. We’re all about invention and improvement.” - James Dyson
This post is Part #2 of the series ‘In Praise of Failure’, if you would like to read #1 first, please click here.
The next story is about Sir James Dyson and it is a personal favourite. His resolve and his stubbornness to stick to his goal is beyond impressive.
I use the Dyson vacuum, it’s a wonderful product. but I wasn’t aware of the James Dyson’s struggles until I heard about it on David Senra’s amazing ‘Founders’ Podcast (Episode #300 James Dyson: Against the Odds!).
Innovation takes time and persistence.
James Dyson is a serial innovator. He is a designer; he is idealistic about his world views and has a dogged determination.
In October 1978, he had an idea for a bagless vacuum that didn’t lose suction. Bagged vacuums lost suction as soon as they were filled with dust. The idea of using a ‘cyclone’ technology came to him after seeing a local sawmill which used a 30-foot-high conical centrifuge that would spin dust out of the air. The same technology, Dyson thought, could be shrunk down, and built into a vacuum cleaner, omitting the need for a bag, and ensuring the device wouldn’t lose suction.
At the age of 31, Dyson created his first prototype with the help of cereal cardboard boxes. Dyson spent the next 15 years perfecting his design, a process that resulted in 5,127 different prototypes. Those years were tough for him and his family. By 2,627, he and his wife Dierdre were counting their pennies, by 3,727, his wife was giving art lessons for some extra cash.
Dyson worked from his garage - a little room without water, heating, phone, gas or electricity; all by himself because he couldn’t afford to hire anyone else. His wife was his pillar of strength.
He had three small kids, and a mortgage that grew bigger and bigger as he borrowed money to keep working on his invention.
Dyson’s (mostly) unwavering belief was that he could make a much superior product with a real benefit to the customer, a massive leap from a crappy, old carpet sucker to a vacuum of total efficiency and undiminishable power.
For him, it represented an opportunity to introduce a new product that had a major technical advantage over his competitors.
Even after having a product with superior technology and remarkable looks, Dyson faced years of rejection and hesitation from manufacturers, bankers, and investors over the commercial viability of his product.
He realised that no one would fully understand the opportunity that he saw and share the same passion for his product that he did.
He decided to build it himself; his dual cyclone vacuum went into production in 1993 and became the top-selling vacuum-cleaner in the UK within two years. He didn’t stop there, he kept improving the vacuum, while also developing new products such as a bladeless fan, a double drum washing machine, etc.
In his 2003 autobiography, ‘Against the Odds’, Dyson explained (abridged) “When you start out, you just don’t think it will take that long. There is no such thing as a quantum leap. There’s only dogged persistence and in the end, you make it look like a quantum leap. While it is easy for me to celebrate my doggedness now and say that it is all you need to succeed, the truth is that it demoralised me terribly. There were times when I thought this would never work, that I would just keep making cyclone after cyclone, never going forwards, never going backwards, until I died. I survived based on the attitude that tomorrow will always be better. You have to think like that, otherwise you just can’t go on.”
Today, the Dyson company has a portfolio of innovative products and produced a revenue of 6.5 billion pounds in 2022. The company invests~15-20% of its annual revenues for research and development and has been granted thousands of patents. Sir Dyson’s net worth is more than 9 billion pounds.
In an article that he wrote in 2011 aptly titled ‘in praise of failure’, Dyson reflects “It is only by learning from mistakes that progress is made. On the road to invention, failures are just problems that have yet to be solved. The ability to learn from mistakes – trial and error – is a valuable skill we learn early on. Encouraging children to learn new things on their own fosters creativity.”
When I read through this story, I almost felt like I was in that garage with him, facing the constant challenge of not having a product, for several years. I felt his pain.
Persistence takes unrelenting resolve. Especially when you don’t have anything to show for, despite your efforts. Dyson’s journey is a true example of delayed gratification.
My takeaways from the Dyson story - I learnt that failure is an essential part of the journey, that failure is not permanent, that applying the lessons learnt from failure plus a dogged persistence is a strong formula for overcoming setbacks.
And when Dyson spoke about quantum leap being a result of small improvements over a long period of time, it reminded me of the power of compounding. As Charlie Munger once said eloquently “You climb as hard as you can by just advancing one inch at a time—that's the secret of life."
I will be releasing Part #3 shortly, stay tuned!
Salute to all those inventors and their supporters who stood with them till they succeed in achieving their goals. They have made our lives easy and better by all means!