14:55
Vestroia
In 1979, the determined tinkerer established Dyson Research Ltd. with the help of one backer, his buyout funds from Ballbarrow, a second mortgage on his home which by then also housed three small children and the support of his wife, who taught school to make ends meet. After building 5,127 prototypes, Dyson finally had a workable vacuum cleaner, which had no bag and relied on centrifugal force to separate the dirt from air. He shopped it around to Black & Decker, Electrolux, and other major vacuum-cleaner manufacturers, and they were all profoundly uninterested. For the companies, the sale of replacement vacuum-cleaner bags was a profitable sideline, and few thought that consumers actually wanted to see the dirt that came off the carpets, as the see-through Dyson chamber revealed in all its filthy glory.
Dyson did manage to begin making and selling what was called the "G-Force" vacuum cleaner in Japan in 1986, and it emerged as a cult favorite, despite its rather high price tag. But then he was forced to begin suing other companies for patent infringement, and the cases dragged on for years and nearly bankrupted him. Finally, in the early 1990s he was able to build a factory in the Wiltshire area of England, after obtaining a business loan from a local bank; several other financial institutions had turned him down, but allegedly the bank manager's wife had tried his vacuum cleaner and was thrilled with it. The Dyson DC01 vacuum cleaner went on the market in Britain in 1993, and by early 1995 was the best-selling vacuum cleaner in the country. It had so many fans that it eventually entered the permanent collections of the Design Museum of London, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Design Museum of Zurich, and Paris's Centre Georges Pompidou, and has also collected a long list of industrial-design awards.
When Dyson launched his product in the United States in 2002, he began to appear in television ads for it. At a retail price of $399, the Dyson Dual Cyclone was a hit with American consumers as well, and by early 2005 had captured 20 percent of the vacuum-cleaner sales market. His company, based in Wiltshire, remains a privately held one, and Dyson himself is thought to be worth an estimated $1 billion.
