A book review of Invention: A Life.
Introduction
James Dyson is a British inventor, industrial designer, farmer, and entrepreneur who founded Dyson Ltd. A privately held company known for developing innovative technologies that have practical uses in domestic life (i.e: household appliances). Its flagship product was a dual cyclonic vacuum cleaner which challenged its rivals with its huge suction power and zero bags replacement approach.
In this article, I summarize some lessons from his latest book Invention: A life, under five categories: Sales, Product Development, Advertising, Patents, and Lessons in Grit. This article features lots of quotes and words from Sir Dyson himself as well as short stories on various correlating events he mentions in his book.
On Sales
Every Inventor is a salesperson — you are best positioned to explain your technology.
“Inventions, though, no matter how ingenious and exciting, are little use unless they can be translated through engineering and design into products that stimulate or meet a need and can sell. And when a product is entirely new, the art of selling is needed to explain it, What it is. How it works. Why you might need it”
The reason why this stands out for me is that I never really liked the idea of sales much. However, I have since had a growing appreciation for it and a sense of its importance. The fact I have come to realize is that we are all salespeople. We do it every day in simple forms without even being aware of it, it is ingrained in the fabric of society. Some examples of this include:
- Writing a CV to try to get a job you like, is sales
- Trying to convince a friend to do something with you (e.g: go on a trip) is sales.
The stories we tell one another: I am of the opinion that if you can arouse a certain action or reaction out of people with a story. It is sales.
Business-wise, how should we approach sales?
Henry Ford famously said, “If he had asked American farmers what they wanted in terms of future transport, they would have answered ‘faster horses’.”
Dyson: Inventors need to show people new possibilities, new ideas, and new products and explain these as lucidly (clear, easy to understand) as possible.” He explains in his book that the proper way to do this is to put the focus on the technology itself rather than the use of weird sales lines or gimmicks, which is rightly how it is done in Dyson.
Business-wise, I am learning to do this by being concise, brief, and honest. In conjunction with his words, I am learning that the first point in sales isn’t supposed to be a hard sell and more about establishing a relationship or as Sir Dyson would propose, it is about asking questions. From this Indie Hacker article, here is a useful snippet I found on approaching sales.
On Product Development
“The best products are born out of a need”.
“Jeremy Fry talked of the need to listen to your customers, aiming to improve products wherever necessary and, if you are an inventor, simply for improvement’s sake” … “This is not to say we at Dyson ask our customers what they want and then build it. That type of focus-group-led designing may work in the very short term, but not for long”
The Case of Austin Morris
Just before the launch of the Mini Car, Austin Morris — a British Car manufacturer consulted a focus group and found that nobody wanted a tiny car with small wheels. So they cut the production lines down to one. However, when the public saw it on the streets, they were very enthusiastic for it. Unfortunately, Austin Morris couldn’t catch up with demand and missed out on serious profits as a result.
The Case of the Walkman
Manufacturing the walkman was controversial within Sony at the beginning. It was actually dismissed when first launched because everyone thought no one would want a tape recorder that couldn’t record. Nevertheless, Masura Ibuka — co-founder of Sony, decided to go ahead with production regardless. He had projected selling 5,000 walkmans a month. But when it launched and everyone eventually saw it in action, they loved it. It became a cultural phenomenon and in the first two months, Ibuka sold 50,000 walkmans.
Being Cautious of Experts
While James Dyson was making prototype cyclones for his vacuum cleaners, he learned that the current state of the art for cyclonic separation was only efficient down to dust particles of 20 microns in size, yet household dust is very fine at 0.5 microns or smaller.
He went to see a scientist named R. G. Dorman who had written a book on dust control and air cleaning and was considered a leading expert on the subject of cyclonic extraction. Dorman told him, the current art was good at 20 microns and essentially couldn’t be brought down, 0.3 microns was impossible. Yet, Dyson set out to do it regardless and eventually proved this theory wrong.
He enlisted the help of his former maths teacher and with the help of mathematical calculations which determine the efficiency of cyclones of different dimensions at different airflows and particles sizes from R.G. Dorman’s book they began experimenting. No shortcuts, after 5,127 prototypes, they were able to achieve what the expert view had deemed impossible. James Dyson says of this experience, “I am cautious of experts”
“Experts tend to be confident that they have all the answers and because of this trait, they can kill new ideas” … “But when you are trying to break new ground, you have no interest in getting stuck in engineering conventions or intellectual mud.”
The lesson around this is being willing to question orthodoxy, experiment, and take calculated risks. Sometimes inventing is about going against the grain, the expert view, focus groups, or market research to birth something one has a strong belief in. To be willing to stand on that edge of error and yet try to discover what possibilities may exist.
On Advertising
“In the late 90’s, a Belgian court banned us from talking about vacuum cleaner bags. I didn’t realise they could do this, I would have thought it was illegal. But Belgium had tight comparative advertising laws and our European competitors ganged up together to sue us, arguing that we shouldn’t say that we didn’t have a bag as this gave Dyson comparative advantage, while this seems absurd, the court found us guilty”
Dyson had been advertising his new vacuum cleaners using its key distinction in comparison to other vacuum cleaners manufacturers at that time. This distinction was the word “Bagless”. There was no loss of suction with Dyson’s vacuum cleaners and hence no need for bag replacements. They advertised their vacuum cleaners as such. However, they got sued under comparative advantage laws and lost that bit in court. Let’s dive in a bit into what Comparative Advertising is really about.
What is Comparative Advertising?
Comparative Advertising is about making comparisons with one’s competitors to highlight parity or superiority claims to a product. Superiority claims are direct confrontations with a competitor to assert why one’s product is better than competitors like in the case of the Pepsi vs Coke campaign. While Parity Claims are more subtle, focusing directly on the key distinctions between products than direct attacks or confrontations with the brand itself.
Pepsi Challenge 1983 Commercial (Pepsi vs Coke)
Mac vs PC
Comparative Advertising: Getting sued vs Not getting sued.
- The Threat Equation: This largely depends on who you are going after in the industry and how your ad affects their stake in the industry. I am of the opinion that it largely depends on whether your opponent feels threatened.
- The Public Perception Scare: Public perception can play a role between a large and small brand. If a small brand goes after a large one in a “David and Goliath” situation, there can be lower chances of getting sued. Why? the bigger brand might feel they have more to lose in terms of brand perception or reputation if they retaliate. In order to avoid being called a bully or aggressor, they could avoid providing a response.
- False or misleading statements about the product or service: Bud Light vs MillerCoors.
The story goes, Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light launched an ‘ingredient transparency’ campaign against their beer competitor MillerCoors. They trolled them over their use of corn syrup in making their beer. However, MillerCoors found these statements misleading and eventually sued Anheuser-Busch, claiming the ad misled consumers into believing there is corn syrup in Coors Light and Miller Lite when in fact, it says there is no corn syrup in either beer by the time it reaches consumers.
Dyson’s Aftermath
Europe has stricter comparative advertising laws. After Dyson lost the case, they instead produced an ad with the word ‘bagless’ blanked out repeatedly and a strapline that read “Sorry, but the Belgian court won’t let you know what everyone has a right to know” now that got everyone talking. The media got interested. The campaign became pretty successful.
On Patents
Amway was going to license with Dyson but they canceled the deal after they had received all the design documents. Some years after, Amway had infringed on Dyson’s patents and produced their own version of his vacuum cleaner. Dyson challenged them in court. I learned some important lessons on patents from this.
“I twice took cases before the European Court of Human Rights to have Patent Renewal fees declared illegal, on the basis that non-payment of the renewal fee, essentially a massive income to the government, results in the creator losing their rights. This loss does not happen to any other creator of art.”
🎯 You can lose the rights to your invention. Patents are valid for a 20-year term and patents laws and renewals vary across countries.
“In a patent and misappropriation of confidential information case, words matter more than anything. Inventions are described in patents by words rather than by drawings. Although drawings are included the substance of the patent are words”
🎯 Words can be twisted, or the wrong synonym used and under cross-examination, the use of a wrong word can cost you the case and the validity of the patent.
Lessons in Grit
“I went to see Electrolux, Hotpoint, Miele, Siemens, Bosch, AEG, Philips — the lot — and was rejected by every one of them”
Sir James Dyson was:
- Kicked out of his first company.
- Struggled with getting licensing deals.
- Amway stole his designs.
- Philips tried to increase the price for manufacturing. He said no deal, started his own factory.
To name a few. He encountered many failures, debt, debt, debt, and many more struggles. But when Dyson eventually launched, he was able to swoop in and capture 20% of the market in just 18 months.
People want to be led into the future, inventors lead people there. There is no straight path to success, it is more a pilgrim's journey. As an inventor, failure is to be expected, sometimes it takes 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb, in others, it takes 5127 handmade prototypes, perhaps developing truly revolutionary inventions in the future will require even more failures, every step is worth it.
