Small Time Inventor.(James Dyson)

James Dyson's favorite sales pitch is a bit of a paradox: it's time to replace the standard washing machine, he says, because the future belongs to the past. His new invention, the Contrarotator, mimics the action of a human hand on a washboard: twin drums spin in opposite directions, thrashing the clothes together like Grandma on wash day. By flexing the fabric rather than merely tossing it back and forth, Dyson claims, the machine cleans cleaner in half the time.

Is this merely marketing hype? Maybe not. Dyson, British inventor and entrepreneur based in the countryside of Wiltshire, England, is no ordinary industrialist. He is an inventor--the Contrarotator sprang from Dyson and his research staff and took shape in their workshops. More to the point, he is that rare type of inventor who turns his ideas into serious profits. Years ago he reinvented the wheelbarrow and the vacuum cleaner--and then built them for the mass market. Another favorite saying: business is for everyone, not just for the "suits." "A lot of people who have ideas think they aren't businessmen," he says, "and that's something that businessmen are keen to promote."

Dyson's record proves his point. Dyson Appliances is now among the fastest-growing manufacturing businesses in Europe. Sales have climbed exponentially to more than [pound]200 million in 1999 (Dyson hasn't released 2000 figures). The staff of 1,800 at his Malmesbury, England, plant work round-the-clock shifts, turning out 30,000 machines a week. Another factory opened last year in Malaysia to serve the Southeast Asia market. The British media regularly hold him up as a rare example of an entrepreneur who's designed, engineered, built and marketed his own products--without ever appearing in the bankruptcy courts. At 53, Dyson is said to be worth [pound]500 million. If his new washing machine makes as big a splash as his vacuum cleaner did, Dyson may soon be a household word.

Dyson started out studying art but quickly joined London's Royal College of Art to take up furniture and interior design, which better suited his talents. He is obsessed with detail, and he has a never-say- die approach to problem solving. "I think I have stamina and a certain amount of obtuseness," he says. "I do believe that once you begin to break down a problem into little bits and tackle each one you find a solution." Before leaving college--and without engineering qualifications--he helped design a flat-bottomed landing craft that sold round the world. (In 1973 Egyptian troops stormed across the Suez Canal in Sea Trucks, a modified version of his design.) He then worked for four years at an engineering company. By the age of 27 he'd patented the easy-to-trundle Ballbarrow--a wheelbarrow that has a cylindrical plastic ball instead of a wheel, which makes it easier to maneuver and is more stable than conventional models. And this time the revenues were flowing into a company partly-owned by Dyson.

From there, Dyson's route to success was rife with potholes. In 1979, in a fit of frustration with his own clogged Hoover, he conceived his big breakthrough: the world's first bagless vacuum cleaner (it uses centrifugal force to separate dirt from air). He got part of the initial capital from a long-term backer and the rest from Dyson's share of the Ballbarrow business, a mortgage on his home and from the sale of the vegetable patch in his backyard. Dyson proclaimed his hyperefficient Dyson Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaner to be the biggest design breakthrough since Hoover hit the market in 1908. Yet all the big-name companies--including Black & Decker and Electrolux--rejected the chance to build it under license. "They never gave me a good reason," says Dyson. "I came away thinking, 'Why can't they see the opportunities for coming out with something different and better?' " Now he has plenty of imitators.

Dyson is quick to identify the lessons he has learned and to name the villains. When he tells his story, his easy-going charm strains at the roiling indignation underneath: big corporations are too lazy or complacent to change. Investors are too timid or greedy. Patent laws are too weak to protect the small inventor. By 1987 Amway had begun selling its own vacuum cleaner that worked much--too much, Dyson thought--like the Dual Cyclone. Dyson sued to protect his patents, but the court battle stretched out over five years and brought him to the brink of ruin before the two sides settled. In the meantime he had secured a licensing deal with a Japanese company to make and sell the cleaner in Japan. It quickly achieved cult status, bringing him some financial relief.

Despite his success in Japan, ...