How does a person come to found a huge tech company? Well, according to Gtech founder and CEO Nick Grey, it’s about your drive and creativity, rather than toeing the line at school. Read on to find out more…

I am one of seven, so it’s a very big family.

There were loads of things around – the garage always had interesting-looking stuff that hadn’t been touched for years, so I used to fix things and muck about. Mostly it went alright; some things I couldn’t fix, but generally I would find a use for things that took my interest.

One of my earliest memories is about discovering how things are made.

My first fascination with how things were made started when I was only two or three, and it sticks in my memory. I’d got a jumper and I noticed the seam was on the outside of the end bit. I said to my mum that the silly men had got the seam on the wrong side and she said, “No, you fold that back and then the seam is on the inside.” I was like “Oh, that’s clever…”

There’s something special about petrol engines.

When I was 11 or 12, there was this old petrol lawnmower in the garage that hadn’t been run for years and years. I think the tank was full of water and all sorts, so I emptied it out and thought I’d see if I could get it going… and I did. The other mower worked, but it always did so that wasn’t interesting. The one that never worked, since I could remember, was the interesting one.

I modified an old motorbike to beat the school bus.

When I got my motorbike it was a 26-mile round trip to college, and when you’re 16 at 30mph it’s a long way in the winter – you know all about it. So I started researching how to make it go faster and faster. Eventually it blew up, but by that stage it would do about 60mph. I’d read that these little bikes were restricted by law to 3hp and I didn’t like my things being restricted so I was like, “Right, we’re not having that – how do you de-restrict it?”

I didn’t succeed at school.

I thought I was as clever as anything, but school spat me out a bit. The teachers didn’t want creativity or exploring a whole new world of our brains – they had a curriculum and they wanted you through it. I left school thinking nobody wants my creativity, nobody wants my ideas. The kids who did well were the ones who did exactly what the teachers wanted, and that sapped my confidence because I didn’t want to do that.

I rediscovered my confidence at Vax.

Vax was the opposite of school. It was like, try it and see if it works – and when your ideas do work, it’s great and you end up seeing them on sale… and then you read customer reviews that know what you did and liked it, and that’s amazing.

I was at Vax for 12 years before starting Gtech.

The first full product I designed became Britain’s best-selling vacuum cleaner – Vax was a very strong brand at that stage. But I started realising that, if you work for someone paid by the hour and they have all the results of your design and ingenuity, thenthey made a lot of money and you made a little bit of money. I put my heart and soul into my design work and I wanted to reap the benefits, so I needed to start my own company.

We’re just starting the manufacturing process on something a bit special.

It will completely transform the amount of area you can clean with a cordless product. A lot of our competitors have a boost mode, then an eco mode that runs for a long time, but a lot of people aren’t happy with eco mode – it doesn’t pick up enough so they run it on boost. Some of them run for 6-10mins, which is not enough, and also the heads are narrow. So we’re developing a product that’ll run for up to 2hrs flat-out, full-power, and it cleans a lot wider… so it’ll clean something like 10 or 20 times what some of our competitors can do on a single charge.

We’ve also just delved into haircare.

We’ve made a nice hairdryer and straighteners – people seem to like them. Nothing groundbreaking, just we’ve tweaked a lot of little things to make them better in simple ways. The hairdryer’s got nice technology in there but we don’t charge the earth for it – we try to make sure it’s accessible to everybody.

Tech-wise, my home is a bit of a throwback.

I’m not really into gadgets. For something to be in my home, it has to be genuinely useful. I’m lucky enough to live in a nice house with nice gardens, but it’s not full of tech. I’ve got a telly and an Xbox – I have four kids, so sometimes the only way to communicate with them is playing with them. I like lawn and garden stuff – my garden is too big for a push-along mower, so I’ve got a nice tractor mower.

I love Formula 1.

I’d love to be involved with designing an F1 car. When I watch them I think, “If they changed this or that, I wonder if it would work…”. I’ve got a secret desire to see if I could add anything to their incredible designs.

To keep creative you need some spare brain power.

Trundling around on my lawnmower smelling the grass is one of my favourite things. I like surfing as well. And I love to watch Brentford play because obviously we sponsor their stadium!

Also read: Stuff meets… Alex Knox, Dyson’s design director

Rachael Sharpe Commissioning Editor, Stuff magazine

About

Rachael is a British journalist with 19 years experience in the publishing industry. Before going freelance, her career saw her launch websites and magazines spanning photography through to lifestyle and weddings. Since going freelance she’s sloped off to Devon to enjoy the beaches and walk her dog and has contributed to some of the world’s best-loved websites and magazines, while specialising in technology and lifestyle. It was inevitable she would graduate to Stuff at some point.