How John Elliott's £30m empire began on a fag packet

John Elliott's business empire began with a chance meeting in 1973 when he was 28. Elliott, now 69, was selling the industrial dehumidifiers used on building sites to dry plaster quickly. "I met a customer who couldn't get the dehumidifier he wanted, because the firms that sold that type had exclusivity contracts." Elliott, who had worked as a draughtsman designing the machines, offered to make one. "I literally drew up a design on the back of a cigarette packet."

The client liked it, but nervous of being Elliott's first customer, ordered just eight machines from Elliott's new company, Ebac. A strident optimist, he ordered enough parts for 52 machines, confident the customer would want more when he saw the final product. "It was a risk, but buying in bulk got me a better price." It paid off the customer bought the lot.

Buoyed by his success, Elliott invested in buying more components and hiring an employee. "In the beginning I never felt I was a proper business, and warned staff that it was just something I was doing'." He travelled the country, pitching his product at building sites. Meanwhile, he used his engineering skills to develop his design, so that "it could be used as a dehumidifier in winter and air conditioning unit in summer". This invention never took off "it was a bit more expensive than a regular unit and there wasn't any demand".

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But Elliott wasn't deterred by the experience. Instead, it made him realise he would have to offer lots of different products in order to guarantee success. His next idea was an adapted humidifier that could be used to dry out timber in hot conditions. It proved a hit in the steamy jungles of Indonesia, and suddenly he found himself exporting to Asia.

By 1980, sales had hit £1m and Elliott was ready with another product, a dehumidifier for use in the home. These were big in America, but while larger rivals, such as Toshiba, had already begun selling domestic dehumidifiers in Britain, Elliott was confident he could capture some of the nascent market. "British customers wanted something different. In America dehumidifiers were big, rugged machines that sat in a cellar. For smaller British houses, a more compact, better-looking unit was needed." Again, he was spot on Ebac's unit sold well, peaking at around 100,000 units a year in the 1980s.

By the 1990s, Elliott was ready to tackle a new market. Again, he was inspired by America, where refrigerated water coolers were big business. Elliott was approached by three men who wanted to grow the market in Britain. He designed a machine with disposable parts that made it easy to keep clean. By 1995, roaring sales of water coolers and dehumidifiers pushed Ebac's annual revenue to a peak of £30m.

Elliott now has a new product up his sleeve washing machines. The Durham-based manufacturer plans to enter a market currently dominated by Turkish and Italian manufacturers. "The trick is not to be too clever. We're designing a machine that will be simple, efficient, reliable and good value." As for the future, Elliott aims to keep his business local last year, he signed over ownership of the company to a trust to prevent its sale and keep it in County Durham. "I've never seen the business as mine, this just felt like the right thing to do."