The offsite construction industry is maturing faster than I have ever seen it before. New products, innovations, and ideas are filling articles and being talked about on Podcasts and Webinars every day.
All these new things have one thing in common. They all had a person with an idea of how to do things better or cheaper or more earth-friendly. The person with the idea can also be put into one of three groups.They are either an Entrepreneur, a Dreamer, or an Opportunist.
PFS Corporation
Mariotti Building Products
Viking Carrier 
An Entrepreneur is a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so. They work tirelessly to make their business a success.Even though many people think they are an entrepreneur, the fact is many of them will never make a splash in their market and success is always just out of reach.If you think of yourself as an entrepreneur and you haven’t made a profit in the first two years, you’re not successful. Admit it, your idea of having offsite construction beat a path to your door is not going to happen. That really isn’t an entirely bad thing though.The education you gave yourself in this venture means that you now know what doesn’t work, and what you should have done and it also taught you a lot about profit and loss. Your next idea will incorporate all this education you’ve gathered to help you make your next big thing more successful. 
The Dreamer is deeply emotional and intuitive, with a vivid imagination—the quintessential idealist and romantic. The inner world is always where you’ve felt most at home. You’re happy to roam your mental landscape of thoughts, emotions, and fantasies for hours on end.Every Entrepreneur has a Dreamer living inside but not every Dreamer has an Entrepreneur lurking within. Dreamers can be very charismatic and tend to gather followers like dogs attract fleas. The followers buy into the dreamer’s idea about how to change the face of construction. Many followers become almost fanatical when they talk about the things their Dreamer is planning.Their biggest forms of communication are Podcasts and Videos. The dreamer paints the most wonder-filled picture of what they are talking about but other than a prototype or maybe even an installation or two, the Dreamer and their followers are almost always doomed for failure. Many of them over and over again as they never learned the lesson of the Entrepreneur.
An Opportunist is a person who exploits circumstances to gain immediate advantage rather than being guided by consistent principles or plans.The Offsite construction industry has seen many of them over the past few decades. They sell their ideas mostly through fundraising and stock offers after painting a beautiful picture of what they are going to do. Their ideas are based on what is being discussed today, not on what they’ve been working on for years.Again, there is a little Opportunist in every Entrepreneur but the Opportunist is more interested in the game of finding funding than they are in actually being an Entrepreneur running a business.Yes, the offsite construction industry is maturing and part of that is having more Dreamers and Opportunists showing up on your doorstep. The younger the Dreamer, it seems the more followers they gather. The older the Opportunist, the more they attract investors.When you find an Entrepreneur that has been successful for longer than two years, this is who you should listen to and try to emulate. Being an Entrepreneur can be the most rewarding and feel-good thing you’ve ever done.
Gary Fleisher is the Editor in Chief of Modular Home Source and Offsite Builder magazine. Email at modcoach@gmail.com
Gary Fleisher, the Modcoach
