Spear-Carriers of Innovation: Why We Will Always Need the Ones Who Charge in First

 

There’s a certain breed of person who runs headfirst into a problem with a spear raised and no armor. I’ve known them my entire life, long before I ever heard the term “entrepreneur” or saw the word innovation splashed across LinkedIn posts.

My first spear-carrier was my father.

By the time I was six years old, I was watching a man who owned a small neighborhood store with a soda fountain in a town of 2,000 people decide that wasn’t nearly enough. So, he started an ambulance service for the entire region. Then he opened a massive dance hall called The Gardens—Bandstand’s Country Cousin—that could seat over a thousand people for charity dinners, complete with a 50-by-100-foot dance floor and lighting imported from Italy. As if that wasn’t enough, he launched a farmer’s market that ran every weekend. And when someone casually suggested he raise goats in the fenced orchard behind our house, he didn’t debate it—he rented the land to a farmer, and twenty goats showed up the following week.

That was my normal until I was thirteen.

Then, one by one, the enthusiasm faded. Not because the ideas were bad, but because the daily grind crept in. The ventures were sold, mostly without profit, and we moved to another part of the state where he started again—this time with convenience stores. One became two. Two became twenty-seven. Somewhere in there, he opened a bakery on a whim, and I found myself getting up every Sunday at 4:00 a.m. to deliver fresh donuts and pies while juggling high school, then college, and sixty-hour workweeks.

I didn’t realize it then, but I was being trained by a spear-carrier.

Years later, I caught myself doing much the same thing. I’ve started businesses, operated them, and eventually sold them—not because they failed, but because I was bored. The challenge had been solved. The fire had moved on.

Now, after writing thousands of articles for three blogs about offsite construction, I see my father everywhere.

I see him in the men and women who start modular factories, new building systems, software platforms, financing schemes, and “the next thing” that’s going to change housing forever. I see him in people who burst into the industry full of energy, ideas, and confidence—only to quietly step away once reality sets in and the work becomes repetitive, political, or painfully slow.

For years, I asked myself why some people are wired this way.

I finally understand.

Spear-carriers aren’t builders of empires. They’re starters of wars against problems. They don’t arrive with spreadsheets, five-year plans, or exit strategies. They arrive with guts, belief, and momentum. Their job isn’t to finish—it’s to prove something is possible.

Way behind them are the second-tier warriors. These are the planners, refiners, and sustainers. They watch the spear-carrier charge, learn from every misstep, analyze what worked and what failed, and then build something durable where chaos once lived. They succeed because someone else was willing to fail loudly first.

Offsite construction would not exist in its present form without spear-carriers.

Every factory that’s running smoothly today was preceded by someone who made costly mistakes. Every innovation that feels “obvious” now started as an idea that sounded crazy at the time. Every advancement in modular design, logistics, financing, or acceptance came from someone who refused to wait until the path was clear.

Today, you’ll find spear-carriers on LinkedIn.

They’re the ones posting bold ideas, challenging norms, poking regulators, questioning factory owners, and sometimes irritating the hell out of people who prefer stability over change. If you read the comments on my articles, you’ll find them there too—restless, passionate, occasionally abrasive, and always convinced that this problem needs solving now.

They aren’t wrong.

They’re necessary.

If my father were alive today, I have no doubt he’d be on LinkedIn writing articles about how to polish and sharpen a spear—while already thinking about the next field to charge into.

And that’s the point.

Progress doesn’t start with comfort. It starts with someone willing to run first, take the hit, and show the rest of us where the battle actually is. We’ll always need spear-carriers—not because they finish the job, but because without them, the job never even begins.

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Gary Fleisher—known throughout the industry as The Modcoach—has been immersed in offsite and modular construction for over three decades. Beyond writing, he advises companies across the offsite ecosystem, offering practical marketing insight and strategic guidance grounded in real-world factory, builder, and market experience.