REAL NOT RENDER
Ideas without action aren’t ideas – Steve Jobs
The moment of inspiration is addictive.
New ideas trigger dopamine hits that put most creative people on a high that’s hard to come down from – which is exactly what happens when you put in the work to turn an idea into reality.
Suddenly, that euphoria of inspiration evaporates and you’re all alone with tools in hand and the slog begins.
When we came up with the idea of the Mono, it was a revelation that brought with it a lot of excitement. We got renderings done of this small, light-filled building nestled deep in foggy forests and along palm tree-lined beaches.
Little did we know how much work would be involved in bringing this idea for a small building to reality.
We’ve worked through quality issues, delivery problems and transportation to create not just a building but processes that reliably give our clients a buying experience they enjoy and a building that matches their expectations.
That’s six years of hard mental, physical and often emotional work we’ve done to get here. So you can see why, when yet another modular building company appears on our feed with some glorious rendering, we get a little salty.
That’s why we started using the tag #realnotrender on Instagram. Because it’s hard not to be proud of that work.
Real not render
There is not a single structure on our website that we haven’t built and shipped.
This is something we believe sets us apart from many of the new startups in the industry that are selling big ideas with nothing physical to back them up.
We’re not saying these companies can’t build the structures they’re promising. Building, to a large degree, is the easy part. It takes more than a good-looking structure to impress clients – and that’s what we strive to do every time.
Our secret to success isn’t in the pictures, even though the pictures are what create the buzz.
It’s in the Building
A design can look good in a picture, and amazing set against a dramatic mountain backdrop, but feel wrong in reality.
Whether the design doesn’t translate to computer-generated images, or the real-world dimensions just don’t work, it’s impossible to get a real feel for a space until you’re there inside of it, exploring it with your eyes, your hands, your feet.
When you’re placing furniture, finding that perfect interior design, it reveals how the space lives, whether it works as an office or a short-term living solution or as an artist’s studio.
And while each one of our units starts on the drafting table (or tablet), we don’t advertise a new space until we’ve built it and experienced the space for ourselves.
Every one of our structures is not only painstakingly designed, but lived in and used by people all over North America. These are people we stay in touch with, people we talk to long after we’ve delivered their Duo, Holo, or anything in-between.
Their feedback has helped us get consistently better so that each new building sits on a foundation of real experience that is impossible to replicate.
It’s in the Places They’ve Been
Our structures sit on mountainsides, by oceans and deep in endless forests. That, as much as any structure we advertise, is what we sell. It’s the freedom to dream up your space without being constrained by worries about the how.
It’s the freedom to find the atmosphere, the view, and the life you want and put your DROP Structure there so you can enjoy it.
When our clients buy a DROP Structure, we take on the question of how, working alongside clients to ensure their vision is matched as closely as possible.
That’s why we brought delivery in-house. And that’s why we are always on-site through the installation process, using our experience to guide operators through the steps and problems to make sure every delivery goes smoothly.
That picture of a DROP Structure set against a beautiful backdrop, without a single other building (sometimes even a road) in the frame, we were there every moment, from the time it left our headquarters to the final placement of the structure.
And that’s why when a client calls with the dream of placing a Holo or a Mono off the beaten path so they can get their piece of natural tranquillity, we can say yes without hesitation. Of course, we can get it there – we’ve done it before.
It’s in the Team Behind It
There was a time when DROP Structures was one person – plus a few contractors.
While it worked for the moment, it was never sustainable. Today, we’re a team of over 20 people, each of whom has in-depth knowledge in their area of expertise and their specific job in building and delivering each DROP Structure.
We have builders, drivers, drafters, foremen, salespeople and even safety personnel that ensure that everything we build is done on time and to the quality our people expect. Since those early days, this team has been a dream that we’ve worked hard to achieve. We’ve hired, we’ve fired, we’ve had employees move on to new and better jobs and have had a hard time replacing them. But over many years, we’ve developed a strong team of experienced people that our clients can depend on, people that we can (and do) stake our reputation on.
These people drive us forward as much as the people who buy. They bring new ideas, iterate new ways of doing things, and push us to create a sustainable business so they can be confident they have a job for years to come.
It’s in Our Clients
Finally, those years of experience have built up an audience of clients who know us, who come back to us when they find themselves looking for a new building.
That’s why we tell their stories, because this business isn’t just about buildings. It’s about the people that surround those buildings – the ones that create them and the ones that use them. We’ve seen their dreams become reality in our buildings, and that’s something a render will never be able to do.
