DhyanaTech | A precast concrete fix, built by someone who laid the brick
Steve Dickens spent decades in the trades before building the ERP software he says generic systems never delivered. His company, Dhyana Tech is now in the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center's 2026 WORKS accelerator.
Steve Dickens spent years installing precast before he set out to build foundational software of his own. Now the former mason is the founder of Dhyana Tech, a Knoxville-based company building an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system made specifically for precast concrete manufacturers.
The startup has earned a spot in the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center’s 2026 WORKS accelerator, which competitively selected six companies this year.
The pitch for Dhyana Tech is intentionally narrow: serve precast concrete companies
Large ERP platforms already exist, Dickens explained, but they are priced for big manufacturers and built as generic tools that force precast plants to bend their operations around the software. Dhyana Tech aims at the reverse: an affordable, mobile-friendly system shaped around how precast plants actually run.
“Cookie cutter programs just don’t fit the needs,” Dickens said. “Plus, the existing systems are so complicated, they’re not considering the end user who may not be as tech-savvy.”
His focus reflects an industry Dickens knows from the inside out. He knows the precast concrete process, the people, the operations, and the expectations, and DhyanaERP is something he built tailored to the shortfalls.
“Precast has been around since Roman times. It’s the backbone of the commercial construction industry,” he said. “Almost every building in Knoxville has an element of precast concrete. The industry is never going to go away.”
From the trades to the classroom and back
Dickens had somewhat of a tumultuous childhood, riddled with instability and having to grow up too fast. He was born in Missouri to parents who divorced before he could walk. His father and grandfather were both career bricklayers (masons), and pulled Dickens into the workforce early.
“I started when I was basically old enough to start carrying blocks. I spent my middle school summers out in the heat mixing mud. It was hard, hard work – but sure does build character,” he said.
Just before high school, his mother relocated him to Knoxville. Dickens went along and took a job as an arcade technician at the old Celebration Station off Cedar Bluff. But then, his mother moved away, leaving Dickens to fend for himself financially as a high school student.
“I ended up having to drop out of school to enter the workforce full-time, and I remembered working with my father and grandfather. Bricklaying was hard, but rewarding,” he said.
Dickens joined the union in the early 2000s and got to work. But the 2008 housing crash gutted homebuilding, and like so much of the housing-adjacent industries, union work for masons dried up. The instability of his childhood had circled back.
So, he went back to school. He earned his GED and enrolled at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), completing 120 credit hours. Unfortunately, the hours didn’t convert to a completed degree, since Dickens changed his major one too many times.
“I didn’t have the knowledge, as a first-generation college student, of how those decisions would affect my ability to pay for school long-term. I eventually had to stop attending due to finances,” he said.
He had gone to college partly to get away from the trades. But they kept calling him back.
“Why am I fighting my lifetime of construction knowledge?” he said. “Pretty much anything that I can get my hands on, I can fix or build. That’s when I decided to go back to my domain.”
Dickens applied for a Tennessee Reconnect grant and enrolled at Pellissippi State Community College, this time with a plan. He graduated with a two-year degree in engineering technology and certificates in construction management and sustainability, credentials that helped him land a leadership role at a precast concrete plant in North Carolina.
Building the tool he wished he’d had
One of Dickens’ greatest strengths was being able to ‘speak the language’ of customers, contractors, and warehouse workers. He had been in each of their shoes. But, for the first time, being in management, he saw the software gap up close.
The operation leaned on a stack of spreadsheets and disconnected programs that did not talk to one another, at real expense.
Dickens explained the precast facilities have needs generic ERP systems rarely address, like production and mold management, computer-aided design (CAD) integration, yard logistics, order fulfillment, and delivery routing all under one platform. He also wanted an ERP system crews could use on phones and tablets on the plant floor, not just on office desktops.
So he built one.
Dickens designed the software for ease of use by workers who are not especially technical.
He spent roughly 15 months building the company, and recently left his job to focus on it full time. Since launching officially, Dickens said he has fielded inbound inquiries and hopes to partner with a couple of the facilities to provide valuable feedback he can iterate on.
The WORKS Accelerator has pushed him to think differently
“What makes DhyanaERP different is the ease of use, low cost, and mobile-friendliness,” Dickens said. “I’ve learned so much already from the WORKS program, and believe the long-term value of learning this stuff and making community connections is worth it.”
With the acknowledgement that he still has a big growth curve ahead of him, Dickens said he is inspired by the process of customer discovery and brand-building.
“This industry is not going anywhere, and I believe DhyanaERP is perfectly positioned to become the next-generation, go‑to platform for the precast concrete companies,” he said.
Learn more about the WORKS Accelerator companies.
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