We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Didya Bianchi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Didya below.

Alright, Didya thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, what do you think about family businesses? Would you want your children or other family members to one day join your business?

I think family businesses are great because they allow families to spend more time together in a time when many parents have had to increase the amount of time they work. However, to many people the distance between work and home is necessary to find some sanity in their daily life, especially if they have younger children. In my case, I started a home inspection business with my husband, Riccardo Bianchi, because I thought this would allow us to have more freedom to do things we love while spending more time with one another. Starting Bianchi Home Inspections has been an experience that has tested our patience and knowledge but has caused us to grow tremendously and have more confidence in one another. We spend a lot of time trying to improve our business and build new relationships to promote our business and the best part is that at the end of the day we share a common goal. In a sense, our accomplishments in our business really feel like shared successes and keep us focused on growing our business.

Didya, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I worked at Merrill Lynch, an investment brokerage firm, for 7 years where I was a registered client associate and I worked alongside a group of very successful financial advisors. It was difficult for me to leave this job because I loved my team, made very good money, and had great benefits. But, a mixture of grief from losing my mother and depression from staying locked up during the pandemic, propelled me to make a decision about the path I wanted to take. I told myself that being in my 30’s was a great time to pursue my dreams and start a business, as this had always been a dream of mine. So, during spring of 2021, my husband and I paid off our debts, put our condo up for rent so we would have an extra income and moved in with my mother-in-law. We both saved our previous bonus so we could travel for a few months and then start an e-commerce business. After failing at my first business endeavor, Riccardo and I decided to focus on doing home inspections because he had 7 years of experience already and for me it would be time to put all my administrative experience into work for our business. Running this business has helped me learn about accounting, marketing, and client relationship management. Our priority at Bianchi Home Inspections is to help home buyers understand the state of a home they are buying before they commit to buying it and we do this while providing friendly and attentive customer service. We make ourselves available to answer questions and can explain our findings in English, Spanish, or French. Some things that set me apart from other individuals in our industry are that I am committed to helping people make good investment decisions and I also work as a Client Relations Investment Advisor at Encompass Advisory Services, as well as being an agent at Keller Williams Memorial Realty. I hold a real estate license, securities licenses (series 7 and 66), in addition to a life insurance license.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Before starting Bianchi Home Inspections, I tried to run an online store for party games and accessories. One of my best friends had left her job and had started an online business aiming to help others get into e-commerce and provide them with residual income. She convinced me to use her as my online store manager and we could both make money while we traveled the world. I didn’t do a lot of research and trusted my friend so I wired $20,000 to have her start my store. Three months after I quit my job and started this endeavor, and although I had savings, I didn’t have a solid plan. I hired my friend and she then hired a group of marketing specialists abroad to create a funnel and a website to have my online store. By the first 6 months, I had just gotten started with the website and I had to put a lot of time into finding the products because the team she used wanted more money to do the things I was promised would be done from the beginning like picking products, testing them, and then putting them on my store. The whole process was a mess as we didn’t really have experience and I didn’t see a lot of energy from my friend into my business, of course, she was also traveling while we were doing that. A lot of this experience left me with a bad taste for business and I wanted to give up and return to work corporate. However, I decided that it was too soon to give up and we should start a business in something we know. Although, I am not a home inspector, helping my husband start the business has allowed me to develop new business skills while ensuring we provide the best service and product. I truly believe my husband is a great inspector and his abilities are what enable me to trust and happily promote our services.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

We started our business with about $5,000 dollars from our savings from when we worked in our previous jobs. Riccardo already had the basic tools from his previous job so we didn’t have to spend as much as we thought. The main items we needed to get started were the business documents and registrations. I filed LLC paperwork myself, directly at the Secretary of State website, paid for business insurance, and registered our business with TREC (Texas Real Estate Commission). Some of the other upfront expenses were ordering business cards and flyers to promote the business. After that, we started going to real estate brokerages across Houston and surrounding areas to drop our flyers and slowly, reached out to friends and family to let them know we had our own business and our client base has been growing slowly. Every time we had a new inspection, we would spend part of our money on new tools, software, running online ads, sponsoring classes, and joining networking groups to keep growing our business.    

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bianchihi.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bianchi_home_inspections/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bianchihomeinspections