TYLER BLIHA

During his four years at the University of Notre Dame, Tyler Bliha ‘14 admits he had blinders on: “Like many of my peers, I was entirely focused on landing a career on Wall Street.”

So, in between football weekends, making lifelong friends, and enjoying an active social life, Bliha studied hard. When he graduated in 2014, he went straight to New York City, starting as an investment banking analyst at Bank of America. He describes the work as “relentless.”

“I worked 80-hour weeks and was on call during nights and weekends. There was no work-life balance; it was just work, work, and more work. But that’s what you sign up for,” Bliha said. “My colleagues and I were okay with it because we understood the narrow funnel it took to get there. If we could survive it, we’d be set up for a career in private equity or other financial services.”

When Bliha left Bank of America two years later, he took with him two essential life lessons. First, how to navigate a professional setting, and second, how to be relentless in the face of demanding work.

His next role was as an associate at Madison Dearborn Partners, a prestigious private equity firm in Chicago. It was a homecoming of sorts—Bliha was born just outside of Chicago and had family there. Like Bank of America, Madison Dearborn required hard work, but this time it involved interfacing with portfolio companies, learning how businesses operate, and understanding the decisions needed for success.

To further expand his knowledge, Bliha moved to Boston in 2018 to pursue an MBA at Harvard University. While there, he completed an internship with Sinai Ventures in New York City, a venture fund focused on early-stage startups, where he worked closely with the founders.

“I had a lot of autonomy at Sinai,” he recalled. “I even led a deal while I was there. Working with early-stage entrepreneurs was exciting and gave me a new perspective on what it’s like to be a startup founder.”

Not long after, Bliha was presented with an opportunity to change his career path. Two fellow Harvard Business School students, Tim Herman and Louis Wilson, had recently launched UpEquity, a Y-Combinator-backed digital mortgage company that automates mortgage underwriting and makes cash offers on a buyer’s behalf. They offered Bliha a project role, and after six months, he became their first full-time employee in January 2020, right before the COVID-19 lockdowns. When he started, UpEquity was located on the Harvard campus but later moved to Austin, Texas, in May 2020.

Anyone familiar with purchasing a home knows how stressful and flawed the mortgage process can be. Up to 25 percent of real estate transactions face delays during escrow due to mortgage issues, such as when buyers can’t sell their current home before closing on a new one. UpEquity was designed to eliminate the uncertainty from the home-buying and mortgage process.

“My role at UpEquity was that of a ‘business athlete,’ which is why I had the unusual title of head of strategy and finance. I was involved in capital markets, product development, B2B sales, marketing, and overall executive decision-making.”

During Bliha’s three years with UpEquity, the company grew exponentially, partly driven by the volatile residential real estate market brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. While he was committed to UpEquity’s success, he also felt the urge to start his own company. But in an interesting twist, the idea for his next venture found him.

“I had an ‘aha moment’ when I bought my home,” Bliha said. “Like many people, I was focused on closing the deal and didn’t pay much attention to the non-mortgage costs like property taxes, home insurance, energy bills, and private mortgage insurance. This was surprising, given my background in finance at a mortgage company, but the process is admittedly a confusing one. Once the honeymoon phase of buying a home is over, you’re hit with all these unfamiliar expenses. I tell people I’ve made more than $10,000 in mistakes since owning my home.”

“I thought, ‘Surely, I’m not the only one overlooking these costs.’ And since I rely on digital tools for most personal finance matters, I wondered, ‘Why isn’t there something to help with home expenses? It’s the biggest thing I spend money on.’”

In conversations with friends and colleagues, Bliha realized he wasn’t alone. Many homeowners face unanticipated expenses like property tax bills, insurance premiums, and rising energy costs, often without knowing there are ways to save. Even if they’re aware of options, such as contesting a property tax assessment, the process is confusing and time-consuming.

“Buying a home is a stressful decision, and it’s unfamiliar territory for many people. There’s so much happening in that 30-day window where you’re signing up for thousands of dollars in recurring costs, and a lot gets lost in the rush to close the deal. I wanted to make managing those recurring home expenses easier. That’s how the idea for Abode was born,” he explained.

Bliha’s experience at UpEquity gave him the skills needed to launch Abode. “It’s where I learned what it really takes to build something from scratch—something few people truly understand.”

His vision for Abode was to create a one-stop shop for all home-related financial matters, including non-mortgage costs like property taxes, insurance, and utilities, which make up more than half of homeowners’ overall expenses. These costs have been steadily increasing since 2020.

“Abode is a financial manager for homeowners, helping people track and save on home-related expenses. It ensures that homeowners never overpay on property taxes, insurance, or energy costs,” Bliha said. “It’s simple—users enter their address for a free estimate. We analyze their home costs and then negotiate and activate savings. Abode continuously monitors these expenses and activates savings every year.”

Creating a seamless user experience has been challenging, but it’s also been a key differentiator. “Our initial focus was building the operational infrastructure. Abode is a horizontal solution in a space dominated by vertical solutions. The components, such as insurance, are highly regulated, which complicates things. Figuring out the right business model while delivering a smooth user experience wasn’t easy,” Bliha said.

To address this, Abode launched its products individually, starting with property tax savings in April, followed by insurance monitoring in June, and now energy savings. The company is working on a dashboard that will bring all of these products together in one place.

Bliha also did some early market testing on social media, which yielded encouraging results. “Our test went viral, getting over a million impressions in the first week. The positive feedback from friends and connections further validated Abode.”

Leaning on his early years in private equity and venture capital, Bliha tackled one of the most daunting challenges for entrepreneurs—fundraising. In March 2023, he raised a pre-seed round, followed by a successful seed round in January 2024. This helped carry Abode through its initial development, a limited market launch in April 2024, and the scaling phase. Future fundraising will be determined as needed.

Bliha says the biggest challenge so far has been overcoming the poor user experiences homeowners face with existing solutions, such as contesting property tax assessments or finding affordable insurance.

“We address this in two ways. First, we educate—our website provides plenty of content explaining the problems and our solutions. Second, we automate. It’s easy to try Abode; you can sign up in 60 seconds, and we handle the rest. We ensure users never overpay again, and they only pay if we save them money.”

Abode’s transparent approach has paid off. Within a month of its April launch, the platform had 2,000 users. By the end of August, that number had grown to nearly 10,000.

That was a big milestone, but Bliha is particularly proud of Abode’s steady growth. “We’re acquiring users at a healthy rate through paid ads and organic referrals,” Bliha said. “We expect organic growth to increase as satisfied users share their experiences. We’re also exploring partnerships, such as bundling an Abode subscription with home warranties or using it as a tool for realtors.”

One surprise has been the diversity of Abode’s user base. “We assumed Millennials, who are used to digital solutions, would adopt Abode, but we’ve seen a large number of users between 55 and 70 as well.”

Adopters are generally not DIYers. “Tasks like challenging property tax assessments, finding the right insurance, or lowering energy bills take time and effort. If a service like Abode can handle that for them, it’s very appealing. The value we provide is easy to quantify—savings on home expenses,” Bliha explained.

When asked what advice he would give to aspiring entrepreneurs, Bliha said:

“Entrepreneurship isn’t glamorous, and it’s rarely linear. Most of the time, you’re running into obstacles and challenges that you didn’t anticipate. You have to be resilient enough to push through and find solutions.”

He adds, “I call it learning to embrace the chaos.”

Originally published by Melanie Lux at ideacenter.nd.edu on September 24, 2024.