How Home Hub AI Is Changing Homeownership for Buyers, Sellers, and Realtors

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In this conversation, Dianne Wheeler discusses her journey as the founder and CEO of Home Hub AI, a digital app designed to support homeowners in managing their properties. She emphasizes the importance of community, networking, and authenticity in business, while sharing insights into the challenges and successes of building a startup. Dianne also outlines her vision for the future of Home Hub AI and the impact it aims to have on the real estate market.

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Dianne Wheeler (00:00)
I opened the door to my new home. I walk on in and feel completely alone, ghosted. I don’t know what I don’t know. One of my favorite phrases. And so when it comes to really understanding how to do maintenance, how to prevent some of those very expensive emergencies, yes, you can watch a million.

YouTube videos or Google videos. But if you’re like me, you’re kind of like, what applies to me? What doesn’t apply to me?

Quentin (01:58)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. You know what I’m going to say? I’m excited to be here today. And I do, I have true genuine excitement. I think this lady is wonderful. I can’t wait for you guys to get to know what she’s about. You know, I think the way she talks, it really kind of gets me fired up and puts enthusiasm in me. And so, you know, she’s passionate and believe in what she’s doing. And so she has a tech product.

That’s really a game changer. It puts the homeowner in the center of the universe. I mean, you know, and that’s her words. That’s not mine. That’s her words and how she explained it. It makes total sense to me. And so I’m going to let her explain it herself. So I want to introduce you all to Ms. Dianne Wheeler. Ms. Dianne, how you doing today,

Dianne Wheeler (02:50)
I am well, thank you for having me, Quentin, I appreciate it.

Quentin (02:53)
Absolutely. So glad to have you here. And listen, I want to dive in. I want you to tell people what your main focus is these days. If you want to give us a little bit of an origin story, I love the hero’s journey. So you want to give us a little bit origin story, how you got to where you are. Love that. And also if you don’t mind telling us what part of the world you’re in as well. And so, Ms. Dianne, you have the floor, man.

Dianne Wheeler (03:16)
thank you. Okay, so I’ll get the wear and logistics out of the way. I’m down here in Florida, halfway between Sarasota and Tampa in a little town called Parrish, which is very much growing by leaps and bounds. And that actually kicks off my story because I was the homeowner who

Quentin (03:21)
Got you.

Dianne Wheeler (03:35)
I had white glove treatment through the transaction. I had a great realtor, mortgage person, title, insurance, et cetera.

I opened the door to my new home. I walk on in and feel completely alone, ghosted. I don’t know what I don’t know. One of my favorite phrases. And so when it comes to really understanding how to do maintenance, how to prevent some of those very expensive emergencies, yes, you can watch a million.

YouTube videos or Google videos. But if you’re like me, you’re kind of like, what applies to me? What doesn’t apply to me?

And so my business partner and I started talking and we first started a company to help homeowners like myself with their homeownership maintenance chore list. So think of things like changing your filters and purging your hot water tank, refreshing your coking, things like that.

And into it about a year, we said, gosh, wouldn’t it be great if we could track this so clients could really show value if they were going to sell their home? Look how my home has been taken care of. Look how we’ve really paid very close attention to preserving and protecting the value of all of the appliances so that they work for the intended ⁓ usage. And one thing led to another, which

one conversation leads to meeting people and all of a sudden we’re in the tech business creating Home Hub AI, which is an app. It’s downloadable for every homeowner and essentially allows you to put your house in all of the details to protect, to track and to grow the value of your home. And so the homeowner is the one in the middle of the story. It’s all about what they have, not about

the remodeler, not about the plumber, or not about anything more than simply the ecosystem or the holistic environment of the home. So that’s what we got going on.

Quentin (05:32)
Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely, absolutely love it. Gotta say too, think the first time I had a chance to see your nails, I love the nails by the way. Yeah, I know I’ll paint my wife nails. So now I pay attention all the time. see nails like, those nails look awesome. So yeah. So, but no, definitely thank you for that. Thank you for telling us how home of AI came into being. I wanna pick your brain a little bit about strategies, right?

And I’m going to ask a question. would love you to answer it two ways, because I would love to know some core business strategies that you’ve used, but I also would love to know some personal strategies that you’ve used. I mean, because as I told you, you’re a trailblazer, right? And so there are sometimes some things that you have to do to center you, whether it’s meditation, cold plunge, like, but there are some personal strategies that I’m sure core strategies that help you out and business strategies that help you. And I would love to know a little bit about both.

Dianne Wheeler (07:17)
Yeah. So, I’m going to go ahead and share real, real high level background. I actually came from, ⁓ the banking industry where I served for 25 years as a learning and development person. And one of the things I was able to do was to coordinate a leadership program with USF or university of South Florida is design thinking curriculum. And design thinking is a business strategy where.

the customer, the client, user is at the center of the reason for solving whatever it is they’re experiencing. That has been a game changer for me. That has been how I fundamentally think about what we add into the app, the features. We chalk the storyboard. So what is the customer journey? When are they gonna start using this? When are they gonna stop using this? And that…

sense has allowed us to understand whether or not something is appropriate for You know our app for our business for for our team And when I think about professionally ⁓ That has never served me in a bad way because if people at the center, you know, I don’t human resources I have human beings I work with I don’t have

you know, widgets that I’m creating, I’m creating, you know, solves for people’s problems or issues. And so that has really just served me well, in a lot of capacities. ⁓ and I’ll tell you, I’m a creative. So in my personal time, I do a lot of very hand oriented things like painting or creating things. I’m, a gardener and I have learned to use that downtime as the time to just let my brain fly. And that

Quentin (08:35)
Mm. Mm.

Dianne Wheeler (08:59)
Ability has served me so well for some of these creative, you know, what doesn’t exist a lot of times people get caught up in the whole Well, you can’t have this because that’s not been there before So, yeah

Quentin (09:11)
Yeah.

that is fascinating. So you put design thinking and I love because literally at your heart is servitude. Like, and I always say any sustainable business at the heart and the foundation of it is going to be service. And so I,

Dianne Wheeler (09:15)
I love it.

Yes.

Quentin (09:29)
I absolutely love it. And it’s funny, I’m reading this book, it’s called Gradually Then Suddenly. I just read a part of the chapter today about Winston Churchill. He had burnout, and this was before he became Winston Churchill, but he had burnout. So his employer told him, listen, take some time off to go paint, write, and play. Told him to go paint, write, and play. And that led to so many creative,

things in his mind and he kind of evolved into who we know him to be in history. And so I love the fact that you said you’re a creator and I love the fact that you take time out to paint, you take time out to play, you take time out to garden because that keeps your, the way you operate, the way you create, the way you think, it keeps it fresh and it keeps it moving. So I absolutely love that. Absolutely love that. Yes, ma’am. Absolutely. So let me ask you this.

Dianne Wheeler (10:55)
Thank

Quentin (10:59)
While building, let me make sure I get the name right, Home Hub AI, have you bumped up against any adversity? Have you had to overcome some obstacles? Like, you know, I tell people all the time, I just don’t want to show people success. I want to show people the journey to success, right? Because it’s literally a journey to success. So has there been some adversity that you had to overcome?

Dianne Wheeler (11:21)
a hundred percent. And, you know, first and foremost, as I explained, I’m not a tech person. So when it comes to being a founding CEO of a tech company, I have to rely on people to do the coding, to do the, you know, the, production of our app and to bring me the analytics, to make sure that I know that we’re on the right path. And so when it comes to that,

Finding the right people is huge. Keeping the right people and insulating against something happening. you know, I’m not a negative thinker, but you have to figure out what can be a point that would derail your company or your idea. And you know, let’s be truthful. Not everybody works forever. And so we had to think through how do we make sure that our team is insulated against anybody who wants to retire or…

you know, something like that. adversity isn’t necessarily anything more than we have an opportunity to overcome by thinking through what the actual needs are of the business. And when you think of it that direction, it allows you to really stop, ⁓ the emotional, you know, negativity that sometimes prevents you from coming up with that pathway.

Quentin (12:25)
Hmm

Mm-mm. Mm-mm.

Dianne Wheeler (12:40)
Yeah.

Quentin (12:40)
No, I love it. mean, and it sounds like everything you’re explaining is the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset, right? You get that fixed mindset and you’re like, oh, what do we do? But no, the growth mindset is, okay, no. How do we fix? This is an opportunity to solve a problem. And I love it. I’m gonna say it again. You’re a trailblazer. Like when you have a growth mindset, you can blaze trails and let other people be pathfinders. It’s nothing wrong with being a pathfinder.

but when you can blaze a trail, it feels pretty good. Yeah.

Dianne Wheeler (13:12)
does. Yeah. I

mean, you know, this is my authentic self and this is something that we don’t talk about a lot, especially in business, because when you really think through authenticity, it means you’re bringing every single experience, every single nugget of knowledge. It’s bringing your preferences. It’s bringing everything together. And I knew when I was a very young person that I was meant to be a business owner. But it took me until and I’m going to I’m going to share real quick. ⁓

Quentin (13:25)
Hmm.

Dianne Wheeler (13:38)
Next year is a big, big birthday for me. It’s a big golden birthday. And so it took me until recently to really become my complete and true authentic self bringing the side out. So I think sometimes you just have to realize that there is no right path necessarily, but there’s definitely something to be said about moving. You got to move in order to get there.

Quentin (14:02)
Now you almost made me emotional. when you said what you said, got chills. Cause I feel you, feel like it’s interesting because my mother, she gave me a book. bet, you know, I’m a freelance writer. And so my mother gifted me, you know, I wrote lyrics, you know, I thought I was going be this big songwriter. You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t going to be, but my mother gave me a book, songwriters for dummies. And in a footnote, she wrote,

Dianne Wheeler (14:16)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Quentin (14:30)
authenticity, just be your authentic self. And that planted a seed in me to where, the songwriting didn’t work, but I was able to zero in that I am a storyteller. I love connecting. I use stories as my passion. It’s the power of my purpose. And so when I listen to you talk, how coming into your authentic self, that’s how I feel. I feel like I am living a life of authenticity and it has really

Dianne Wheeler (14:31)
Yes. Yes.

Quentin (15:41)
bless me because I love to serve people and me serving people is sustainable. don’t, this is not hard work with me. You know, this is my authentic self. And so as you was talking, you know, I live by a phrase that destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning as you’ve been taking on tools and skills throughout your life, wherever your destination takes you, those tools are going to be used as you keep applying them, as you keep grabbing them, as you keep holding on to them.

They are going to be used when you come into your authentic self. And so that’s why I’m so excited about Home Hub AI because it’s so authentic. It’s like your authentic self being manifested and coming to fruition. So I truly love it. Truly love it. Absolutely. So let me ask you, what’s the next real goal for you, Ms.

Dianne Wheeler (16:31)
Yeah, so we have a couple of really amazing things up ahead. As I described, we have three target markets. We have our customers, which are homeowners. We have our partners and our partners are realtors and insurance agents and mortgage agents and anybody who really kind of has folks that they work with in the home space. And then we have vendors who are people who maybe do work for the house that could go ahead and add

⁓ some information according to the house. So if a remodeler or construction person comes in and builds a new bathroom, they can go ahead and put the information in that would be detailed for the house. Again, everything centers around the house. And so this year, our big beta was around the homeowner. And we started to beta ⁓ a really amazing concept called pre-loved, professionally documented.

And pre-love professionally documented simply means I’ve lived in my home. I now want to go ahead and sell it. And my realtor has taken time to pull in somebody to document the house so that the record can digitally transfer to the next person, whether that’s the homeowner themselves, whether it’s the realtors photographer for the professional photos or whatnot. And that product I think is going to game change because imagine going into two houses to say, do I want to buy them? And one of them has

an updated report that simply says, here’s the expected life of your major appliances and here’s how old they are right now. Here’s how this house was cared for. You now as a homeowner are making decisions based on real information, not conjecture. You’re now having the opportunity to say, I can’t just afford the home, but I can also afford the maintenance because I know

Quentin (18:04)
Mmm. Mmm.

Come

on.

Dianne Wheeler (18:26)
Utility bills. I know what to expect and PS I also know what’s coming down the road in likely the next three to five years for Replacement whether it’s a roof whether it’s you know an HVAC, know some of the more expensive things and when I think about real estate and I think about Having purchased multiple homes in my past boy. That would have been amazing to have that information and so

My goal for next year is to get Home Hub AI into realtor hands ⁓ in all 50 states. It’s a giant lofty goal and I know we can do it and just make it something whereby we start on the pathway of, you know how like you go to some of those MLS systems and they say, here’s the rating of the neighborhood.

Quentin (19:04)
Yeah, come on.

Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Dianne Wheeler (19:20)
One day

I want them to say, here’s the Home Hub AI, whether it’s a rating, whether it’s a report, whether it’s something. And that’s where I want this to end up because that is good for every person buying a home.

Quentin (19:34)
Hmm. This, I’m really enjoying this episode. Like this is really hitting for me because my wife and I just had this conversation. So my wife and I, we’ve been married for three years, one on four years. But when she bought our first home, appreciate that. When she bought our first home, she was single. And we just had the conversation because things are starting to break. We got a fixed thing, flooring, all these different things are starting to happen. And she had to sit, she was like,

Dianne Wheeler (19:45)
Congrats.

Quentin (20:03)
I wish I would have known all of this before I bought the home. She was like, it would have had me kind of reevaluate, can I really afford this? Or what do I really need to set aside? And so what you’re saying, what you’re providing is really, really, really is gonna solve a real problem and a real need. And so I hear you and it is gonna be synonymous. One day somebody gonna say, what’s the Home Hub AI on that? Like I need that.

That’s what ⁓ I hear. I hear it. I see it because, I see it in real function. And I think again, your destiny had no wasted moments. I think your design thinking the way you serve people, the way you are wired. I see that this, this is a real opportunity to help a lot of people, just not nationwide. We talk about worldwide. We talking about home AI in Paris. Like everybody’s saying, what’s the home AI? So I see it.

So it’s not a lofty goal. I’m with you. We not nationwide, we’re talking about worldwide, international. hopefully I’m not putting nothing on you that you don’t want, but that’s what I see. Yeah.

Dianne Wheeler (21:06)
Thank you.

I’ve been there and I have to laugh

because I had a really amazing opportunity to travel to Europe last year and One of these days they’re gonna you’re gonna be able to put in there. I have a castle We’re not there yet, but you know

Quentin (21:25)
You took it out my head. I was thinking

of a home AI luxury version, right? Because these mansions that people getting into, you know, like we need to know all this stuff about the mansion. So I don’t know what goes into, you know, keeping the mansion. I don’t know that, you know, I’m in the condo. But so, yeah, so, so, yeah, so I see it. see it. Let me look at my time because I do. I do have one more question to ask you because you talked about how

Dianne Wheeler (21:36)
Yeah.

Yes.

Quentin (21:53)
having to rely on people that do tech, because you’re not tech person. So people that do the coding. So it makes me, I have to surmise that you’re good with relationships and that you value relationship building. So I just want to quickly talk about what’s your perspective when it comes to relationship building? Has it profited you? Do you find it very important to what you do? What’s your take on building relationships?

Dianne Wheeler (22:17)
gosh, relationships are the key to being successful. Hands down. And when I think about building relationships, there’s, ⁓ we’ve all heard of the golden rule, treat others the way you want to be treated. I’m going to challenge and say, nah, we’re on the platinum rule, treat others the way they want to be treated. And that means you’ve taken the time to learn who they are, the time to learn, you know,

Quentin (22:29)
and

Mm.

Mmm.

Dianne Wheeler (22:43)
what motivates them, what makes them tick, et cetera. And I was extremely pleased when one of my teammates had said to me, wow, you really built a team around personality and around people rather than skills, because people can learn skills. But it’s hard to really get that right chemistry. ⁓ And that makes or breaks a team, especially one that is a startup.

⁓ You know, we understand that our payoff is coming down the pipe later, right? And so when you work for something that you know that the motivation is not that salary every single day, you have to think back to the why behind it. And had I not met everyone I’ve met, had I not ⁓ been able to connect, I wouldn’t be where I am, because I don’t have every single skill it takes to be a startup business. ⁓

And I think that’s something that, you know, people come at it being a business owner or start a business from one of two perspectives, they’re either the subject matter expert in whatever they’re building or they’re a business person. I have the business acumen, but when it came to what I was solving, what I’m very passionate about, what hit home for me, no pun intended.

Quentin (23:55)
I got you.

Dianne Wheeler (23:56)
You know, I had to say, gosh, I need to surround myself with people that truly do know how to solve this problem and pull them together. And I’m very, very, very fortunate to have been able to attract the team I have together. I’m going to give a shout out to, you know, Edson and Yvonne and Felix and Mike and Mike and all, know, Arvind and Manish. We have a team that is crazy talented.

You know, they have to put extra bandwidth when we put all these people together in a virtual call. and, and Andrew, he just popped on the team and David is another one. So, you know, when, when we think about what we’re doing, if we don’t have good relationships, you’re not going to get your message where it needs to go. You’re not going to get your widget where it needs to go. And that’s, that’s a true shame. That’s a true shame. So relationship building is the Crocs.

Quentin (24:43)
You know, as you talk, you know, I said this off air, how about community, right? Community, common unity. And I said, I believe healing is in community. And because when you surround and insulate yourself with people that have the same common unity, we heal whatever is fractured in the business and we heal it together.

And what I love about you and the way you think, the way you’re wired and what your business does, it causes you to value everybody the same. Like you have to value the plumber, the person that deal with the septic tanks that deal with the smelly stuff that nobody wants to deal with. You value them just as much as the person that puts the pretty granite and that puts all the pretty fixtures. Like you understand it, it takes everybody that’s going to add that input.

to this home, to your business, to Home Hub AI. And I think for me, that’s what makes me really, really value what you do because it puts a great value on everybody that’s a part of it. And you started off this scene, I think this is the very first thing I wrote down, the homeowner is in the center of the universe. So it’s like you’re building the team and letting them know you matter. But also when this final one is all said and done,

It puts the homeowner right at the center. so again, you know, this has been your through line. Server to you. Once I found out about, know, what you do with, you know, design thinking, it makes all the sense in the world. And that’s why I know your business is going to be successful. Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. I appreciate you so much. This has been fantastic. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about Home Hub AI, how can you reach out to you?

Dianne Wheeler (26:20)
Well, thank you. Thank you.

Easiest thing is we have a website, homehubai.info, because we’re all about information. So homehubai.info, that’s our website. You can find us in the app store, homehubai, all one word, cute orange label, not bright orange, it’s it’s it’s a palming orange, it’s beautiful. ⁓

Quentin (26:41)
Gotcha.

Lovely. That’s right.

Dianne Wheeler (26:56)
And, you know, I think at the end of the day, we are connected on all the socials, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and we appreciate everybody’s, you know, following us, their input, their comments, because it does make us stronger and it makes ⁓ the app to solve that much better. So I would love to hear from everybody.

Quentin (27:18)
Beautiful, beautiful. This has been awesome. Miss Dianne, I really got to say one, I thank you for your time. Two, I thank you for your story. I put a premium value on stories. think everybody has a story to tell. And so I thank you for your story and I thank you for your perspective. I thank you for the way you think. I believe you added enough value for somebody that might have a mind shift about the way they’re going after things, the way they’re going after.

transactions and so this is being seen people as just transactions but seeing people as like you said human beings and so I really thank you for being in today this was this is wonderful.

Dianne Wheeler (27:56)
Thank

you. Thank you, Quinn. It’s been my pleasure.

Quentin (27:58)
Absolutely. So listen, y’all can’t tell me you didn’t get the value. You can’t tell me. You cannot tell me you have not got the value from Ms. Dianne in this episode. So please make sure you are subscribed. You do not want to miss out on these amazing people that we’re going to continue to bring up just like Ms. Dianne Wheeler. So Ms. Dianne, thank you again. And to everyone else, we’ll see you on the next time.

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How Home Hub AI Is Changing Homeownership for Buyers, Sellers, and Realtors

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