Dmitry Lipinskiy (Directorii)

Dmitry Lipinskiy is the founder of Directorii, a website that connects homeowners with contractors, and backs up each job with a $20,000 guarantee.  

Born in the blisteringly frigid lands of Siberia where the sun sets at 3 P.M. each day during the winter, Lipinskiy describes eastern Russia as a place of economic viability, albeit under oppressive and passionless skies.

“The weather is why Russians are moody and don’t smile. We don’t get enough vitamin D or oxygen,” says Lipinskiy, whose stoic demeanor is indicative of someone who has experienced the highs and lows of reality.  

“Where I grew up is an oil city that was founded thirty years ago, so there is money there, but it’s very gray and the snow turns black, just like in Minnesota.”

As a teenager, already Lipinskiy envisioned a future outside of his nondescript hometown.

“I didn’t want to raise my kids there. It’s a tough environment, and truthfully, people are not supposed to live there,” he says.

“When they originally discovered oil thirty years ago, people were supposed to go there and work for a number of years, but then they were supposed to go back to the mainland. Unfortunately, a lot of people stayed, and I don’t think that is an area where you are supposed to ultimately retire.”

The oldest of seven kids, all of whom grew up in the same one-bedroom apartment, Lipinskiy later got his chance to exit Russia when he landed a job as a summer camp counselor in Eagle River, Wisconsin.

Upon entering the United States, Lipinskiy didn’t speak much English, but he also didn’t need words to embrace all that America had to offer.

“I loved everything about America when I first got here,” Lipinskiy recalls, citing the vast infrastructure, how organized everything was, and a communal appreciation for nature as the key reasons.  

“I fell in love. Instantly, the United States felt like home.”

Once his time at the summer camp ended, Lipinskiy could have returned to Russia to become a teacher, but after spending time in a country where people from around the world fantasized about living, Lipinskiy opted to stay in the United States.

His English was still underwhelming, and he didn’t have any immediate employment prospects.

But he had a dream, and a vision to create a sustainable living for him and his future family.

He also had grit and perseverance, two traits that allowed him to endure sleeping in a car on the outskirts of Chicago as he worked minimum wage jobs to put food in his stomach.

Over time, that resiliency reaped tremendous rewards because fast-forward to the present, and Lipinskiy is no longer pinching pennies just to survive.

In fact, he learned to thrive in a country that consistently has proven that if an individual, regardless of skin color or nationality, puts in the work, quite literally, anything is possible.

Today, Lipinskiy speaks fluent English and owns five businesses, but if instead of committing himself to sleeping in the backseat of a sedan, he elected to return to Siberia, his entrepreneurial ventures would have never materialized.

“When people here in America tell me there is corruption, I can accept that premise, but the reality is that the corruption that goes on here pales in comparison to the stuff that goes on in Russia,” Lipinskiy says, adding that any business idea in Russia usually gets derailed by bureaucracy, nefarious characters, and a litany of other obstacles that everyday citizens cannot evade.  

“My philosophy teacher used to say that when your prosperity depends on someone else’s signature, that’s when corruption happens.”

For context, Lipinskiy’s grandfather once owned property and employed several people, until one day the government intervened and stripped him of everything, simply because they could.

“According to the communist ideology, we’re all equal, but of course it never works out that way,” Lipinskiy laments.

This story is just one more reason Lipinskiy loves the United States, a nation that has afforded him opportunity, which consequently led to professional success, which later evolved into Lipinskiy leveraging his success and resources to develop the aforementioned Directorii.

Much like Angie’s List, HomeAdvisor, and BBB, Directorii connects homeowners with contractors who can help with their latest home improvement project, but unlike those traditional sites, Directorii backs up every job registered on their platform with a $20,000 guarantee that protects homeowners from contractor malfeasance.

As the former owner of Storm Group Roofing in the Twin Cities, Lipinskiy came up with the idea for Directorii after years of noticing that the paradigm that connected homeowners and contractors was broken, and desperately in need of a revamp.

But to compete with industry titans like Angie’s List, HomeAdvisor, and BBB, Lipinskiy needed to offer something unique, a value proposition that would drive user traffic away from the big players and toward his site.

Inspired by the popular book Blue Ocean Strategy, Lipinskiy opted to do something none of the massive entities would:

Protect homeowners and give them peace of mind by insuring every job registered on Directorii for up to $20,000.

“I created a product that I believe is the best product available on the market,” Lipinskiy states.

“Angie’s List and the Better Business Bureau [BBB] do not take any accountability for the contractors on their website. They even have disclaimers that relieve them of any responsibility they have to the homeowners who visit their site and hire their contractors.”

Which is to say, if a homeowner hires a contractor off Angie’s List, HomeAdvisor, or BBB, they are doing so at their own peril because if something goes wrong with the job, those companies assume no liability.

Inversely, Directorii’s approach is antithetical to the conglomerates.

Yes, Directorii wants you to hire one of their pre-screened contractors so they can make a profit, but they also want you to have a great experience.

And if you don’t, then Directorii believes they are obligated to make amends.

“I don’t give bad recommendations, and if I happen to recommend a contractor who does a bad job or does something unethical, then I’m liable, and I think that’s how it should be,” explains Lipinskiy, whose team at Directorii also assists homeowners with choosing a contractor by comprehensively analyzing estimates and then making a recommendation.

“Most homeowners don’t know when a contractor is being disingenuous or attempting to drastically overcharge them, but as a former roofing business owner, I do, and so my team and I can be that resource for customers who want to be diligent, but may not know what to look for.”

So far, Directorii’s efforts have led not only to homeowners linking up with local reputable contractors and receiving excellent service, but Lipinskiy has also redefined what it means to be a quality contractor.

“A few of the contractors in Directorii are telling me, somewhat facetiously, that they are afraid to mess up or do something unethical because they know they will get called out,” mentions Lipinskiy, who also runs Roofing Insights, a media company that in recent years has risen to prominence by highlighting some of best roofing companies in the nation, but also for exposing scammers and malevolent figures who otherwise would continue to run amok.

Ultimately, when it comes to selecting a contractor, most homeowners would prefer that the process is seamless, but before Directorii introduced its network of heavily vetted contractors who are all backed by an unprecedented $20,000 guarantee, many homeowners were left directionless and in search of answers.

Much like innovation that has occurred in other industries, all it took was one person courageous and ambitious enough to disrupt the status quo.

In the case of Directorii, that individual is Dmitry Lipinskiy.

“No one was connecting homeowners with contractors in the way that Uber connects drivers with riders, or in the way that Airbnb matches homeowners with people who are looking to rent a home. Same thing goes with dating apps: everyone knows that if you want to meet someone, download Tinder or Bumble,” says Lipinskiy, a man who years ago was grateful for the chance to live in a nation with unparalleled freedoms, and who now supplies homeowners with a sense of clarity and tranquility.

“With Directorii, the goal is to become a household name so that whenever homeowners are looking for a contractor they can trust, there is no doubt in their mind that they can find a great company by visiting my platform.” QS

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