Maddie Maloney (Steward Home Watch)

Maddie Maloney is the owner of Steward Home Watch, a home watch company that performs regular, documented home checks with reports and clear communication. 

An Edina native, Maddie attended Our Lady of Grace for grade school, before later going to Visitation for high school. 

“Edina was a good community to grow up in. It was safe. I had loving and supporting parents, and good educational opportunities,” says Maddie, whom I first met a few years ago when I used to sell roofs.

Following high school, Maddie headed east, enrolling at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where she competed as a downhill ski racer.

After college, Maddie returned to the Twin Cities and started working for Medtronic in their communications and marketing department.

Soon after, she bought her first home. 

“A lot of my friends were in apartments, but I was in the suburbs, dealing with things like home maintenance issues,” she says with a laugh. 

Eventually Maddie got a different job with the American Academy of Neurology, but like many people featured on this platform, stable employment wasn’t enough to satisfy her professional ambitions. 

“I’ve always been interested in starting a business,” she says.

For context, Maddie’s father owns a commercial real estate and business appraisal company, and one might imagine that conversations at the Strachota (her maiden name) dinner table revolved around business as much as the latest TV shows.

This insight, coupled with Maddie spending several years working for her father’s firm, allowed Maddie to learn about business, not from a book, but from being in the trenches every day. 

“I really enjoyed being able to dig into other people’s businesses and learn about different founders’ stories,” she says. 

“I think you can relate to that, Quentin.”

Stories offer many lessons, and teachable moments.

From predecessors, aspiring entrepreneurs can learn what makes a business run efficiently, but equally important is understanding what pratfalls can be avoided. 

“Working in the family business, I got exposure,” Maddie says.  

Exposure that taught her how to take calculated risks, which resulted in her and her husband buying an apartment building. 

“Still, I wanted to do something that was more operationally intensive,” she says.

“One of my strengths is being very process oriented and optimizing the flow of how a business operates.”

Armed with knowledge and experience, Maddie founded Steward Home Watch, her aim being to protect homes and help her clients manage the risk that comes with owning their properties. 

“If you leave small issues unattended, they can become pretty sizable,” she notes, then sharing that the lightbulb moment for this business’ conception came when she was visiting her parents in Florida, and on the way home her parents gave her a laundry list of things to do at their house when she got back. 

Cue the lightbulb moment.

“I realized my parents and other snowbirds like them are hiring home watch companies to watch over their homes,” she shares. 

Even in Minnesota, life gets busy, and some homeowners don’t have anyone to watch over their home when they are out of town. 

“That’s why we’re trying to provide that service and professional level of oversight for primary homes,” Maddie says. 

Of note:

Maddie doesn’t clean homes, but she ensures they are functioning well when you’re in Europe over the summer or when you have to jet off to Phoenix for two weeks.  

“It starts with what customers want,” she says. 

Steward Home Watch can help facilitate services like cleaning or window washing, but they don’t offer it as part of their package. 

“Many of our clients already have trusted vendors, or maybe they’re looking for people for certain services, and so right now we are coordinating those services. We are not providing them directly,” Maddie explains. 

At this stage, Steward Home Watch’s main value add is removing packages from front steps, taking flyers off door handles so that it appears as if someone is home, watering plants, and bringing garbage cans in and out from the street. 

That being said, their bigger value proposition is checking to make sure small issues don’t become future nightmares. 

“Things like water intrusion or leaks from pipes,” says Maddie. 

During Minnesota’s grueling winters, people want their homes to be warm and dry, so having functional HVAC systems is key, as is making sure the heat is on, pipes aren’t frozen, and windows and doors are properly secured and undamaged.  

“We will also start cars if that is something our clients want us to do,” Maddie says. 

“Again, it is ensuring that small issues don’t become $10,000 problems.”

From a pricing perspective, Steward Home Watch offers different tiers. 

If a client wants their home to be checked on every week, the cost is $300 per month. 

For biweekly checkups, that price is about half. 

There is also the option to schedule a one-time visit for only $95. 

Looking ahead, the success of Steward Home Watch will depend largely on the company developing a strong reputation. 

“That’s essential to what we are doing because people are giving us access to their sacred space,” Maddie says. 

“My hope is that our clients, through word of mouth, tell others that we are trustworthy and reliable, and that we help educate our customers.”

Adds Maddie:

“We’re not just offering peace of mind and making their return to their home easier. It’s also about helping customers avoid bigger issues with their homes.” QS

**

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