Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep # 142 From Hedge Funds To Shingles: Building A Trusted Roofing Brand In Bergen County
What if your next roofing decision felt calm, clear, and actually fair? We sat down with Julia from Golden Dragon Roofing in Bergen County to unpack how a transparent, certified approach can turn a high-pressure, high-cost moment into a confident, informed choice. She shares what most contractors won’t: why trust breaks down, how to read the real condition of your shingles, and when a full replacement is truly necessary.
Julia’s journey—from Moscow to an NYU finance degree, through hedge funds and real estate, and into roofing—shapes a rare, disciplined mindset for a home service business. Alongside her husband Chris, a roofer since the late 80s, she’s building a brand that answers the phone, shows the work with photos, and educates before selling. We explore roof rejuvenation, a spray-on treatment for asphalt shingles that can extend life at roughly 15–20% of replacement cost, plus where it fits (and where it doesn’t) for homes across North Jersey.
We also get practical about inspections. Most home inspectors won’t walk the roof, which leaves buyers guessing about flashing, boots, skylights, and ventilation. Golden Dragon’s certification-backed inspections and optional leak-free certification add documentation, accountability, and a two-year no-leak warranty when the roof qualifies—ideal for real estate transactions. And because materials keep rising, we talk realistic pricing, lifespan expectations in Bergen County, and how to weigh repair vs. rejuvenation vs. replacement without regret.
If you care about clarity, ethics, and craftsmanship on one of your home’s biggest investments, this conversation is your playbook. Subscribe, share with a neighbor who’s debating a roof quote, and leave a review with your top roofing question—we’ll tackle it in a future episode.
Golden Dragon Roofing
Julia Bykhovskaia
3 University Plaza Dr Hackensack, NJ 07601
(201) 857-9393
info@goldendragonroofing.com
goldendragonroofing.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.
Doug Drohan:Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast coming to you from Bergen County, New Jersey. Today we are joined by Julia Bykhovskaia from Dragon Golden Dragon Roofing out of Hack and Sack in Bergen County. Julia, welcome to the show.
Julia:Thank you so much for having me. Happy to be here.
Doug Drohan:Yeah, so am I. I think you're the first roofing company we've had on the show.
Julia:I doubt it.
Doug Drohan:I doubt it. No, it might be. And um, you know, Lord knows there's a lot of roofing companies, but I think the reason why you're the first or one of the few is because most roofing companies, uh, and this is based on my experience in the advertising industry, but also as a homeowner, most roofing companies, the owners remain kind of faceless and nameless. If you go on their website, there's nothing about us that tells you about the owner. You don't know who the owner is, you're not really sure what town they're in. Um, and that, you know, that doesn't build a lot of trust, personally speaking, as a as a homeowner that I want somebody on my roof where I can't really go up there and find out what they're doing. I have to trust them. So it doesn't elicit a lot of trust. So I think one of the things off the bat that you guys do differently, and I I met you through Instagram, is that it's a personal story, right?
Julia:Correct. Yeah, yeah. We uh we want people to know us. Uh, we want to build a great reputation in uh northern New Jersey, and we are doing it uh but every way we can, right? Including our website. And uh I try to post on social media when I when I can. I'm not consistent enough, but uh I want people to know who we are, absolutely.
Doug Drohan:So why don't we get into that? Who are you? Like why why start a roofing company? Because you know, um, there are not a lot of female uh business owners who run roofing companies as well. So why did you guys decide to start a roofing company?
Julia:Well, as everything in life, it was a little bit random, right? Uh so Chris and I, uh Chris is my husband, and he he's also uh co-owner of Golden Dragon Roofing. So we met uh four and a half years ago, and uh Chris is from Buffalo. So he Chris started roofing when uh he was um in his teens, so in late eight uh eighties. So he knew roofing, right? And then uh when we got together, eventually uh a question uh arose uh who is moving where? So I said that uh Buffalo is not the place where I want to be as much as I love it, uh about followings. So Chris moved to uh uh tristed area with me. And uh my business, I had several businesses before, so my business was um kind of slow, it was commercial real estate, and uh Chris uh also was getting out of a franchise that he was a part of, which was a digital marketing franchise, actually. Okay, and we considered buying a roofing franchise ourselves, but then after several months of uh uh deep deliberation, we decided why don't we just wing it and start a roofing company ourselves? And we thought that you know it's a very fragmented industry. So there are some very big players, but most of the players are on a smaller side, and we feel that most of the industry's industry is still uh not sufficiently professionalized, right? You know, if you call like 10 roofers, probably three of them are gonna pick up the phone, and uh maybe one or two will return your call, right? So we felt there was an opportunity to uh come in and build a professional company, provide great service and and and grow it. So that's why we decided to start the roofing company.
Doug Drohan:I hope Chris wasn't on the roof in the early 90s when the Bills lost all those Super Bowls, but um, yeah, it might have been tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll ask him.
Doug Drohan:Yeah. I'm a I'm a jet fan, so he can have pity on me. Um, it's interesting though, because um, you know, having come to New Jersey, and like you said, there are a lot of competitors. Yes, and um, you know, one of the things is you know, when you own a house, uh somebody gets up on your roof, and you know, I had a leak in my son's bedroom about two years ago, and we had one roofing guy come up and tell me I had to replace the whole roof, and somebody else come up and say I could just patch that, and you know, it's a small spot where it might be getting under the flashing. So, you know, you got two different people come up, and two people tell you two different things, and one of them's you know, $30,000 and the other one's a thousand dollars or or less. So it's really difficult for me uh to know who to call. And I I'd be interested to hear, you know, what Chris's uh with his background in in digital marketing and and advertising, uh, how he approaches that. But let's get um, you know, now your your background, you said you were in commercial lending, but you know, you weren't born in New Jersey. Your accent tells me you're from Long Island.
Julia:From from Brighton Beach.
Doug Drohan:Yeah, from Brighton Beach. There you go. That's part of Long Island. Yeah, um, so obviously you're you're from Moscow, you're from Russia, and uh you came over here. And so what what's your immigrant story? Because uh, you know, there's a lot of immigrants who come over here for the so-called American dream that work really hard and that do build a great career. What is your story?
Julia:So, my story, uh, when I was uh, you know, I grew up in Moscow in Russia, and then uh uh you know I was finishing up my degree, which was a bachelor of science and entrepreneurship, actually, uh during the time when uh the you know, right after the Soviet Union collapsed. And uh before that, uh people, students were placed in the company. I had to look for a job myself, and somehow I ended up working at Reuters, uh, which was a news agency, uh financial data agency in in Moscow, and I met a lot of young people who had degrees from abroad, so and I have a little bit of an obsessive personality, so I said I want to get an MBA from America, so that launched me on a two-year journey when I was applying to business schools, and uh I was too young, so most business schools told me uh that I'm too young and it's too early. But um NYU, for unknown to me reason, decided to accept me when I was 22. So I moved to New York City actually uh for an MBA program, and uh I wanted to be a marketing major. Then I quickly found out that NYU is actually good in five, you know, in finance, the top three in finance. Uh so I said, okay, might as well major in finance. And uh and then I ended up working for 15 years uh in um in the financial industry, mostly in hedge funds, uh investing in uh so-called distressed debt, so corporate uh bonds like Blockbuster, Jimbery, um fairway supermarkets, uh so companies that were either going bankrupt or uh on the verge of going bankrupt, and they love that. Um, but then uh I didn't know it back then, but uh I I'm a very entrepreneurial person, so I was thinking, you know, I would love to run a hedge fund, not work for a hedge fund. So eventually, you know, I tried that. Eventually I realized that I it's uh an uphill battle, and I probably will never run a hedge fund. So I decided to find something else to do, and I I found real estate, or real estate found me. And uh first I was acquiring Airbnb properties in the Poconos, actually. And then I got into multifamily investing, and uh, we were raising money and buying properties in Houston and Dallas, uh so and that was going well for uh several years until it didn't because of interest rates, and then I said, okay, well, I can wait it out, but it's gonna take years, or I can find something else to do, which brought me to to roofing, right? Um in a kind of convoluted way, by but that's how uh I personally ended up in roofing.
Doug Drohan:Oh, okay, and we know how Chris Demon used to do it back in the 80s. So Golden Dragon, I you know, with a name like that, I would have thought you're from Flushing Queens or uh, you know, Leonia, New Jersey, or something like that. But uh, so why why the name Golden Dragon?
Julia:Well, first of all, I must say that we are not a Chinese restaurant, uh, because a lot of people ask us, right? But uh, you know, the the real story is we wanted a name that represented you know protection and premium white glove customer service, and we thought that Golden Dragon Dragon is a sign of protection, right? And golden is a sign of a premium, white glove, and luxury service, right? And I did ask Chris uh uh when we were choosing a name, like, do you think it's gonna sound like a Chinese restaurant? And he said, uh, no, you know, why why um why are you saying that? Because I suppose in Buffalo they don't have too many of those. But now every single person, of course, uh asks us um if we are affiliate affiliated in any way.
Doug Drohan:Ah, that's funny. Okay. Well, again, it you know, you do stand out from um all the other roofing companies that start with an A, like A1, All American, all this, whatever. Um, you know, those kind of news.
Julia:It was a good idea back in the day.
Doug Drohan:Yeah, right, because they were listed first in yellow pages or you know, right. So tell me a little bit about so obviously um residential roofing, commercial roofing. I you know, I kind of get the idea. I think most people know you know what that entails. What is roof rejuvenation?
Julia:Yeah, roof rejuvenation is a service that we started offering recently. Uh so basically you apply a spray-on solution uh to the shingle roof. Uh so it's not gonna work on a in a flat roof, but it it rejuvenates the shingle and prevents further granular loss. So, and not all roofs uh uh qualified, um but but some are, and then what it what it does first it uh extends the life of the roof. Uh we give five-year warranty, and you can do it up to three times. So, in theory, um it could be up to 15 years. Then the cost of the service is a fraction of the cost of a full roof replacement, it's about 15 to 20 percent um of the full uh roof or re-roof, right? And then uh what it does to the shingle, it makes it much more pliable uh and it stops the or arrests the granula loss and also greatly improves the appearance. So I I'm currently talking to real estate agents that I meet, and I tell them that you know, if you are listing a house where a roof is probably it's not completely shut, but it's older, you know, to improve the appearance and make it easier to pass a home inspection and to get insurance and just to make it look much nicer, uh, we recommend that service.
Doug Drohan:So it's not for a roof that has leaks, that's there's a major, you know, water damage.
Julia:It's really you know, roofs that have maybe there's algae growth or some other algae growth, there's some granular loss, but less than 40% granular loss. Okay, and it can be greatly extended. The life can be extended, but you know, if the roof is uh uh bad and leaking, as you say, no, it it's better to replace it.
Doug Drohan:Yeah. So what what's the uh typical lifespan of an of a new roof?
Julia:Uh usually in this area 20-25 years.
Doug Drohan:Okay. So how do you know? So if you're buying a house, you know, one of the biggest problems when you get your house inspected is a home inspector is not going up on your roof. Yeah, he or she's gonna stand back and they're gonna look from a distance and say, uh, you know, they're gonna look for buckling and some obvious sound. Maybe they have binoculars. I don't know if they use drones these days. The insurance companies probably do. But you're not really, you don't really know what you're buying when it comes to the roof when you're buying a house. Um, unless when you walk in, you see obvious, you know, water streaks or damage or whatever. But you know, it's really kind of a um crapshoot when it comes to knowing, you know, if my if that roof of the house that I'm buying needs to be replaced soon. So, you know, if somebody asks me, how old is my roof of my house? I bought my house nine years ago. I I don't know.
Julia:Yep. I hear you.
Doug Drohan:I don't know how old it was. I don't I'd have to look through my paperwork. I don't know how old it was when I bought the house. I know I've been here nine years, I've had a couple of repairs made from leaks, but uh you know, I'd imagine like that's where the risk comes in for a homeowner, meaning they're vulnerable to somebody selling them something that they don't need because I don't really know how old my roof is. So, how do I, if I call you up for a free roof inspection, what are you gonna tell me? Like, what's the process?
Julia:So, actually, uh, for um cases as you described when there is a transaction happening, uh, what we do offer, like I want to mention that uh, as you said, uh roofers in New Jersey, they don't need to pass any exam. And the only license you require is home improvement license, which is relatively easy to get, and there is no state um examination, right? So we proactively went out and got um certification with National Roof and Certification Association, which involves very rigorous training, and we are also certified to provide so-called uh leak-free certifications, uh, which we uh do for a price at $495. But then uh for that um, you know, this service, uh, we're gonna come and inspect the roof and we're gonna do professional inspection, provide very detailed report. And um, you know, if we believe that the roof is um uh not gonna leak, right, in good condition, we provide a two-year warranty that it's not gonna leak. And if it does leak, we're gonna come back and fix it for free. All right. But it is uh for average homeowner, before I got into roofing, I had no idea uh either terminology or what to look for. Uh, but you you don't know, right? You don't know, and um unless somebody conducts professional expect inspections, uh inspection gets on the roof and checks all the components um of the roof, right? All the penetration points, all all of the um boot pipes, um the skylights, everything where water uh everywhere where water can uh come in. Um but it's not you know it's not easy for uh a normal person uh to tell from the ground, right?
Doug Drohan:You can't right, right, yeah. I mean, there's certain things like if you see all the the growth on the roof, that's easy to see, but the flashing and things like that, yeah.
Julia:Yeah, water stains uh in the house might indicate the leak, but they might come from something else as well.
Doug Drohan:Yeah, yeah. So what is it um like that drives you guys? Like why like why choose? I mean, you've talked about this a lot, but if I were to ask you and put you on the spot, you know, why choose golden dragon roofing?
Julia:Why choose us, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, uh yeah, many reasons. So, first of all, we we have certified the National Roof Certification, uh Certification and Inspection Association, which uh provides very rigorous training to uh uh you know the inspectors. We're also a member of um Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance, and this is an organization uh um which unites roofers who are committed to promoting ethical practices and exceptional customer service. And that was the conference uh uh that I mentioned that Chris and I just attended, uh attended, then we really uh obsessed with uh uh just doing a good job, right? And creating great experience for a customer. We want to be responsive, uh, and we are. Uh you know, if there are any issues whatsoever, we respond, we make it right, even if it's not our fault. Uh, we just want to our customer to be happy. And also, you know, we don't really sell, we educate. We we're gonna explain. Uh you know, Chris is amazing at explaining all the roof components and showing pictures and explaining uh you know how the roofing because roof is not just shingles, right? It's several layers of components, it's a roofing system. So Chris explains how it works, educate uh a homeowner, and then we provide options. You know, sometimes you you can do you know either roof rejuvenation or repair. We don't warranty repairs, but we can say, okay, if you don't want to spend the money, we can do a repair, um, but we cannot warranty. It's it's hard to, I mean, it's impossible to warranty a repair. Um, so uh and and then we just you know really taking care of the uh homeowners' property like we would of our own. We make sure uh you know everything is cleaned up after the job is done. Uh your landscaping is covered during the work, AC units are covered, and we just aim to provide a great experience.
Doug Drohan:That's cool. Yep, absolutely. So, you know, I always ask people, um, and you know, this is not your first. Well, I guess it is your first, like, I mean, no, well, you're in the real estate business, but what has it been like um you know, being a business owner? And I guess this is the first time you're owning a business with your husband.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah.
Doug Drohan:So that that's always like I'm always I always marvel at that because I know a lot of husband and wife, husband and wife, business owners, and I'm like, God bless, man. Um yeah, I asked my wife recently, I was like, Can you imagine if we work together? She's like, No. No, I and and mostly because we're different. Um, she's in HR at Ernst and Young, she's been there 20 years. Uh, you know, we have a different communication style, I guess, you know. But I think that's good, but she doesn't see herself in any kind of sales-oriented role. But when you own a business, you're in sales, whether you think you're in sales or not, right? So, what has it been like um, you know, being an owner of a company and being an owner of a roofing company?
Julia:Well, I love it, you know. I need a challenge. So for me, it is a challenge, right? Because it's uh running a home service uh company, and we came in cold, right? We're not from this industry, we didn't come from construction, so everything we do we had to learn from scratch, except for uh roofing technical part, which Chris knew, right? But then uh, you know, opening an office, uh running a crew, uh you know, marketing, lead generation for home services. Uh I mean it we started from zero. And I love the creative process of it, and I love learning, right? Because every day uh we learn something new how to improve our processes, how to automate certain things, how to uh provide better service uh uh to our customers. So it's been a lot of fun, it's been challenging because it we're starting from scratch, literally. Um, you know, and I'm from Moscow and Chris is from Buffalo. But it's been fun, and working together has been fun as well. We are very different, uh but we have complementary skill sets, right? So and Chris is like today, he's running a job, he's uh uh uh supervising a roof installation, but and he does sales, right? And um, I focus on operations, I focus on lead generation, on marketing and and networking.
Speaker 4:Okay, great.
Julia:Giving podcasts, you know, there you go, yeah, interview on podcasts, yeah.
Doug Drohan:And and just for my own edification, so what is a I mean it depends on the size of the house, but typically in Bergen County, what are you talking about? Uh what are you looking at when you say I need a new roof? Uh price wise, there's a range, yeah, price-wise.
Julia:Uh the average, I probably would say 17,000.
Doug Drohan:Okay.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Julia:And prices uh increase every year because materials, you know, we all buy from the same uh suppliers. Uh, there are probably four bigger ones in New Jersey. Uh and then they increase prices every quarter, and they send us price, yeah. They send us price increase sheet, and like, okay, well uh we we have to raise ours, right? So from what I um remember recently, uh I read uh statistics that over the last five years the price of a roof doubled.
Speaker 4:Really?
Julia:Yeah, and then Chris showed me his quote from uh 1989 uh for a roof in Buffalo. I think it was $893 or something.
Doug Drohan:Oh my god. Okay, yeah, and they get a lot of snow in Buffalo.
Julia:Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
Doug Drohan:Oh Joy, this was great. I mean, it's very uh, you know, for me, uh very eye-opening in terms of you know what's entailed in the industry, but also it's refreshing to hear the approach that that you two take and your entire company takes. Um, and you know, your core values, I think it it it matters because um, you know, having that customer experience, there there's a saying that I I learned from a guy named Larry Levine who has a book called Selling from the Heart, giving him a plug. And he says, if you you know care about your customer as much as you care about your next sale, yeah. And you know, if you do everything from the heart, um eventually that should win out and should be you know evident to people. Maybe it's a longer term approach than going for that quick sale where you maybe cut corners, but if you do it from the heart, if you're authentic, I think people eventually see that. And having a happy customer means great referrals and you know um maybe they're not gonna need the roof replaced anytime soon, but certainly repairs and things like that. So I really uh appreciate and respect what you guys are doing. And um, before we say goodbye, is there anything you just wanted to leave us with?
Julia:Well, uh thank you for having me and uh I love being here. And if anyone has any roofing issues, please reach out.
Doug Drohan:Okay, and what's the best way to reach you?
Julia:I well, you can email me at julia at golden dragonroofing.com, uh, or just go on our website and we have a booking engine. You can just book an appointment right there.
Doug Drohan:Goldendragonroofing.com.
Julia:GoldenDragonroofing.com.
Doug Drohan:And you know, you are in Hack and Sack, and I'll give the phone number. It's 888-558-9124. But as Joey has said, it's probably best to either go on the website or you can email her directly. And you can follow them on Instagram at Golden Dragon Roofing.
Julia:Yes, and LinkedIn.
Doug Drohan:And LinkedIn as well. Great. All right, Joey, we're just gonna uh close it out and you and I'll be right back. Thanks very much.
Julia:Thank you very much.
Intro/Close:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gmpbergen.com. That's gmpbergen.com or call 201 298 325.