Female Disruptors: Lisa Chau of Ownet On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Stephen Bates suggested that I create a 30–60–90 day plan for every new job I accept so there is a clear roadmap of performance goals and tasks. This tactic introduces and fosters an environment that supports regular growth conversations for advancement.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lisa Chau.
Lisa Chau is Co-Founder and President of Ownet.com. She is the author of Small Talk Techniques: Smart Strategies for Personal and Professional Success, and essayist in Fast Fierce Women edited by bestselling writer Dr. Gina Barreca. Lisa’s writing has been published over 130 times in Forbes, Buzzfeed, Thrive Global, US News & World Report, as well as Huffington Post on TABLES: Technology — Academia — Business — Leadership — Entrepreneurship — Strategy.
In addition to speaking at multiple Ivy League campuses, including Yale, Princeton, and her alma mater, Dartmouth College, Lisa has been a Ted-Ed lesson creator, South by Southwest® mentor, and featured guest on NPR.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory” and what led you to this particular career path?
In the past decade, my career trajectory has been more oriented towards entrepreneurship. As told to Women’s Activism NYC, I pivoted into entrepreneurship in 2009 when I joined the Public Relations team at the Tuck School of Business at my alma mater Dartmouth College. I co-hosted and co-organized the How to Build a Strong Start-Up Conference at Columbia University alongside alumnus Canberk Dayan. Since then, I have built a strong network of entrepreneurs, investors, and executives across a myriad of industries; judged pitch competitions; and served as a mentor for SXSW (2018), the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network (2018), and MIT Hacking Medicine NYC Grand Hack (2019). The next logical step was to state my own venture: Ownet.com.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Ownet.com is a new social network. Its user-centric model disrupts convention and makes profit sharing possible by offering stock to all registered user-owners. Users will be able to profit off their own social media activity.
My team realizes that the real value of a social network is its users. Rather than buy all of the stock of a network operator like Facebook (NYSE:FB), we came up with a value proposition to acquire all of the users by offering ownership in the social network and a voice in the network’s operation. Our minority-led company seeks to fix the economic injustice of social networks, and lead a mass exodus from current, major social networks, like Facebook, resulting in a historic transfer of wealth!
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting?
My Co-Founder likes to spend his daily 15+ work hours 7 days a week in the office starting at 7am, whereas I prefer a daily hybrid model for my 12+ work hours 7 days a week by choosing to be in the office only during the pm hours. We once had a meeting at 10am the next, and as I was leaving for home at 11:30pm, I said to him, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” perkily adding, “Bright and early!” He turned to me with palpable disgust in his voice, “10am is NOT bright and early.” This is still our biggest disagreement since working together. Honestly, we almost never disagree on anything else.
Others on my team call my pm schedule, “The Lisa Hours”.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors?
He asked not to be named, but my current mentor is the epitome of a Superboss, as defined by Tuck School of Business’ Professor Sydney Finkelstein. In our Master-Apprentice relationship, my mentor customizes his coaching to what I need for professional success. Like advertising legend Jay Chiat, my mentor works extremely closely with me and our business discussions extend late into the evenings. I would not be the President of Ownet.com if not for the respect and deep support I have had, and continue to receive from my extremely humble mentor.
According to Professor Finkelstein, “Superbosses can be fierce or gentle, belligerent or self-deprecating, but whatever their style, they do a much better job inspiring and teaching because they get in the trenches with protégés, leading by example and giving them the personalized attention they require to move up quickly.”
My mentor teaches me to address every minutia of leading an organization, empowers me to think independently (in my case, by using the Socratic Method), and disciplines me in how to deal with media.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’?
Facebook was disruptive when it first launched over a decade ago, but it has not withstood the test of time. In Mark Zuckerberg’s business model, he and a relatively small group of investors monetize the data of hundreds of millions of people. The network operator takes up all the economic value of activity on their site while users get nothing in return. This was definitely not a positive disruption.
Ownet.com’s mission is to bring justice to the social media landscape. Our disruption is positive because it leads a paradigm shift where empower users by making them owners of the network. To achieve that goal, OWN Inc, the parent of Ownet.com, is offering users at least 100 shares of stock in OWN just for registering and setting up a profile on Ownet.com. Users pay nothing to receive stock in OWN, and the first one million to register get extra shares of stock. Users also join in governance through a user committee that elects a member to a seat on the Ownet.com board.
In theory, if all users of Facebook moved to a new social network, the value of Facebook would move as well because all of the advertisers would still pay to reach that group of users. Ownet.com wants to be the catalyst for this massive transfer of value to users who, in my opinion, are the rightful owners of that one trillion dollar value.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey?
Dorie Clark is an exemplary model of being a recognized expert by capitalizing on one’s unique perspective and knowledge. I should strive to stand out while inspiring others to listen and take action.
Ted Rubin has ingrained his core marketing philosophy, Return on Relationship (#RonR) into my community building habits on social media. It has been transformational for me in embracing the opportunity to cultivate meaningful, long-term relationships with others.
Stephen Bates suggested that I create a 30–60–90 day plan for every new job I accept so there is a clear roadmap of performance goals and tasks. This tactic introduces and fosters an environment that supports regular growth conversations for advancement.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Currently, I am wholly focused on building Ownet.com so we have meaningful traction. At that point, I will leverage our network to cultivate communities focused on adding value to our members’ personal and professional lives.
I recently had a call with Emmaline R. Smyth, the Senior Associate Director of Leadership Giving for the Dartmouth Founders Project. Not only have I begun the process to donate stock to the project as soon as possible, I aim to bolster my future participation by volunteering my time and knowledge.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
One of the biggest challenges for women disruptors is getting funded. Despite statistics that prove startups with female founders outperform those founded by men, female founders often raise much less money but generate greater profits and quickly exit with higher valuations. Global VC funding to female founders dropped dramatically in 2020. Recent findings by Crunchbase found that technology startups with founding teams that included at least one woman only received 9% of all funds deployed within that industry, while only 2% of VC dollars went to teams with all-women teams or solo woman founders. Somehow, these numbers have declined over the past decade.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
I am fascinated by human psychology, so I loved reading Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by MIT’s Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics Dr. Dan Ariely. The research and relatable examples in his book made me reconsider how we make illogical decisions based on un/conscious emotions, expectations, social norms, and other invisible forces that skew our reasoning abilities. Moreover, we often repeat the same type of mistakes! We’ll procrastinate, underestimate, and overpay because we fail to reign the systematic patterns of thought and emotions that misguide our choices.
I often find myself falling prey to anchoring impressions. For instance, any time I start a day of shopping at Hermes, almost every other store outside of that same neighborhood demographic will seem like a *relative* bargain. My brain has used the ultra luxury brand’s prices as baseline, so anything less than half their retail tag will suddenly become more attractive to me. I love the game of Scrabble, but I don’t foresee ever spending $15,050 for Asprey’s Hanover set in a black bullskin case. Yet, if I saw another store three blocks away offering a similar product for $8,000 I might have a knee-jerk reaction that the lesser priced item is a great deal even though I’m very aware most families happily play with a $20 game set.
Reminder to self: An 80% discount on an item that has had its price marked up 600% is neither a bargain nor a savings. Especially if you never would have even considered it at wholesale price.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
My team and I are already working to lead a mass exodus from Facebook and other social networking platforms to Ownet.com On our shared network, user-owners would get a voice in governance as well as a stake in the transfer of monumental advertising dollars. Using technology to communicate is too ingrained in our everyday, personal and professional lives to abandon completely. Instead of daydreaming about unrealistic solutions, Ownet.com is providing a real alternative in the form of a paradigm shift. This movement can impact billions of people and put real money into their hands. A power user can make thousands of dollars.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Always add value without the need for instant, or any, reciprocation. If you add value, your offer to help will rarely be declined. Don’t make money the only form of payment you accept — Access and experience can be much more valuable, and indirectly lead to money in the long-term. Adding value garners trust, presents new opportunities and deepens any relationship. It’s how I got to where I am today.
How can our readers follow you online?
I’m on Twitter as @LisaOwnet, and my company is @Ownet_com
I’m on Instagram as @LisaOwnetIG, and my company is @Ownet.Social
I’m on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/LisaChau
Ownet.com is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/Ownet-com
On Facebook, we are https://www.facebook.com/OwnetSocial
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Thank you.
