Tradition Breakers Episode 5 with Misa Chien

Episode five of Tradition Breakers is for those of you who’ve ever felt like an outsider. If want to learn how to turn that feeling into a powerful force for creating a meaningful career, a thriving community, and a fulfilling family life, this conversation is for you.

My guest, Misa Chien, is an experienced entrepreneur who has achieved success across multiple ventures. She built a six-figure business before graduating from college, launched a seven-figure food truck business that was featured on the Food Network’s Food Truck Wars, was discovered as a model in her 20s and continues to model internationally, and now she’s building a thriving community for Asian American female leaders called, The Authentic Asian. She’s also a devoted wife and loving mom to two wonderful kiddos.

On paper, it might seem like Misa has had a seamless journey, fitting right in from the start. But reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood in San Diego, Misa often felt different and disconnected from her peers. Her struggles with dyslexia and the rigid school system added to the challenges she faced. However, she found refuge in the unwavering support of her family, which fueled her entrepreneurial spirit and helped her pursue her interests. Misa attended UCLA as an undergrad and is now finishing her Alumni program at Harvard Business School, all while continuing to build The Authentic Asian. I had so much fun talking to and learning from this woman and I hope you pick up some nuggets of wisdom yourselves.

Links:

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Learn more about Misa Chien and The Authentic Asian

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Episode Transcript:

Mary

(00:00:26):

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Tradition Breakers. This is your host, Mary Vallarta, and as you know, tradition Breakers is a podcast that shares the stories of API folks who broke from tradition to follow their own creative, spiritual, or entrepreneurial paths.

(00:00:52):

Episode five, I can't believe we're on episode five already. This one is for those of you who've ever felt like an outsider. If you've ever wondered, how do I turn that feeling into a force for creating the life, the career, the community that I've always dreamt of, then you're going to want to listen to this. My guest today, Misa Chin, is an experienced entrepreneur who has achieved success across multiple ventures. She built a six figure business before graduating from college, launched a seven figure food truck business that was featured on the food network's. Food Truck Wars was discovered as a model in her twenties and continues to model internationally. Till this day, she's built and continues to build a thriving community for Asian American female leaders called the Authentication. And she's doing all that while she's a devoted mom and wife. Now on paper, it might seem like Misa has had a seamless journey.

(00:02:00):

It seems like this might have come easy to her and naturally to her, right, but no, Misa has never really fit in. From the start. Growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood in San Diego, she often felt different and disconnected from her peers, her struggles with dyslexia and the rigid school system added to the challenges she faced. However, she found refuge in the unwavering support of her family, which fueled her into the world of entrepreneurship, and that led her to discover and pursue her different curiosities and interests. She ended up attending UCLA as an undergrad, and now she's finishing her alumni program at Harvard Business School, and she's doing all of that while she's continuing to build the authentic Asian. I had so much fun talking to Misa and learning from her. So super excited to bring you this interview with Misa Chin.

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Mary

Hi Misa. Thank you so much for being here.

Misa: (00:04:19):

Oh, so excited to be here.

Mary (00:04:21):

Yay. Well, I would love to just get started with the questions I have a lot to ask you. Can you share a bit about your upbringing and what cultural or societal expectations shaped your early life as an Asian American woman?

Misa (00:04:35):

Yeah, growing up, I am half Asian, so my mom is white and my father is Chinese, but I really grew up very close to my Chinese side. My grandfather would stay with us at weeks at a time. He was born in China and he really wanted to make sure we understood that part of our culture. And so I grew up going to dim sum, learning how to bargain, cooking amazing food with him. And so I have this huge attachment to my Chinese side and celebrating Lunar New Year and all of that. And so growing up I grew up in a very non-diverse environment. There's that term being the one and the only in the room, and people usually talk about that in the workplace, but I had that since the moment I was born. And so I always knew I looked slightly different and that my background was slightly different than most of the other kids at school, but I kind of didn't let that stop me. I think the hardest part about being a little Asian American girl growing up is that we had so few role models. I remember

Mary (00:05:48):

Where did you grow up? Do you mind me asking where

Misa (00:05:49):

You up In San Diego, but specifically in La Jolla. And so just growing up there, it was a beautiful place to grow up. I loved it, but I do wish there was more diversity, and that's part of the reason that I now live in Los Angeles with my family. A background in me is I have a Latino family, Latino Chinese family. So it's like you could not be more diverse in that way. And so I wanted my kids to be in a much more diverse place where they felt like they fit in a little more. That being said, growing up, even though there weren't many other role models I had in the media, I would look up a lot to women of color. I would've posters of Oprah, Halle Berry. I looked up to Richard Branson a lot because he was dyslexic like me. And so this coupling of being this little girl of color and I didn't even know I was a little girl of color, no one really talked about it. And then also being dyslexic just made me completely detest school. I just felt so uncomfortable at school and it was this really negative thing that I had. And I think it's also though shaped me in a positive way. It built a lot of empathy, all the bullying that I went through, feeling ugly feeling just so out of place. It's given me a lot of empathy and a lot of room to want to put kindness back out in the world and be more inclusive

Mary (00:07:22):

That want to be kindness and inclusive. Is that a factor in why, and we'll get to this later, everyone, is that a factor as to why a lot of your work right now is built around community and providing that kind of sense of community and resources and mentorship to people?

Misa (00:07:46):

So I think that also a lot of the way that I was brought up with my Chinese side, you're kind of taught to just, there's something called Tiara syndrome where you just put your head down and work and you'll get to the top. And I did definitely do that, but with repercussions where a lot of Asian American women, we put our head down and work and sometimes we even succeed in getting to the top, but at what cost?

Misa (00:08:11):

And so I stopped looking for mentors. I ran into a lot of women that kind of tore me down in my twenties. So I stopped seeking help. I stopped seeking support, but there was a cost to my mental health and there was a cost to my authenticity and me feeling like myself. And so that's why I'm so into building community now, whether it's personally, I'm pretty involved with my daughter's community and the mom's there all the way to building my own community with my current company. And so I'm tired of feeling alone and I want others to feel less alone and more connected.

Mary (00:08:50):

So as you were growing up and Oh, sorry about that, we'll cut that out. So as you were growing up and you were experiencing feeling alone, where were some of the safe places or safe havens that you would go to?

Misa (00:09:10):

Oh, that's a great question. No one's ever asked me that. A couple things. One, I had a great family life. I absolutely was very close. I had an amazing mom. I was very close to my Chinese grandfather and grandmother. They were just second parents to me, almost. My sister and I are still best friends to this day. We're only 18 months apart. So having that safe space at home to go to despite being bullied so badly at school, I mean, that was nice. That was really nice. I also had other outlets like church still. The kids there were very nice. I had choir, I had singing. So I recommend anyone who's raising a kid who is getting bullied, that they have other safe spaces outside of there. And it was a hard decision for me and my mom to make because I actually decided to stay at the school.

Misa (00:10:04):

I was bullied from sixth grade to 12th grade despite some of the girls being so mean to me just because of dyslexia. We knew I'd get into a good school with that attention at that private school. But I do wish that I had gone to a bigger school because ultimately I ended up going to UCLA, which was this huge school. No one knew who I was and then I felt like I could just breathe. No one knew who I was when I went to the cafeteria. It didn't matter who I sat with, it was hugely diverse. Suddenly I rediscovered almost that there were Asian Americans, women in the world when there were none around me. I remember in high school and the non-diverse high school I was in, there were maybe 15 colored students, students of color. And we started a club called the East Meets West Club, which was supposed to celebrate Asian culture, but technically it just ended up being the people of color club. So it's like this unspoken. And now me and one of my best friends from high school, he's an African-American friend. We talk about it and we're like, that technically was just almost the DEI club before DEI existed. We just all felt so out of place and it was like this unspoken connection. And that's I think what happens to people when they're in such a non-diverse community.

Mary (00:11:37):

That sounds very challenging, especially during a time when so much change is happening in your life in so many different parts of your life in that age. So I'm glad that you and your friends were able to create a community where you can find togetherness.

Misa (00:11:58):

Yes, definitely. And I think that just high school and middle school were so tough because of dyslexia as well.

For anyone out there who has a learning disability, when I had it, there was a lot less acceptance of it neurodiversity that the term neurodiversity didn't even exist.

So it was kind of this negative thing. Although luckily my mom was really great in supporting me,

So on the first day of when I got a tour of sixth grade, the upperclassmen was like, oh, this is the cafeteria. This is where we eat. This is the PE area. I was like, oh, what's that brick building over there in the corner? And she says, oh, that's where the stupid kids go. It's called a learning center. You don't have to worry about that. And so the next day I find out I'm going to learning center every single day after school. So going into school with that mentality and already looking so different than everyone and having that different background that coupled together is it's hard. And it's taken me many years to accept myself with my flaws and fully love myself despite those flaws as a leader. I mean, if I get a big email from someone on my team or a member and it's just an essay, I just say, Hey, can I just write back with a video? Can I just speak into a video for you instead or can we get in a quick call? So it's important to just accept yourself fully despite your flaws.

Mary (00:13:29):

That could be what well not could be, but it's what makes you unique and it allows you to find what you really shine at.

Misa (00:13:38):

Definitely.

Mary (00:13:41):

Was there a pivotal moment in your journey when you realized that you needed to break away from traditional paths that might have been placed on you in order for you to really pursue your unique vision? And the reason why this question comes up to me is you had a really diverse career, at least what I can see on the internet based on my research, you've been and continue to be a model. You owned a food truck business and now you run this community, the authentic Asian, and I'm sure you do other things too that I might not know about. So I did. You need to abandon certain beliefs or structures in order to do that.

Misa (00:14:26):

Yeah, so I think in this way I'm super extremely lucky. So my father, who's an entrepreneur always brought me up with the idea of following your passion,

Misa (00:14:40):

Follow what you love no matter what. And that's very unusual, and that's a big cultural difference that I think I have compared to other Asian American women whose parents are usually like, oh, be a doctor or a lawyer. And I feel so lucky that he didn't impose that on me. And as a result, I've had an extremely unconventional career path. I got discovered as a model pretty late for a model at 20 years old at 19 or 20 years old, and I was able to earn six figures a year with that and then funneled that into all my different entrepreneurship endeavors ever since, even until today, I mean just this last summer, I booked, I'm the face of ssu, a big Korean skincare brand. So I feel lucky that I've always had that on my side, and I don't think that without the support of my family and endorsing that, I don't know if I would be strong enough to take those chances.

Misa (00:15:39):

So I do feel very lucky in that. That being said, I had this career path that I could take in my early thirties. I've been earning my alumni status at Harvard Business School for a couple years now, and I had an opportunity to either go the MBA path or do the executive education earning my alumni status path. And to me, the alumni status path just felt right, but larger. There was a larger extension of my more traditional Chinese side of the family that was like, you have to earn an MBA, you have to get that degree. That's what you have to do. And I feel very lucky that my father was like, Hey, do what feels right. This is intuitively, and he's always been there like that. And having that full acceptance I think is one of the reasons that I've been more successful and been able to follow these. There's a Robert Frost poem that we have, gosh, because of my dyslexia, I can't remember the exact wording, but it's something like The Path Less Taken is the one that I'm so glad I took,

Misa (00:16:45):

And my father's always quoted that to me ever since I was as small as I can remember. And that's kind of how I've chosen to take my career path. And a lot of the time I felt lost. I felt, is this the right thing? This is so weird. I don't have any role models to look up to. Exactly. It feels so unconventional. I remember attending Harvard and telling one guy I'm in modeling, he's like, oh, fine. Oh, I thought you meant financial modeling. And other people at Harvard we're like, oh, who's taking care of the kids? Why are you here? You have a baby. So a lot of the time it's so easy to feel like the one and the only in the room is so alone, but in the end where I've gotten to today, I am like, wow, it all makes sense in hindsight.

Misa (00:17:33):

It does. It does. And so anyone who's lost in their career path, sometimes you just have to keep looking for that north star. And my spiritual coach calls it the follow the breadcrumbs. And I also have a very supportive partner as well. My husband who when I just gave birth, I was like, Hey, I want to go to Harvard Executive Education. He was like, sure, do it. So it's important to have a supportive family partner, and I can't do that without them.

Mary (00:18:06):

Thank you for answering that. A few things come up for me. It seems like the training that you got from feeling like an outsider as a child sort of just prepared you for your career because it wasn't like that was something new that you faced when you began modeling or when you went to Harvard, so you kind of already knew how that felt. And for me, that means that you also knew that that's not going to stop you. It's just another maybe turn or hurdle that you can get through.

Misa (00:18:41):

Oh my goodness. It's so interesting that you bring this up. You are such a good interviewer because I kind of am having an aha moment right now, and no one's ever connected those dots. Thank you. Wow. Gosh, I never thought about that. So right though, I mean, I have to say there were some shocking moments. So when I was 19 years old, I built a six figure jewelry business out of my dorm room and I got an entrepreneurship award to pitch to investors at eo entrepreneur organization. I mean, nothing. I knew it was going to be rough, but nothing could prepare me for that because of course across the United States, it was all white men who won the competition. And I'm the only person of color, only woman, only woman of color out of 20 recipients. And I don't believe, it's not like there's racism there just for some reason, the numbers are just not high enough. And that's my goal with building this community to get more women into entrepreneurship less than, I think it's 3% of companies that break a million dollars have a female CEO. So it's, it's not like the numbers just aren't there,

Misa (00:20:02):

And I'm so thankful that I got that into those finals, but it was brutal being there because

Misa (00:20:08):

It did bring me back not only to being the one in the only room when I was younger, but also just that I'm the only woman in the room and just not being taken seriously. Half the men didn't even want to talk to me despite me doing the same amount in sales as them. I remember sitting down on a bus to go on a field trip somewhere and the guy getting up and not wanting to sit next to me. And what's interesting is that the other men there who were so kind and respectful to me, they ended up being the most successful men. They ended up selling their companies for hundreds, millions of dollars 10 years later in Silicon Valley. I, so I think that does say something about people and how open they are

Mary (00:20:58):

And how you just treat people is so important. I'm happy that you got that.

Misa (00:21:04):

Yeah, it's a good experience because I consistently had more and more situations where I was in like that, and now it's just kind of like, oh, here I am again.

Mary (00:21:14):

Yeah, you're so prepared for it. You're kind of like, yeah, it gets challenging sometimes and I'm here for it. That's what came up for me. And I know that you and your husband have also worked together on a business or maybe a project

Misa (00:21:34):

Over 10 years together.

Mary (00:21:35):

Wow, okay. What was that experience like and what advice do you have for other couples who are working together or maybe even consider doing a project or a business together?

Misa (00:21:49):

I think it's a really good test to the marriage for sure. I don't recommend it for everyone. We were kind of forced into it because I had recruited a co-founder who was an extremely bad fit, and I ended up having to let him go. And so my husband was just supposed to be, Nico was just supposed to be temporary. And then he ended up just becoming permanent, unfortunately, because we realized we could work together and not break up. We weren't even married yet at that point. The thing is, since we had a really strong foundation as a relationship, we're almost complete opposites on a lot of things that work in a cohesive really well great way. And so he calms me, he brings me back to earth, and so we were able to make it work. I did sales marketing, raising money. He did the tech side. He's an amazing, amazing programmer engineer. So we were able to make it work. That being said, I mean, I think the thing that put a wrench in it that really made it even more challenging was once we had kids, I mean because kids, for anyone without even working together, one kid but two kids is really brutal. It's really tough. So that on top of working together can be a challenge. We ended up getting a couple's co-founder, partnership counselor for a while, and that really helped finding the right person.

Misa (00:23:22):

And then towards the end we did, and that really helped a lot. And now we actually don't see her anymore. She just is my personal therapist instead, just because once we aren't working together anymore, we still have conflicts. Of course every marriage has conflicts, but when you're working together, it's like a whole other set of conflicts. So I feel like we've gotten really, if you really want to put your marriage to the test, it's a good way to do it. We're so good at bringing up conflict, communicating, almost over communicating. I feel like we know each other so well. We spend more hours with each other than we would've otherwise. So I feel lucky to have gone through that with him. That being said, I think that we're good in terms of working together. I don't think we're going to work together again. We've done that, closed that chapter, and we've both gained more from it. As a result,

Mary (00:24:20):

Communication seems like it was a big factor in that.

Misa (00:24:24):

So important. You can't sweep stuff under the rug. You need to accept, there will always be conflict, and you need to be really great at solving conflict quickly within a day or two and know each other's strengths and try to play to that. And that applies exactly to parenthood as well. Both. I mean, I would say actually everyone's like, what's your biggest challenge? And I'm like, parenthood, working with parenthood. And I would say actually having a family, and I love raising a family with him, but having two kids with him was more challenging in some ways than building the startup with him.

Mary (00:25:03):

Yeah, you're dealing with two little three little humans as a family, especially if you have multiple kids.

Misa (00:25:09):

Yeah, we have two kids.

Mary (00:25:11):

Yes. How old are they?

Misa (00:25:14):

Three and six. Just the lack of sleep. Luckily they're sleeping through the night now, but the lack of sleep the first couple years was rough.

Mary (00:25:22):

It's rough. How do you balance everything right now? Kids, wife, working?

Misa (00:25:29):

Yeah, I do feel lucky because I was an entrepreneur for about 10 or 15 years before becoming a mom,

Misa (00:25:41):

And so I feel like I'm finally reaping the benefits now that I'm a mom. I figured out how to work smarter, but also build a really great team. I feel like I've improved a lot as a leader. I know how to delegate and communicate effectively with a team how to hire the right women. So I love working with women. Men aren't great at having me as a boss, so I actually love to hire moms. I have an amazing team of moms right now. All of them have passed an attention to detail and English tests with over 90% accuracy, which less than 1% of the population passes with that. So I have all these tests that I have them take, and then we really work well together as a team, and these women are just amazing. And so that's one of the reasons why my community runs so great, why we have such low churn, why my personal brand is put together just because we have all that in line. So I can't take credit that I think it's misleading in the US when we're such an individualistic society and we're like, I made my success. And it's like, no, I have a whole team of people working behind me, not only on the work side. I have four amazing women, but I also have a huge amount of help at home as well in my personal life. So I can't do all of this without them and without those people on my bus.

Misa (00:27:15):

But I also think you can't have everything at once. So I recently joined entrepreneur organization, they're accelerator, and there's this wheel and you have money, family, romance, what's that other one? Work. And I think friends and it's a wheel and you rate all of it and you want to make sure your wheel is whole. Well, I put money as negative. I'm trying to build my company a little more and I want to take a slightly higher salary. Well, if I focus on that more, then my family will suffer. It's just like you can't be perfect all the time. So if my baby was in and out of the hospital for a couple weeks in that time, everything else suffered. My friends, I didn't see them, I didn't sleep, I didn't work much. Even my daughter didn't see me that much. So you kind of got to accept that things can come up in life and your wheel, you can't always have it all the time. Things will come up and it's okay to be in balance sometime, just kind of look at the bigger picture and make sure you're trying to maintain somewhat of a balance. But I think sometimes we're so hard on ourselves and social media makes us think, oh, I can have it all, when it's like that's a lot of pressure on a woman to say, I can have it all.

Misa (00:28:43):

Yeah,

Mary (00:28:43):

It is.

Misa (00:28:43):

That's kind of how I see things.

Mary (00:28:45):

It is a lot of pressure, and I totally agree with you. You can have it all, but not all at the same time. I think Michelle Obama also said that because certain seasons of our lives are going to require more from our family or from our work, like you just said. And also going back to the point you made about you've been an entrepreneur for over a decade now that's experience and knowledge that has just been compounding for that many years that you're able to reap the benefits from. And for someone who's just now starting a business that's going to going to look a little different, that business is going to require more time from them, which might mean that they have to remove themselves from wherever it is their friends or their kids more than maybe they expected to or want to. So I think that's a really realistic thing that you're pointing out. Yeah, go ahead.

Misa (00:29:50):

Oh, I was just going to say, I completely agree, and I think that that question is something I'm asked on almost every panel or q and a or podcast, whatever it may be. Can you have it all? And I think that there's especially a pressure on women to have that. I don't know if it's that there's a lot of self-help gurus out there, what it may be, but I try to just focus on one or two parts of that wheel at a time. Right now, I really want to figure out how to scale up our community a little more, how to build it to be stronger and have that legacy. So I'm focused on that. And also sometimes, so my mother-in-Law, she's from Chile, and we have her here sometimes for weeks at a time. So when she's here, I don't have as much mom guilt. She can just be with the kids quite a bit. And so then I feel like, okay, now I can go all in and work a lot more. Yes, that's

Mary (00:30:49):

The power of community

Misa (00:30:51):

Exactly. Where

Mary (00:30:51):

You're not just depending on

Misa (00:30:53):

Yourself, a village. It takes a village, let me tell you.

Mary (00:30:56):

But I would love to talk a little bit about starting a business and then finding out that that business might need to be, don't know, how should I say this, that you might need to stop that business or maybe go a different route. And I'm talking about your food truck business, things that might not be going as planned. What did you learn from that experience and how did you view failure in that particular context? Because what I want to do is showcase how failure is actually a natural part of entrepreneurship.

Misa (00:31:46):

So I love talking about failure just because of course, it's a taboo topic, so it's so important to talk about it. I've started 10 businesses, three out of those have been somewhat successful. Most of the others I would consider pretty failure. It would be like I started that jewelry business on my dorm room and yeah, it got to six figures, but then the recession hit and I decided to close it. I've had a lot of things like that. I had an eBay business selling vintage clothing, so it's kind of side hustle businesses that would do well, but they would never be able to scale. I even started a Victory garden business during Covid with seeds. So I'd like to see, okay, can this thing get off the ground? Can this scale up? And I know within two to three months if it will work or not.

Misa (00:32:41):

With nom nom truck, I knew very quickly it was going to be successful, not maybe in terms of profit, but in terms of revenue and just being, well-known. So we hit the food truck business as it blew up. I was modeling at the time, I had a lot of savings and I wanted to spend it and invest it in a business. And two of my friends were starting Nom Nom Truck, and it was bringing Bombi to the west side of Los Angeles, and it was just this perfect storm of not only was it the tidal waves of Novo Food trucks, but it was also bringing Boni Vietnamese sandwiches to the masses. And so we had lines right away. I knew it would be a seven figure business. Within a year of launching, we got on a food truck race, which was a reality TV show with 60 million viewers on the Food Network that's still available today and still helping me in business day, even though I was miserable on that reality TV show.

Misa (00:33:46):

And so it was kind of like this overnight success that I didn't realize I had struck gold, but at the same time, we are losing money despite making seven figures. And it's so hard to be profitable as a food truck even more than restaurants, just to give some background in terms of numbers for a restaurant, 5% net profit profit margin is good for a food truck, it's even less. There's so much more that can go wrong unless you only focus on catering. And so it was just a lot. And about four years in, I had a business partner. She was like a sister to me. She was my best friend. And we just both got so burned out and it was almost like a divorce. There was this love turned to hatred, and it was really brutal. What happened after that, my mental health really suffered.

Misa (00:34:37):

I lost my identity overnight. I had to see a therapist because there was so much hatred there and so much devastation and my relationship with her, even before we broke up, it was the most negative ex-boyfriend relationship I could have. It was just a very unhealthy, emotionally abusive relationship. Not that I was an angel either. I definitely wasn't the nicest person either, but it's almost like we're dynamite together and really didn't mix well. So I think it's important when you're in a co-founder relationship to identify when it becomes an abusive negative relationship. And so losing my identity overnight, having trouble getting out of bed, it was so rough. And then luckily though, I had modeling to fall back on, so that was still the identity that I had. And it really wasn't until, this is where my husband was so sweet, he built a company overnight at a hackathon, which is where you build a company just within 24 hours. And he said, oh, I need someone to run this company. And so out of the ashes of the food truck, and I just was so devastated mentally, he founded this other company for me to run, and that's kind of what kept me busy. It was almost like the rebound ex-boyfriend in a way.

Misa (00:36:02):

I mean, it's funny, I almost refer to companies as boyfriends just found this rebound ex-boyfriend software B2B company that I could run, and I took it to the ground running and I was never as fully passionate about it. I have to say, as the food truck, it's almost like the food truck was my first love, and I was so in love with it, and it took me a lot of time to refine that love. And so when you have a failure that devastating, you just need to give yourself time and space. And sometimes what you need might just need to be a more stable business. And I was never as excited about the B2B software company. It's just getting acquired this next month, actually.

Mary (00:36:49):

Oh wow. Still around.

Misa (00:36:51):

Okay. Yeah, yeah, it's still around. I was never able to scale it as much as I would like just because, and we've been through so much, so much with that company.

Misa (00:37:02):

I've never been able to scale as much as I would like. I think just not as much love was there as with the food truck. And it was evident though, once I built the authentic Asian, which is the community for Asian American female leaders just this last year, and how much I love that I could not love that company more. It could not be more perfect for what I'm meant to do, to be brought on this earth even more than the food trucks. So it's like it took me, if you have a failed business right now and you feel like you've lost everything and you feel like you've lost your first love and it's died, it sometimes takes a whole decade to recover from that. And you need to give yourself space. And it's hard to strike gold again, for sure. But I call the communities insanely successful and I call it an overnight success two decades in the making because I've been an entrepreneur for two years and I've had failures nonstop for two years.

Commercial (00:37:57):

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Misa (00:38:55):

The aha moment was I attended the Harvard Business School's Women of Color and Leadership Program back in 2023, spring 2023,

Misa (00:39:04):

And I loved it. I suddenly, for the first time in my life, didn't feel like the one in the only in the room in a business setting. It's all women of color, so supportive. They're all vetted to be these amazing inspiring women of color leaders. And just learning though on top of that, the biases against Asian American women that were negatively perceived as quiet. So it's harder for us to speak up in the workplace and the boardroom that we are also perceived as a more obedient that we have this really difficult way. We can't be perceived as both kind and competent. We're either competent and cold or kind and stupid.

Misa (00:39:47):

All these biases, this is Harvard research, these are case studies. People have studied this in the workplace, so they exist in acknowledging those biases, not just racially, but also cultural biases that I've seen my friends have. I've been brought up with some of that. That's hard as well. Saving face, there's crab mentality. There's, luckily I wasn't brought up with the bias of having to be a doctor or lawyer and that pressure, but a lot of Asian American women have that. There's so many things, Tiara syndrome, so many things culturally. So we have both racial and cultural biases we're working against. And the numbers show that there's so few Asian American women in leadership positions. Less than 1% of VC backed companies have an Asian American female, CEO. Less than 1% of companies that break a million dollars have an Asian American female founder. I mean, all the numbers are there. And we're often grouped with Asian American men, unfortunately. And we're a totally different gender. We're often grouped with white women, and we're a totally different race. We need our own safe space. And so when I got home from the Women of Color and Leadership program at Harvard Business School, I thought, oh my goodness, I have to, I'm so depressed right now. I realized there's no other program like that and that I would never have that again. And I thought, this is impossible. I have to build something

Misa (00:41:14):

To have it again. So I ended up taking this really fabulous mastermind with Jerry Juan. Anyone who knows Jerry won. He's this famous speaker. I really recommend any of his collectives or any of his masterminds. He advised me and he said, Hey, why don't you just, you support Asian American women so much. Why don't you build a community around Asian American women? And I thought, oh my God, let me do it around Asian American female leaders. And it just a month later, I built it and we got a hundred women in less than a hundred days.

Mary (00:41:49):

Wow,

Misa (00:41:51):

That's amazing. One of the heads of Harvard Business publishing, one of the only Asian American female university deans in the country, one of the heads of WebEx, fabulous women, not only fabulous women in terms of title, but in terms of culture as well, just really inspiring women that gives you hope for women at the top.

Mary (00:42:15):

Yeah. So you started it. How did you spread the word to capture those first 100 women?

Misa (00:42:23):

I was super lucky, and I already was building my personal brand funnel to try to close sales for my software company at the time. But the problem is that that funnel was not the right fit for B2B software. And so all of my stories, all my personal brand was actually perfectly honed to build this community instead. So I just reframe my entire personal brand on LinkedIn and I utilized and leveraged LinkedIn to build the community from there. And everyone already knew me from the great food truck race, which helps, which I was surprised about because I really embarrassed myself on there. I mean, seriously embarrassed myself, but I guess a lot of women were fans of me from there. I'm actually doing a fireside chat shortly on that.

Mary (00:43:05):

Oh, fun. I mean, it showed your human side. People love

Misa (00:43:07):

That. It did, and it didn't like me look so horrible. Certain episodes were very embarrassing, but it made it very easy to close the first 100 founding members. We're now at 230 women. We're probably going to cap it at a little less than 400 to keep it intimate. The membership's really full, very few women choose to leave because it's one of the only safe spaces for Asian American women. It's very unique. And so that's happened with it, and I feel really lucky.

Mary (00:43:39):

That's amazing. So what are some of the, I guess, services or resources that you all provide for your Asian American leaders who are willing?

Misa (00:43:51):

So at first, we just started with virtual fireside chats, and I thought it would just be purely about work, but what I soon found is that really only 50% of who we are as work, the other 50% is personal. And so we expanded programming to be just as much about our personal lives and to help us become leaders in the workforce personally then about work. And also I decided very early on I'd let women in who are middle management or earlier stage entrepreneurs if they really want to invest in themselves. So we do have about 10% of the membership that aren't leaders, and I feel really great about that. I'm so happy about that. I just onboarded two women in middle management this week that were in tears about getting in, and it makes me feel so strongly about what we do.

Misa (00:44:46):

So yeah, so first we just started with fireside chats. Then we started support groups, like monthly meditation, racism in the workplace. Then we added workshops mostly put on by members, so biases against Asian American women and how to navigate it, building your personal brand as an Asian American woman. And then we expanded to coaching groups. So we have coaching groups for every different type of woman and their title. We expanded to coffee chats, one-on-one coffee chats. And then we have different spaces where we post in the community. And then lastly, we just started building out chapters. So I launched this summer, we launched San Francisco, orange County, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York and DC and we have chapter brand ambassadors in each one. And we're probably going to launch Seattle or San Diego soon. And so it's worked out really well. And I feel lucky to be surrounded by so many inspiring women, and it gives me hope because it's such a safe space in that these fabulous women exist.

Mary (00:45:51):

I love that you let in some middle management women and new entrepreneurs. I think it was Jay Shetty that I learned this from. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. He has a podcast and a book, and he used to be like a monk back in the day. And so now he basically uses his monk training and applies it to real life to help people evolve or grow or over overcome obstacles. And one of the things that he shared was that we have this need as humans to not only be the ones to receive help or to be mentored, but we also have this need to be the ones to mentor and to teach and to be of service to someone who may not be as experienced in us in whatever field that we're really experienced in. And so that reminded me of that because I am assuming that it's rewarding, obviously, for the women who are a part of the middle management group, but it's also rewarding for the women who are able to offer their expertise or their mentorship to that group of women.

Misa (00:47:17):

Yes, we love to find women at the top who want to basically send the elevator down and give back, and that's always so inspiring.

Mary (00:47:26):

I love that. In terms of the community, how does someone, in your opinion, someone who doesn't have the experience or the press that you've gotten or the network that you've gotten from Harvard, for someone who doesn't have that and they want to start a community on their own, do you have any advice for them?

Misa (00:48:01):

Oh, I do recommend not to do it. It's so hard, even with all the tools, all the personal brand, all of the experience behind me, it's so hard. So unless you really want to start as kind of a side hustle that you believe in, it's really, really challenging to, I still haven't paid myself a full salary. I'm going to most likely be able to do that this fall, even despite doing, we're doing six figures in sales, but to fuel the growth engine, to build and build so much value and enough revenue to support all the programming that we want, it's a lot. And so you shouldn't be building a community because you think it could be a lucrative business. You should build it because you believe in it, and it should be as niche as humanly possible.

Mary (00:49:00):

That's great advice,

Misa (00:49:02):

Really know your buyer persona, really know what their pain points are. And it's helpful if you're the buyer persona as well. I think that's why I have such a drive for us to exist. I will never let this community fail

Misa (00:49:16):

Because I need this so badly. I'm going to all of our happy hours in the next month, and I'm looking forward to it so much. And so if you're your own buyer persona, you can understand those pain points. You can understand why it because it exists. And definitely the first three months of the community where my biggest challenge, and it was so hard balancing being a mom and getting it up and running, getting that plane off the ground, whether it's a community or just any company in general, getting it to be revenue positive. If you choose not to take investment money is so, so hard. It's like you're building the plane and screwing in the bolts, and it's a janky plane and it's barely getting off the ground.

Mary (00:50:01):

Yeah, I know. You're building it while you're flying it

Misa (00:50:04):

Basically. Yes. And I just feel like we're finally getting out of that in October, probably when renewals kick in a little more. I mean,

Mary (00:50:14):

Congrats.

Misa (00:50:14):

Yeah. We have an amazing team, and I feel so lucky. We've done consistently booking 20,000 or more in sales every single month starting the first month we've been in business. That's amazing. And that's extremely, according to my community coach, that's almost unheard of. And so I'm telling you from experience from the most successful community I could have launched possible, and I'm still not paying myself a full salary. Don't start it unless you really care about what you're starting, and maybe it'll just be a side project. Most communities I know are that way, but for me, it's my iki guy. I'm very good at building communities. We're actually going to be launching the authentic African, I have a waiting list of African American female leaders next summer, and I'm going to be partnering with someone on that who's African American. Obviously I'm not going to be the face. I am a woman of color, but I can't be the face, but I can provide them the infrastructure to succeed. So I specialize in bringing people together and helping them feel less alone and more connected.

Mary (00:51:19):

I love that. It kind of reminds me of a franchise model. Here's the structure and you can kind of make it your own. Exactly. Congratulations. That's so exciting. This term, authentic, authentic Asian. And now you have authentic, did I say that?

Misa (00:51:40):

Yeah, the authentic African that's launching next summer, that's going to launch on Juneteenth in June.

Mary (00:51:45):

Okay. The authentic African, this word authentic, what does that mean to you, and why is that so important?

Misa (00:51:52):

It's something I discovered at Harvard and also just kind of losing my authenticity when raising money in Silicon Valley. So raising money in Silicon Valley, it was brutal. So brutal. I got often laughed out of the boardroom. It's really challenging for women of color to raise money in Silicon Valley and be taken seriously. And especially if you don't have the network. I didn't go to Stanford, and so unless you go to Stanford or an Ivy League, it's extremely challenging to raise money as well. And so I thought that not wearing makeup, wearing glasses, dressing more masculine would show them I was kind of the tiger Asian. I even got the comment from one investor, or are you going to pitch us the cute Asian or the tiger Asian? And I didn't realize that was even a bias against us at the time. Most Asian American women, I just kind of swept that under the rug and ignored that comment and just tried to build a stronger wall, but it hurts you after a while, all those microaggressions.

Misa (00:52:52):

And so I really lost myself in Silicon Valley, and I'm so glad that me and my husband, when I decided to be a mom, and I gave birth to my child, my baby daughter, that we moved back to LA because it's there that I found this really beautiful, safe community in Pasadena. My family's here, and I'm in an environment where I can just be myself and there's less judgment. And that's when I began to rediscover my authenticity. And that's when I started going to Harvard and that and taking time away from being a mom and just re-exploring who am I as a person? Who am I as a leader? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses that I can just fully embrace? And actually, Harvard Business School just wrote a program and attending it in December called The Authentic Leader,

Mary (00:53:48):

Which

Misa (00:53:49):

Is so crazy that they just launched that this last year. Right when I saw, I was like, this is how I'm completing my alumni status. So I am completing my alumni status this December with that final chapter, and it just feels so right. I can't even tell you it's going to fully go 360 or 180 or whatever it's called.

Mary (00:54:11):

It's full circle, whatever, full

Misa (00:54:13):

Circle. That's what it's because at first I did the personal leadership development course, which I really recommend to any leader, unbelievable. And it helps you fully understand your weaknesses, strengths as a leader who you are, do a full look in the mirror and accept

Mary (00:54:27):

Yourself. Oh, I'm going to do that.

Misa (00:54:29):

I really recommend that. And then I took something called, this was really crazy. I took a BEMs program, so it's business of entertainment, media and sports. So my classmates were Tiffany Haddish, a bunch of football stars, like World Cup stars, a lot of really famous soccer players, famous basketball players. I'm not that into sports, so I still don't know. Dirk Nakowsky was one of my, he's a very famous basketball retired player. So all these fabulous people in a room, I was the only talent that wasn't as well known because I'm a model transitioning into a business influencer brand. And so you learn among these stars how to build your personal brand and how to transition from entertainment into becoming a business influencer. And it was priceless.

Mary (00:55:18):

Wow.

Misa (00:55:19):

Yeah. That was amazing.

Mary (00:55:21):

That's amazing. I need to pick your brain more on that, on maybe I would love to just continue our connection and conversations, but that's where I'm finding myself in is because my experience lies in building brands, consumer brands, and now I'm finding myself with the desire to build my persona, my brand as a business leader, while also shedding light on the fact that I'm a mom and I have a family, I have a partner, and that's really

Misa (00:55:52):

Important to me. Well, I thought that you were way younger than me. I'm 38. I mean, we never know how old we're I never know Asians, no raisin.

Mary (00:56:02):

That's our superpower for sure.

Misa (00:56:05):

I thought you were 25.

Mary (00:56:06):

Oh my God, thank you.

Misa (00:56:08):

Wow. And you're a mom. My God.

Mary (00:56:11):

Yeah. I have a 9-year-old and then what? Yes, then I'm pregnant. What So big age gap right there. But we're super, and there's a part of me that's telling myself, you can do things differently now so much as someone who's been a mom before and you are touching on so many aspects that I felt like I was trapped in being an entrepreneur when I did it the first time. I felt like I had to speak a certain way, dress a certain way, even deal with people a certain way, because otherwise I feel like I'm not going to be taken seriously. So I love what you're doing and I love how you're also sharing it with other women outside of Asian women because there's so many other groups that feel like they have to succumb to an identity when they don't. But I know how hard it is, which is why we do that. And the more diversity we have in different realms and different worlds, and I think that's what you're working on, then we're going to find ourselves having to do that less and less. Yeah.

Misa (00:57:28):

Yeah, definitely. I think that most of my content and my story does resonate with Asian American women, but I have other people who reach out to me all the time as well, who aren't from that background. And so I just love to help everyone personally.

Mary (00:57:43):

That's

Misa (00:57:43):

Why I've been brought on this earth to do.

Mary (00:57:45):

I love that. So how can someone learn about the authentic Asian, let's say they want to join, how do they learn more about it? How do they apply? What's the process like?

Misa (00:57:57):

You just go to the authentication.com and you can go slash apply or you can just click the apply button. We let in only 25 women a month, and so I just recommend to fill out the application. Right now it's 1799 annually to join in January. It's going to be 2,500 for the year, and eventually we're going to close it out in May where it's going to be almost impossible to join unless you know a member and you're referred highly by a member, just because we really want to keep it intimate and we want to just let in women who have the right mindset.

Mary (00:58:34):

Yes. And what is that mindset to you

Misa (00:58:37):

Really wanting to invest in yourself, wanting to uplift and support others and give back to others wanting to, instead of scarcity mindset, narcissism, wanting to uplift one another, and really just have that safe space and build that safe space together.

Mary (00:58:58):

Love that. So join this year if you want to get in on the 2024 rate. Amazing. Misa, it was so great speaking with you. Is there anything that you want to leave us with that you may not have had the chance to talk about yet?

Misa (00:59:18):

No, I think just if you would like to follow my story more, you can find me on LinkedIn and follow me Misa Chen or Misa Chen on Instagram as well.

Mary (00:59:30):

I'll make sure to put all of Misa's information in the show notes as well as info on the authentic Asian so you all can access that after this episode. Thank you all so much for watching listening. Misa, thank you again, and I will see you next time on Tradition Breakers. Thank you!

Closing (00:59:50):

If you like this episode, consider subscribing and leaving a rating and review. Tradition Breakers is produced by Tasty Directives and the music is provided by DJ Professor Moses.