Innovative Pathways to Work-Life Balance and Success, with Lorene Cowan

Ever wondered how a career in television and real estate can lead to entrepreneurial innovation? Join us as we sit down with Lorene Cowan, a dynamic entrepreneur whose fascinating journey from the PR department at Lifetime Television to creating the Experts Tribe will inspire anyone looking to pivot their career. Cowan takes us through her early days at MTV, the allure of New York City's real estate market, and how the COVID-19 pandemic became a catalyst for her innovative platform that offers over 200 business opportunities. 

Cowan also shares insights into her latest venture—a unique dating app for entrepreneurs that blurs the lines between personal and professional connections. This episode unpacks the complexities of balancing business, relationships, and self-care, and why maintaining a healthy work-life balance is crucial for success. We delve into the synergy of love and entrepreneurship, exploring how a supportive community can foster both personal growth and business innovation. Whether you're an entrepreneur looking to expand your network or someone curious about the intersection of business and personal life, this conversation promises to leave you with valuable takeaways.

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Chapters

• 0:02 Entrepreneurship and Building Your Tribe
• 12:34 Entrepreneurial Inspiration and Innovations
• 19:31 Balancing Business, Relationships, and Self-Care

Transcript

Erin Manning: 0:02

Welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pageau.

Gary Pageau: 0:09

Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau, and today we're joined by Lorene Cowan who is with the Experts Tribe, and she's a Brooklyn girl.

Lorene Cowan: 0:32

Go Brooklyn, lorene. How are you today? I am doing fantastic and with that warm welcome, I'm feeling even better today. So thank you.

Gary Pageau: 0:40

So, Lorene, before we get into the business side of what you do, take us on your journey. That started really in communications, PR, and broadcast.

Lorene Cowan: 0:50

I think that's just fascinating. So I started off. I actually worked in MTV and Lifetime Television. So I worked in Lifetime Television in the PR department. I worked in MTV in the sales department, so I had my fair share of the TV life. I love Lifetime because, you know, during the, you know dating myself, but it was like when they had all the new Lifetime movie, the horror, the thrillers, all that good stuff. I know I started during that timeframe and it was so amazing being a place to promote those awesome films. It just brought me so much delight during that time in my life. This is right after college. I'm working in both fields for a while and, yeah, it helped me give me the start that I needed to now be in a position to be interviewed by amazing people like yourself.

Gary Pageau: 1:41

So you must have been the person who was able to get the concept of the Lifetime movie embedded in the consciousness of America. You were responsible for that.

Lorene Cowan: 1:53

One of the people, I mean one of you. I was probably a little peon at the time, it was right after school. I'm soaking in everything. It's all these amazing people that have been in the industry the television industry for decades, on, decades, on decades, and I'm sitting with these people in meetings and getting to understand how this whole moving vehicle works. It was such an amazing time for me, such an amazing time. I was so in awe, you know, especially when we had these moments where all the celebrities would come out, all the lifetime celebrities. And you know, I was just like man, I like love, you guys Like. This is amazing, amazing, and so it was such a great start to my career path.

Gary Pageau: 2:28

I would say and then from there, where did you go? Did you just decide tv wasn't for you? Or because I think that what happens if they go into college for a career and then they get that first job out of college, it kind of isn't what they thought. They either wanted to do or they realized they couldn't do it forever. So what was that? What happened?

Lorene Cowan: 2:49

I enjoyed my experience in that television space. But at that point there was something else that was kind of pulling at me a little bit and that was real estate, and especially in a city like New York. I mean New York, wherever you turn it's all about real estate. It's all about the sale, the marketing, the exposure, the buildings, the architect. And so at that point I decided that I wanted to get into the real estate field and so I worked I still worked in television for a while and I got my license and I started working under a major broker in Manhattan, and the rest is history. When I started, you know, I started that that career path, yeah.

Gary Pageau: 3:28

So you're still doing that, you're still doing real estate.

Lorene Cowan: 3:31

So now I'm completely so pretty much after COVID happened, that was the changing point in me, as, as it pertains to entrepreneurship, I've always had small entrepreneurial projects throughout the years when COVID happened.

Lorene Cowan: 3:46

What happened? We all got laid off. We were all told we're on furlough. People's lives were turned upside down in various fields, not just real estate, and so I spoke to people that I had known and respected throughout various industries and I said, man, people are looking for opportunities. Even if you had a job at the time, you were afraid that you might lose it Right Cause you didn't know what was going to happen on a day-to-day basis, like companies were folding, companies were downsizing, and so at that point I reached out to my community, my peers, and said hey, I want to put together this thing where we sort of train people or give people an opportunity to find business opportunities that they can work on while being at home, and so that's how I started the Experts Tribe.

Lorene Cowan: 4:32

Since then, we have over 200 different types of business opportunities from being someone that you know holds onto DNA information and gives you know, like starting a DNA business, starting a bicycle business, a photography business, I mean it runs the gamut of classes and courses that people can find on the platform to help them, help other people, grow their businesses. So that's essentially what happened. It was, it came from a necessity and it came from me wanting to figure out like, hey, what the heck do I want to do next? Well, certainly, being in real estate in New York. There is an element, even if you work for a company, there is an element of entrepreneurship with that. But I mean, you never thought it was going to go away. Like the last thing you thought about was this can all be gone, and so creating something that allowed people to work from home was amazing for me.

Gary Pageau: 5:25

I think you've hit on something very important kind of about yourself and your personality, because to be successful in real estate you've got to be a self-starter, you've got to be a networker, you've got to be a detail person, and it sounds to me like you were able to kind of take those skills into the experts tribe as sort of the foundation. Absolutely, it's really about that.

Lorene Cowan: 5:46

Absolutely. And you know, I think for a lot of people they don't realize. We all have these ideas and concepts in our heads for whatever business model we want to create and we think it's a great idea, and then you have to then test it in the marketplace and see is this a viable product? Do people actually want this?

Lorene Cowan: 6:04

It just so happened to be in a season where people were looking for opportunities, right, so it just became this nice little hub and from there I started all things office space, a platform for people to buy all these cool office gadgets, especially New Yorkers in mind, because we have such smaller spaces in New York, right, so you can't have the huge desk like other places, you can't have the big this or that, and so creating and finding pieces and products and services that entrepreneurs can use in their home while they were stuck at home right.

Lorene Cowan: 6:37

And so that's pretty much how I started, just really opening up my entrepreneurial mindset, and I think, just like you, you have created a niche center, right, with your business model, and you focus on a specific group of entrepreneurs, and I think for me, that was the same concept. I think people need to figure out who they want to serve and how they want to best serve them in a way that is impactful to your specific group right, your tribe. And so this is your tribe. I have my tribe, even though we're under the same umbrella of entrepreneurship, where our tribes are different, but it's so important that we impact that group the best way we can. I think Dead Pixel Society is a great example of that.

Gary Pageau: 7:26

I think one of the things that may have unconsciously benefited you in your career is you really are treating your customers or clients, or however you want to put them as an audience, almost like the Lifetime audience or the MTV audience. Right, you know who your audience is and you want to market to them. Have you thought about that connection?

Lorene Cowan: 7:49

You know what I love the way you just said and I might have to use that later on but I love the way you just said that because I think people don't realize who they truly want to serve. Right, because when you want to serve someone, you want to be that showman, you want to put on the best products, whatever we're talking business wise, but product services. If you have a TV show, you want to give them the best content for that particular audience and they keep coming back. You know, and our goal as entrepreneurs is to have people know, love and trust us. That is TV. You want people. You want that is TV. You want people. You want a network wants people to know, love and trust them to keep believing in the new, fresh content they're going to come out with on a weekly, daily, monthly, yearly basis.

Lorene Cowan: 8:32

And so I think it does apply to my life, it does apply to how I view business, subconsciously and didn't even I didn't even realize it until you just said that People say to me all the time you're so charismatic. But you know, I think it comes back to the fact that I am that show person. Like I want to bring forth the best out of what I'm saying, what I'm doing and help people in some shape or form, and that's the beauty about working within your tribe. Same thing for you. It's the beauty of working with people that understand your language and get you right. They now want more and more of what you have to offer.

Gary Pageau: 9:09

So tell me a little bit more about the experts tribe, because I'm not sure I really is. It's an online platform, but there's some education related to it too, Right?

Lorene Cowan: 9:17

So that's essentially what it is. It's an educational platform where I want to help people start a business. Right? So I'm coming with my perspective, whatever I want to teach. But I thought to myself everyone doesn't know what they want to do, right, you might be a blue collar or white collar worker. What am I going to do? I'm in this space. It's COVID. Where do I go? How do I do? How do I navigate? I might get a call from my boss tomorrow. This whole thing might just blow up in implode.

Lorene Cowan: 9:49

And so what we did was we created a platform with over 200 classes, courses from experts in various business models. So there's over 200 business models on our platform that you can go to to find out what's best suits you and your personal needs. So, again, it doesn't. It runs the gamut from again, from opening up a pizza shop, ice cream shop, from opening up a, like I said, a DNA business to you know, an affiliate program it's all different types of business models. That works with your personal finances. Right, your finances might not be there for a $10,000 startup, but maybe for maybe a hundred or 200 bucks. I need to find something that I can work with to help me at least start a side business, and so that's what we provide. We provide information for you to be able to work with experts from all over not only the country, but all over the world in different areas of business.

Gary Pageau: 10:44

So it seems to me like it's almost like a matchmaking service, if I can use that sort of idea.

Lorene Cowan: 10:59

Absolutely, absolutely. It's matching you with the best opportunity that works with your finances, with your lifestyle, and finding something that helps you become the best version of yourself and give help you give back to mankind in some shape or form and hopefully monetize had some people, I'm sure, go through it and they've probably had some failures, probably had some successes, and you've had people come through.

Gary Pageau: 11:28

Did you ever get anyone say you know, I had no idea that I could do this because I didn't think there was. I'm the person for that.

Lorene Cowan: 11:36

Oh well, oftentimes a lot of people, a lot of people, said they weren't in a situation of COVID.

Lorene Cowan: 11:40

They would never even have stretched those muscles right, that entrepreneurship muscle, and it's like you know, sometimes it's based out of a necessity.

Lorene Cowan: 11:47

You ended up in this situation and you rolled up your sleeves and you're like I have no choice but to make this work and you figured it out. Or I think one of the coolest things is when people start off with one business opportunity. They're doing well, they're doing steady, they're bringing a couple of dollars, you know some money in. Then they find something else that they like as well on the platform, and that's cool to me, and I think for me, the biggest way to show that you thought something was worth your time is to share it with someone else, right, and tell your friends about it. So whenever someone's like oh, such and such told me about your platform, it makes me feel good inside because I know that we're doing something and we're helping someone. It may not be everyone, but we are targeting the people that we want to serve, and and the people that I want to serve are people that are looking for business opportunities. They're looking to start something. They're not sure. They're just trying to figure it out, like the rest of us.

Gary Pageau: 12:34

Well, you seem like a person who's got a lot of energy and want to share. You know your enthusiasm, your inspiration. Who inspired you? Who was your inspiration?

Lorene Cowan: 12:47

inspiration. Who inspired you? Who was your inspiration? I'm going to say my parents. You know, my parents worked so hard. They came to this country and I was born here, and they my mom became a nurse. My dad worked at a factory and they just did what they needed to do to make sure that my siblings and I became all that we can be. And I say that to say that I remember being a little girl and my school catching me selling stuff.

Lorene Cowan: 13:14

I was a little girl selling stuff at school and they told my parents and I say this story all the time they told my parents and my parents sat there and they heard the principal talk about like she's not. We love her, but she's not supposed to be selling the students. My parents were like, yeah, you know you're right. But when we got into that car they high-fived me and they supported me. They're like man, that was awesome, so proud of you.

Lorene Cowan: 13:35

And I just remember every step of my journey until my mom passed away, like there was a level of support, there was a level of care, there was a level of you can do it, no matter what. Try you fail, you don't fail. You succeed, you don't succeed. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And I think for me that's the greatest lesson that any person can learn. Is that, hey, in front of you it looks like there's no way to go left right. It doesn't look like you can go up or down, but just crawl. If you can only just crawl, just crawl your way through to your next thing, Just forward momentum.

Lorene Cowan: 14:06

We always want to sprint, like you know. Oh my God, I thought I'd be in this place by this point. It doesn't work like that. It's all life.

Gary Pageau: 14:16

You know it's going to be ebbs and flows. Got to keep it going. You know, I think I don't know when it's going to happen, but at some point someone's going to go back and do a cultural review and a business case review of what happened during COVID, of how it did exactly what you said. Some people reassessed their lives completely, some people went into the fetal position, some people did other things, and I don't know who's going to do that or what the results are going to be. But I think it's a fascinating thing Because, like, for example, in one of the industries I cover, the volume photography industry, which is the people who take school pictures, right, they go into schools, take the pictures, right, okay, and that was a very old school manual.

Gary Pageau: 14:55

You'd take in the envelope and they'd put in a check and it was a very old school kind of process, right. Well, cove had put that on pause and what happened was is because of social distancing and things, many, almost everyone in that industry now has adopted digital transactions, you know, where they have apps where the students can order their pictures right on the phone and there's no more envelopes and all these other. So it's transformed that industry and no one really wants to say, you know, hey, we had a great pandemic because of this.

Gary Pageau: 15:25

But it has been a positive outcome because a lot of them were able to jump into completely new businesses because of that pause, of taking a chance and taking time to reflect on the business.

Lorene Cowan: 15:38

Absolutely, and I think so many businesses had to pivot but when they did it actually helped their bottom line to a certain extent. Right, so many people cut costs on their operational costs right, their real estate right, which again affected my area of business.

Lorene Cowan: 15:53

Yeah, I was going to say your area of business took a big hit probably we don't need a real estate, we don't need to come into the office anymore. Right, we can actually be productive at home. It's taught so many people so many awesome lessons. But I think the one thing that I like about it most people that I thought that in the past would have never even put their thought process to saying, hey, I want to be an entrepreneur. They're now saying, hey, from now on, I will always have something on the side, I will always try to create and build. Because you just never. There's no way we'd have known what you know, that it would have dragged on for so long. We had no idea. Oh, exactly.

Lorene Cowan: 16:27

Exactly right. You said something really important. Like some people went into the fetal position, Some people thrived, I did all the positions right, Like. I did everything, Like right. I was laid out, I was up, I was down. But you know the losing from winning. It's just keeping forward momentum, like you mentioned earlier.

Gary Pageau: 16:51

So have you thought about, like, going back into any of the things you've come from? Have you thought about going back into real estate or back into TV, or is it always going forward, going forward, going forward?

Lorene Cowan: 17:05

So one of the things that I have created, I'm not going back to real estate, not in that capacity. Now my partner and I might buy real estate and do things together as a unit for our home, but not necessarily where I'm working with clients and customers in that regard. Let's go to the question that you just asked me. I created a platform. It's a dating app for entrepreneurs.

Gary Pageau: 17:21

Okay, but the app is out now. Right, it is out.

Lorene Cowan: 17:25

So right now, we're actually in the waiting list stage of the app. It's called Wee, it's Yolk, it's a dating app for entrepreneurs and it, you know, for me I've always been attracted to the entrepreneurial spirit and it wasn't necessarily about the tax bracket Is this person making millions, hundreds of thousands of dollars? I just love the fact that I can connect with another human being and they get me. When I was up late at night coming up with ideas and concepts, instead of saying, oh my God, this is crazy, this is nuts. It's someone that's rubbing your back and saying I support you, I get it. Here's your coffee, here's your. Whatever. I'm here, I'm doing this with you, and so having the ability to connect with people that's on the same wave and the same village and the same planet as you feels good, because oftentimes entrepreneurship is a lonely journey.

Gary Pageau: 18:11

It's very lonely, very much so can be.

Lorene Cowan: 18:14

It can be very lonely if you don't have a huge team or you know a lot of people surrounding you. You're in your home, by yourself, coming up with ideas and concepts that you think are great. You think your ideas are perfect. You know there's nothing that can beat that idea. And now you have someone you can bounce off of and you can talk things through.

Lorene Cowan: 18:32

And the goal with Yolk is to not just, not only just create this relationship, but hopefully we creating, we're allowing two people to come together and create awesome businesses together right Through their partnerships and growing and making mankind a better place. Right, just because now it's two heads versus one, right, and you have that support and you have that drive, and because I, you know, when I was on the dating apps in the past I was so, you know, as all I was drawn to was entrepreneurs I was like man, there's not here. I want to create this and to see how far we've come now in the process of building and creating this app. It just feels so good inside right now and so, so it's so interesting that you asked that question. I would have never thought someone would ask me that, but yeah, that's where, that's where we're headed.

Gary Pageau: 19:16

Tell me a little bit about yeah, I'm just curious because you know I'm not so much interested in the dating piece of it yeah, absolutely Bringing people together in terms of like business interests, right, which may lead to a romance or relationship or a partnership or whatever.

Gary Pageau: 19:31

Absolutely so what are the attributes you're looking at in the app to assess those? Because there's all kinds of things you can do, right. You could do. You know risk assessment. How risky are you? Are you a risk taker, are you more reserved? Or you know your feelings about how you should spend money versus debt, versus equity. I mean, there's all kinds of things you could do. So what are some of the things in the app?

Lorene Cowan: 19:57

So keeping it out because, especially right now, we're just focused on our MVP. So our most you know like we just want to build a product to get the, to make you know again, we've done our feedback. We realize that people are interested in it, but to what extent, right? So instead of one bio, there's two bios. There's a bio that focuses, concentrates on who you are as a person, and there's an entrepreneurial bio that allows you to tap in and throw out your business idea, your concepts where you want to go. Are you looking for to connect with someone on a romantic level, solely romantic level, plus possible partnership, so you're able to plug in all these different interesting, cool things into our platform, which makes it fun and makes it creative.

Lorene Cowan: 20:39

But one of the coolest parts about the app is we kept everything so business. It's about business that if someone you refer your friend to our app, you will be paid out in perpetuity of that person's membership, which you don't really see oftentimes in other platforms. You know, one of my things, one of my saying, is you don't have to go public as a business to make money with us, right, like we're. You know we're right now we're private, but we want to get to the place where we are encouraging entrepreneurship from every front, and it still goes back to the experts tribe. Right, I'm still working within my village, I'm still working with my people. Right, and we're just expanding the arm to relationships and dating.

Gary Pageau: 21:21

That's you know it's really kind of cool because you know, in our industry, the photo industry I mean, there's several niches within that and there's definitely like clubs within that and you see relationships forming and all those kinds of so I definitely see that sort of thing and bringing people together digitally, I think is kind of cool for that.

Lorene Cowan: 21:38

Absolutely yeah, and there's no space for that. But again, it's not, it's about the romantic component, but it's really about the synergy, it's really about Except LinkedIn is getting weird.

Gary Pageau: 21:51

I keep hearing people like they're trying the you know direct message dating thing on LinkedIn, which I think is weird right. Have you heard about that.

Lorene Cowan: 22:01

Interestingly enough, no, no, no, absolutely so. One of our. We did some press stuff over the last few months and LinkedIn was a big part of that right and the reason why LinkedIn has had a strong stance on no fraternizing, no dating. They don't want that their platform to be known as the platform for dating, and you know they've received so many complaints from from women. You know I'm sure women and men have said, hey, I've been propositioned and this is not what I come here for.

Lorene Cowan: 22:30

So they have tried to draw the line in the stand and say, hey, this is not the platform for those types of interactions. Hence why we say like hey, you know, LinkedIn may not want you in that regards, but come to us, Right, Because this is the place that you can do both at one time. Linkedin is not the place for that. They're like hey, we're a strictly professional site network. You don't want someone to be like I'm afraid to open up my LinkedIn box because I'm being propositioned, Right.

Gary Pageau: 22:55

Well, I'm not getting those DMs, but I know that there are people who get them. That's why I asked.

Lorene Cowan: 23:01

It's happening. It's happening. But yeah, linkedin has put down a strong stance against dating. You know that capacity on their in the.

Gary Pageau: 23:08

There was your work life and there was your personal life, and the two never interacted, that when entrepreneurship got to be a thing, it kind of became so intertwined that kind of both could suffer right in a lot of ways, right. What is your perception on that? Because you are kind of mixing them a little bit with your app.

Lorene Cowan: 23:40

And I'm so glad you're asking this question. I'm going to tell you the big I think that's the biggest detriment to all relationships, whether in the entrepreneurial space or just in the other dating apps. Most people when they're dating, or they're on these apps, they're like I'm here to have a good time, We'll see where it goes. And there's another group that's super serious about it and they're focused on actually finding a partner, right. Right, the biggest issue we can kind of focus on entrepreneurs. The biggest issues with entrepreneurs is creating, like you mentioned, a work-life balance.

Lorene Cowan: 24:13

A part of us creating Yolk was we wanted to also provide experts. You know I love an expert. We wanted to provide experts in the relationship world and marriages that do marriage counseling, relationship counseling that can help people navigate these difficult points. So not only will you be receiving information about, yes, dating, but you'll also be getting information if you need to work on yourself. Maybe you need an actual therapist, Maybe you need a relationship counselor or a marriage counselor or someone that's going to help you, guide you into a space where you're now ready for a healthy relationship. I can be quite honest with you At one point I was not ready for a healthy relationship. I was so focused on building wealth, creating something bigger than myself, that I was by myself.

Gary Pageau: 25:02

Right.

Lorene Cowan: 25:02

Right, I was making no time for my family, my friends. I wasn't making time for partnership. Now I have an amazing partner. I feel way more centered. I'm spending more time with my friends and family. He actually encourages it like.

Lorene Cowan: 25:16

Hey go out with the girls and do this and do that, and so I've now created this wonderful work life balance that's been so helpful for me to even come up with more creative ideas. I used to feel so guilty going out even to just visit my family. I feel so guilty Like I got so much stuff to do. I can't go, I don't have the time to go. It's not healthy. Like I don't care how much money you make.

Lorene Cowan: 25:38

If you're not making money, it doesn't matter. Like it's not the way to live your life and it's not the way to have, you know, successful relationships or a successful business. Right, and you're not going to have 100% of everything all the time, but balance is what life is. You're meant to create the balance of being with people that you care about and that care about you, and so we didn't just want to leave it. So, when you talk about what's what differentiates us from other people, that's a part of it Us marketing experts and connecting you with people to help to actually help you through the journey. If you're a guy that's confused as to why it's not working every time you're going on a date, it's absolute disaster, as to why it's not working.

Lorene Cowan: 26:20

every time you're going on a date, it's absolute disaster. There's someone to talk to. You are a woman that's talking about your ex excessively on the first date, but you're wondering, like I, have no clue, why he doesn't like me. We want people to help guide you through that path so you're not left alone. You're not left alone to swipe right and swipe left. If you want the extra guidance, it's going to be there.

Gary Pageau: 26:39

We're going to send that to you. Okay, that's very cool. So where can people go for more information about Experts, tribe, lifetime Channel, lorene Cohen, all these things? You've got so many balls in the air. I got nothing.

Lorene Cowan: 26:52

I know, but I still have balance. And again, I still have balance. I have a happy partnership. I have a happy relationship with my guy and I have a happy partnership. I have a happy relationship with my guy and I have an awesome family and friendship group. So, yes, if you would like to find me, you can go to theexpertstribecom to find about all things. The Expert's Tribe If you are looking for office furniture and gadgets and all things for your office space all things, yes, allthingsofficespacecom.

Lorene Cowan: 27:20

And if you are looking for love in the entrepreneurial space, to find someone that you can build and grow with, you can go to wemetonyokesystemio.

Gary Pageau: 27:29

Nice, awesome, great Lorraine, great to see you. Best wishes and hope to connect with you soon.

Lorene Cowan: 27:36

Thank you so much. It was great meeting with you as well.

Erin Manning: 27:40

Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel Society podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.