Meet Alex Nahai | Entrepreneur – Attorney – Producer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alex Nahai and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alex, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I pride myself on being a person who isn’t afraid to take risks.

So far, the accomplishments I have been most proud of have been the ones that involved a risk. And as I look toward the things I want to achieve from here, I can tell that those are going to involve risks as well.

Now, unfortunately, being a risk-taker can have a downside also. Not every venture is going to pan out, and learning how to make LESS mistakes can be a painful process. At some point, every entrepreneur learns this the hard way.

But I’m lucky enough to say I’ve succeeded more times than I’ve failed, and that is because everyday I tell myself two things:
1. Nobody ever won the lottery without buying a ticket; and
2. You only need to get up once more than the number of times you fall down.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

If I had to choose one aspect of my career that I am most proud of, I would say it has been the ability to adapt to new and changing circumstances. Millennials have not had an easy time. Many of us entered the work force right around the time of the 2008 recession. As soon as the Millennial generation got back on its feet from that, COVID-19 happened, which forced the closure of 1 out of 5 small businesses.

I started my career in the music business at a time of major upheaval: the birth of the file sharing era, the mp3, and streaming. The concept of music as a per-unit buyable commodity got all but eviscerated. And some could potentially argue that the live music business was hit harder by COVID than any other business – it experienced a complete and total shutdown.

People often ask me how, despite all of these hurdles, I have been able to get to where I am today.

The answer is that I have trained myself to be flexible and to keep an open mind. Although that sounds simplistic, the truth is that we live in a world that trains us to put each person in a very small box according to that person’s specific job title. This paradigm makes people feel like they can only ever be good at one thing – and that is just not true.

Today I run a live entertainment business, a consulting company, a law practice, and a tech company. Most importantly, I get to work on only the projects that excite me.

When COVID began, it was scary at first because the live music industry ground to a total halt. So I needed to determine how to create opportunities out of a very difficult time. However, little by little, I adapted:

I started by speaking to contacts of mine overseas, and learned that Trump had sold our PPE to China. Knowing that there was a shortage of PPE in the United States, I started a company at the start of the pandemic to bring in PPE and get it to people in need.

I simultaneously focused my attention more on the television and tech sides of my business, as I appreciated that people would be stuck and home and wanting content. Eventually, things worked out.

The last thing I’ll say is that life generally brings challenges, outside of the professional sphere. In this last year, I lost my uncle (Kamran Nahai), my close friend (Matt Rapore), my former assistant (Jade DeSanto), and my grandfather (Frank Barko). Although, these were devastating losses, having a career that I am passionate about and spending time with my family got me through them.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?

This is a great question. I would say my social life revolves 99% around food, so I would make sure to take my friend to my favorite restaurants: Madeo for Italian, Shunji for Japanese, Escuela Taqueria for Mexican, Mizlala for Mediterranean, and Chateau Marmont.

There is also a Persian ice cream place that I love called Saffron and Rose. They have all kinds of interesting flavors like blue yam, pistachio, lavender, and, of course, saffron.

I also really enjoy going to look at art, and I find LACMA and the Getty to be really nice places to spend time.

It would be nice to be able to return to concerts as well – thankfully that’s not too far off.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

I know this is a major cliche, but I have to say my family deserve pretty much all the credit. I have a very tight knit family and I am the son of two immigrants who came to America in the middle of a revolution.

Two generations before me, my grandfather grew up in the Jewish ghettos of Iran and found a way to rise to the highest reaches of society. These stories have instilled in all my family members a strong sense of resilience and purpose. Anytime one of us doubts himself or herself, a voice of encouragement is not far away.

I cannot express how helpful and valuable that is.

Instagram: @alexnahai

Linkedin: Alex Nahai