The Backstage: A Venturer’s Delusions, Discoveries, and Development

Live entertainment and technology ventures. What do these two have in common? Aivars Mirzo Lipenitis (or IVR) has been in both. Sold-out shows. A-list tours. Backstage with artist managers and agents. Then Silicon Valley and its billion-dollar promises. Along with the sleepless nights, the near-obsession, the emergency rooms, and the moments when everything felt hopeless. His love of live entertainment, combined with personal struggles and a turbulent private life, nearly destroyed him. But we only live once. The only option is to get up and keep going. From ego to leadership. From destructive relationships to family. From financial chaos and constant distress to prosperity. IVR is still on his way. In his first international release, IVR hasn't written another self-help book or traditional memoir. Instead, he uses his climbs and falls to illuminate what research from top universities—and the hard-won experiences of other entrepreneurs—have been trying to tell us. He pulls back the curtain on the unknown challenges, possibilities, and raw excitement of entrepreneurship and other ventures in our lives. The Backstage is a surprisingly candid book. The author shares his mistakes and lessons alongside those of fellow entrepreneurs, grounded in academic research. Half Northeastern European, half Central Asian, born in the Soviet era—IVR's story takes readers to places and experiences that aren't always familiar. Sometimes even shocking. Yet having spent years doing business in the West, he knows how to tell a story that speaks your language.