Aivars M. Lipenitis

Story · 2004 → now

The Path

Aivars Mirzo Lipenitis has built and lost companies across live entertainment, digital marketing, and technology. Here is the whole arc — international expansion and hard failure included — told straight.

  1. 2004–2009

    Starting out

    IT telesales, an assistant role at an advertising agency, and my first digital media ventures — some sold, some shut down early. This was the startup apprenticeship: learning international business by doing it, and failing fast enough to keep going.

  2. 2010–2013

    Entertainment peak

    I founded a live entertainment group. Sold-out concerts with Ellie Goulding, LMFAO, and James Arthur, tours across Europe, a major festival in a European capital, and artist production. I was featured in Forbes at 23.

  3. 2013–2015

    The fall

    Then I lost everything. Bankruptcy, frozen accounts, a health crisis. For a stretch I lived in a car. I kept moving — the part of the story most people leave out, and the reason the rest of it means anything.

  4. 2016–2019

    The pivot

    I invested in education — Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, and the Stockholm School of Economics. I built an international marketing agency (ForwardMedia), started consulting for technology startups on market entry and international expansion, and connected with Silicon Valley accelerators.

  5. 2020–present

    Building again

    I founded Y·US Ventures — a portfolio of companies across consulting, digital marketing, publishing, and technology. I am launching Bridgit, a social activity matching app, in the US, and I published The Backstage — a memoir about the whole journey as a technology entrepreneur.

The full version — with everything I got wrong along the way — is in The Backstage.