Nightlife Lessons

How I Conquered the Business of Partying with Tech and a Glimpse into Its Future

Everything Shane Neman needed to know about business and life he learned in the gritty, chaotic New York City nightclub scene.

In Nightlife Lessons, Neman gives you the opportunity to go behind the velvet ropes so you can too. With keen insight, humor, and heart, the three-time startup founder and venture capitalist expresses in this surprising business book how grit and aspirational thinking can remake any industry.

In the days before social media and camera phones—just after his failed first business—Neman had no capital but a big idea: elevate the outdated event promotion and hospitality worlds into the digital age. The answer is JoonBug, which blended his love of partying and nose for technology to become a multimillion-dollar stepping stone to serial entrepreneurship and even a stable, loving personal life.

Neman's network includes a wide range of players: drag queens, ravers, club kids, and celebs; the business set and bridge-and-tunnel partiers; and New York's club owners and event promoters. Using Neman’s tech innovations, all find each other at an assortment of venues, from dilapidated warehouses to Swarovski-studded alcoves of luxury. Nightlife Lessonsis packed with thoughtful takeaways from Neman's rise to the top, ideas for how the industry should continue to grow, and predictions for partying in the years to come as tech keeps changing.

Neman’s road to business success is an inspirational journey through New York’s hot spots. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere . . . and take it with you everywhere.

$28.00
ISBN: 978-1-63755-681-8
SKU: 18-1130-01
Categories:Notable Business and Finance, Amplify Publishing, Business and Finance, Entrepreneurship

“I’ve been working in venture and technology for a long time. What Shane and his team were able to do, in terms of re-inventing the business of nightlife, is a fantastic example for entrepreneurs and investors at all levels. Each ‘nightlife lesson’ is a gem.” —HOWARD MORGAN, founder of First Round Capital and Chairman of B Capital

“The essence of nightlife is pushing boundaries while having a great time, and Shane Neman lived that out in one of the industry’s most interesting periods: the late ’90s and early ’00s. His book is a real insider’s take on those years, which makes it a fun read—but it’s also a revelation, the story of how the mechanics of nightlife completely transformed, largely because of Shane and his team. For anyone who wants to know more about business, technology, and the nightlife biz itself, this book delivers.” —STEVE LEWIS, the “Godfather of NYC Nightlife”

"A memoir that contains insightful business advice, Nightlife Lessons derives wisdom from time spent behind the scenes at some of the hottest spots in New York City...Neman convincingly argues that any business can be transformed in the same way that his was." — Foreword Reviews

"A roller-coaster ride of celebrities, scammers, catastrophes, and successes, Nightlife Lessons is an authentic and enjoyable read that has a lot to teach about nightlife, hospitality, and the technology that drives them. More importantly, it’s a master class in creativity and persistence." —JARED SHAPIRO, New York Times Bestselling author and founder of The Tag Experience

“I’ve been a technology business investor for many decades and Shane has truly captured the essence of entrepreneurship in Nightlife Lessons in a way no other book has. If you want to learn about grit, hard work, and innovation, then this book succeeds, with a generous dose of humor and entertainment that won’t put you to sleep like most other cliché business books.” —HENRY KRESSEL, engineer of the first fiber optic laser and partner at Warburg Pincus

Shane Neman

Serial Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Real Estate Investor, and Developer

nightlifelessons.com

Shane Neman is a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and real estate developer. After dropping out of NYU Medical School and failing at his first startup during the tech-bubble bust of the early 2000s, Neman started over. He built his second venture, JoonBug, into a multimillion-dollar digital events powerhouse that thoroughly disrupted the outdated events and hospitality industry. He subsequently founded a successful SaaS business, EZ Texting, the largest business SMS software platform in the United States.

Now, as a venture capitalist, Neman is a prolific backer of startups, including Impossible Foods, Athletic Greens, SandboxAQ, Cirkul, Flexport, Convoy, Prose, Kraken, Obe, Deep Sentinel, Anvyl, Future, MapAnything, VinePair, Hyperice, and Gupshup. He is also an investor, developer, and manager of various real estate properties from commercial shopping and industrial centers to large residential buildings, running a portfolio of over twenty properties in major metropolitan cities across the U.S. 

Although a lifelong New Yorker at heart, after thirty-eight years Neman moved to South Florida, where he currently resides with his wife and kids.