We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kaia Alexander a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kaia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

In the entertainment business, writers, directors, producers and aspiring show creators all tend to make one mistake: they focus exclusively on their craft. They fall in love with movies and television, only to realize when graduating from university or even pivoting into Hollywood from another industry, that it is truly a business, and they know nothing about business.

I was a development executive on five major motion pictures in the early aughts, and I have business insights that creatives often overlook, or just never explore or strengthen. In the pandemic, I started to listen to writers and directors and observe that a lot of their problems could be solved by knowing some business – even business basics. How to negotiate, when to call an attorney to help with a contract, the art of pitching (I developed my own technique called the Stealth Pitch), branding, and understanding what goes into creating deal flow.

So I used my executive background to create the Entertainment Business School, a school for artists in film and television that makes learning business fun.

I encourage my students to “find your wolfpack” because business is a team sport. Many artists are lone-wolfing, thereby, starving. Film and television is truly a team sport, as you see often hundreds of names go by in the credits scroll of any film or TV show.

It was clear to me in the pandemic that these artists need to learn business, and that no one else was doing it. I could even buy the domain of the .com free and clear and start my school to meet this need.

Kaia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My journey in Hollywood began in 2004. I’d just been hired as a development executive at a company called Inferno Entertainment, and the first feature film screenplay I was responsible for giving notes on was a Christmas comedy called JUST FRIENDS, starring a talented unknown actor named Ryan Reynolds that we all thought could maybe even be a big star. (Ya think, maybe?) The budget was about $12million, as a co-production with New Line Cinema.

The pressure was intense, and my imposter syndrome ran fifty fathoms deep, though back then we were less inclined to speak about mental-health as a society or at work. Overcoming daily panic attacks and autistic overwhelm to perform and impress my bosses in my new leadership role was a lot for me to mask every day. To up the stakes, I was also on a ninety-day trial at the company and half of my promised salary wouldn’t be released unless I proved myself. I had just turned twenty-eight, and the only woman in our office (often feeling like the only woman in any entertainment office west of Sepulveda Blvd.), as well as the only woman in any meeting I had with film executives or talent for the next two years. To top it all off, I had exactly zero business background or education.

You might be wondering how I got the job, and you wouldn’t be wrong to question why and how I’d been hired. The short answer is I’d successfully talked my way in the door, sans resume, by positioning my background as a novelist, and my autodidactic knowledge of film history. A #WordQueen at heart, we novelists know our way around a story, so I impressed my boss by spouting my knowledge of the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, Egypt (as an autistic this is known as a “special interest”), about which I’d written an award-winning Harper Collins novel called Written in the Ashes chronicling this epic disaster, and the tragic murder of Hypatia of Alexandria, the world’s first female mathematician philosopher.

I called my boss every day to convince him to hire me, and since he needed someone in the position yesterday, he auditioned me by asking me to give notes on the script for JUST FRIENDS.

Congratulations, you’re a film executive. We’re sure you’ll figure it out. I was able to put together several movies that got made, including PEACEFUL WARRIOR starring Nick Nolte, based on a book I’d adored as a teenager.

My job consisted of reading screenplays, taking pitch meetings, and even flying to England to help a certain famous actor pass his drug test so our movie could get insured. It was stressful, fun, and I had to think on my feet. (Yes, he passed the drug test. Perhaps the recipe for a liver cleanse I tucked in my purse to take to London helped.)

I stayed at my job with Inferno for about two years, and then went to work for comedian Garry Shandling, who I met in a clothing shop and just hit it off with. Garry was a generous mentor, and a tough critic of the business, and his biggest regret had been trusting his manager with his business decisions. I took at lot of notes.

I draw every day from the wisdom I gained in those roles, and put it to work in coaching my students. What to do, what not to do. How to nail the pitch. How to develop themselves as brands, not just artists.

I study and develop unique techniques based in uncovering hidden dynamics in human systems. I do this because as a neurodivergent woman, I have had to build a toolkit to navigate business and especially entertainment. I’m now teaching the Stealth Pitch technique I invented to entrepreneurs as well as Hollywood creatives.

I’m also a creative, and most proud of my award-winning novel Written in the Ashes, about the events that led up to the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, Egypt.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

The Entertainment Business School now has over 200 graduates, and our customer acquisition cost (CAC) has been $0. This is solely because all our students recommend the class to their friends, and give us exceptional testimonials for our social media.

There’s a saying that goes, “People don’t care what you know, till they know that you care.”

My reputation and the reputation of my school has been the only thing that has built the school to be what it is today. I bootstrapped the entire business, and our students are raving fans who never want to graduate because they love the experience so much. They know I care. They know I’m there for them at every turn. I also ask them what they want next, and then I go build that for them. It’s an open brand. It’s a caring relationship and the customers know they are the reason we exist. We serve them.

I’m a firm believer in serving customers and in customer service, and in the old saying, “The customer is always right.” Whatever has happened or gone wrong, and plenty has with tech platforms we use, I always put the customers – our students- first, which is a lost art in the 21st century, but it has built the most meaningful brands I admire, like Patagonia, like Hewlett Packard.

I think the young people in business need to remember these tenants, as too often in a store or even online, it’s clear to me that as a customer I don’t matter, and I’m often made to feel wrong – whether for returning an item or complaining that the company’s promise didn’t deliver.

Customers will forget you and your brand in a heartbeat if they don’t feel valued, because they have so many choices today. And I believe in lifetime customer value. What we build, we build for them for life. Not for this quarter, not for this transaction. They matter, and they know it.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I highly recommend Dale Carnegie’s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. It changed my entire approach to business. There are plenty of other business books that have tactically supported our growth, but that one is a mindset and a strategy that is evergreen, and as valid today as it was last century, because human beings are still just human beings, and relationships haven’t changed, not really. The platforms have, but not the relationships themselves. I still send hand-written cards to my colleagues, and more now than ever, people appreciate a human touch. It doesn’t hurt to also send coffee. Send beans. Then they think of you every morning with their favorite beverage in gratitude.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://EntertainmentBusinessSchool.com
• Instagram: @kaiaalexandersurfs
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaia-alexander-365590206/
• Twitter: @thisiskaia
• Other: Bluesky @KaiaAlexander

Image Credits

Brandon Colbert
Micheaux Film Festival