We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nicolas Neidhardt. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nicolas below.

Alright, Nicolas thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I lived in Paris/France and had a successful career as a composer and music producer. The record industry did really well, millions of CD’s were sold until around 2005, Napster and the internet started to destroy the business of record sales. I could foresee that within a few years, my revenue would totally collapse and I was worried about how to feed my family. I first tried to connect with other branches of the music industry in Paris such as music for advertisement, television and film. Unfortunately I was told that – given my successful career as a songwriter and producer in pop – I was not ‘welcome’ in other specialties and was asked to ‘return to pop music’. This was devastating to me and even considered becoming a translator as I fluently spoke 3 languages. Instead, I went to see a life coach for guidance and orientation. The first assignment my coach gave me was to write down my ‘dream project for the next 5 years’. At the end of the program, she told me that nothing significant would happen in the next 1-2 years but that I would feel major changes after that. This was in 2007. Slowly but surely, I noticed that more and more international connections opened up and in 2010 I was invited to play a series of piano concerts in New York City. I fell in love with the american spirit and enthusiasm and started to envision to live in the US part-time. After I discovered Los Angeles and California it became more and more clear to me that this was the place that could become ‘home’ and after 3 trips, my wife and kids were easy to convince that we should go for the big adventure. Despite the attempts by family and friends to discourage us as it was considered way too risky especially at my age, we decided to leave everything behind and to start from scratch in Los Angeles. This was in 2012, exactly as my life coach had predicted. After 11 years in Los Angeles, we have never doubted or questioned our decision.

Nicolas, 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?

I learned to play the piano at the age of 6 and played in bands when I was a teenager. I always knew that music would be my life. After a long and successful career as a songwriter and music producer in Paris, I moved to Los Angeles in 2012 and started my first music company Go WEST Music (https://www.gowestsound.com/). I built a team of about 40 young composers and focused on the trailer music genre. After many successful placements, we won 2 Clio awards in 2022 for the ‘Blonde’ campaign (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIsFywuZPoQ&t=4s). Early 2023, I partnered up with a friend and colleague to found a second company: RIVAL (https://rival-la.com/) specializing in trailerized covers of famous songs. We entered into 2 significant partnerships: M3 scores (licensing of scores written by world famous composers https://m3-scores.disco.ac/lib/1470126698) and MATCHTUNE, creators of AI technology allowing to detect Deep Fakes. 2023 is clearly the year in which I take a more business-oriented turn. Still, I do love composing and will continue to write for projects I enjoy.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think that what scares most ‘non-creatives’ when looking at creative industries and jobs is the uncertainty of what tomorrow will be. Most creatives have unpredictable income and it seems unlikely to make a decent living based on creating or selling art. The reality is that diversification is the key. The more clients you build relationships with, the more likely they will come back to you with new requests, as long as you deliver constant quality on time. Also, your personality determines to more than 50% how clients perceive you and the likeliness that they will hire you. Some of my friends have lost their full-time jobs and were devastated and panicked. Even though I’ve experienced ups and downs, financially and in general, I realized many times that as an independant, you have the opportunity to constantly acquire new clients and that even if 1 client drops you, the next one probably waits for you just around the corner.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

Even though I did not completely dive into it, at first sight NFT’s look like a total flop to me. Unlike crypto-currencies or AI, I don’t believe that NFT’s will become gig and significant. It’s unclear to me how ‘digital ownership’ can be considered relevant at a larger scale. It might be generational but I prefer to put my efforts into AI these days.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rival-la.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-neidhardt-7954797/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiXB84qM1xe1hoEZXUAzrVA
• Other: https://m3-scores.disco.ac/lib/1470126698