Ahead of Apple

Ivan Parron got his first taste of entrepreneurship working as a teenage DJ. He went on to become a digital music pioneer, even edging out Apple at launching an online music store. 

Today, his practice combines that business skill set with his longstanding interest in entertainment and technology. Parron’s list of entertainment, sports and tech clients has included A-Rod, Jeremy Shockey and Lawrence Taylor; U2, Lady Gaga and Adele. Then there’s Sony Music, the Grammy Awards and Billboard; Fox Sports, HBO Boxing and Formula One racing. He’s also served in the past as a registered player’s agent for the NBA and the International Basketball Federation.

“I call it my ‘masochistic entrepreneurship,’” jokes Parron, principal at Parron Law, which has offices in Miami, New York and Los Angeles. 

His week is never predictable. On Monday, a star athlete might need advice on getting out of a home lease. Tuesday, Parron might be negotiating a mega sale of a musician’s master recordings and catalog. The rest of the week, he could be buttressing a startup that’s facing a setback, assisting a struggling sports-betting entity, and negotiating a contract for a reality TV star. Even the most basic contract can top 100 pages, and things get really complicated when medical professionals, politicians, lawyers or children are involved.

“My clients are regular people that have stresses that we normally wouldn’t think about,” he says. “I’ve talked clients off a ledge many times. Working with athletes and entertainers, you take a white-glove approach, walking them through and explaining things so they know why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

The son of Cuban immigrants, Parron grew up in Miami. His father was also an entrepreneur, initially as an early mass producer of kitchen cabinets and later as a builder and designer of department stores. His mother, a kitchen designer, was artistic, someone who “would build a complete papier-mâché Pueblo Indian village while I was asleep.” 

“My father was very business and my mother was very creative,” Parron recalls. “I’m a combination of the two.” 

The elder Parrons were music fans whose wide-ranging tastes included Cuban standards, the Rolling Stones and Julio Iglesias. The couple often took Parron and his younger brother to concerts, plays and ballets. “My parents really wanted us to be culturally connected,” he says. “They wanted us to assimilate as Americans.”

Parron began playing saxophone when he was 6 years old—and still picks it up for relaxation. A few years later, his parents purchased one of the first Apple home computers, sparking his interest in tech. When he was in elementary school, his parents signed him up for a computer programming class aimed at adults. When the instructors balked at taking on a child, Parron’s parents promised not to ask for a refund if he couldn’t keep up. He was soon doing laps around the adults. 

For his DJ company, 13-year-old Parron worked out a deal with a local record store to buy albums at wholesale prices, then played private parties and corporate events for clients including Delta Air Lines.  

“My father’s mantra was that you’ll learn more from your failures than your successes,” Parron says. “I think that’s true.” 

He learned that lesson firsthand in 1998 when, after graduating from Florida International University College of Business, he established Ritmoteca.com, one of the first digital music stores. At its peak, the company employed 200 people and was preparing for an IPO. Then the stock market crashed in 2000, and Napster became popular. After starting law school, he sublicensed his digital-distribution deals and shut down his company. 

“You can do everything right, or think you did, and the entire environment can still change in an instant,” Parron says. “You learn to deal with challenges and always keep moving forward, onward and upward.”  

Parron’s next move was to attend Florida International University College of Law. 

“Look at any major entertainment or sports company, and their largest department is always business and legal affairs,” he says. “You have to really understand the business side to understand the legal side. The type of practice I do is very different from other areas of law, because it’s a blend of legal and business.” 

Impressed by his years of entertainment experience, Universal Music Group hired Parron as an in-house counsel for its regional office in Miami before his law school graduation. A few years later, when he left to hang his own shingle, Universal was his first client.

He assumed that, because he was coming from the music industry, musically inclined clients would come to him. That didn’t happen right away. But it did happen.

“It was really a curve between people trusting me as a business person and people trusting me as a lawyer. That takes time,” he says. “It was great when people saw what I was focused on and started to work with me.”

Parron is now plunging into another cutting-edge area—AI within the entertainment and sports industries—and currently working with a “really super-cool startup.” Some days, its principals are flying high. Others, something goes wrong.

“That’s when I become a little bit of a coach,” he says. “At the end of the day, I just want my clients to be successful. It’s exciting to be part of their careers.”