Starting in nightlife as a 21-year-old bartender, David Grutman has since built an empire. His company, Groot Hospitality, is behind major nightclubs, restaurants and other assorted hotspots, including LIV in South Beach and Las Vegas (with the latter city also home to LIV Beach at Fontainebleau Las Vegas); Miami’s Gekkō, a restaurant created in partnership with Bad Bunny; and Miami’s Casadonna, Papi Steak, Komodo and more.
Through it all, Grutman has worked with some of the biggest stars of the dance world and beyond. In his new book Take It Personal: How to Succeed by Building Relationships and Playing the Long Game, he writes about how building genuine relationships with artists, managers, agents, consumers and beyond has been a key difference maker in his decadeslong career.
Out April 14, the book features an foreword by Kim Kardashian, who writes that it “isn’t just the story of a man who built a hospitality empire… It’s the story of someone who understands that life is richer when it’s shared. He’s created places where cultures blend, where barriers drop, where people who might never cross paths end up sharing a moment they’ll never forget. That’s powerful. That’s legacy.”
In this exclusive excerpt, Grutman talks about getting in on the ground floor of the careers of artists including Steve Aoki, Alesso and John Summit. (Excerpted from Take It Personal: How to Succeed by Building Relationships and Playing the Long Game by David Grutman, © 2026 by David Grutman. Used with permission of the publisher, Zando, LLC.)
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I’m not interested in being the venue where chaos happens. I’m interested in being the venue where people want to be. Where they feel protected. Where they feel respected. That doesn’t come from chasing drama. That comes from building relationships and valuing them.
I think this applies to a lot of businesses. When I work with start-ups, I’m interested in people who are at the top of their games, but I’m not interested in people who are tearing down other businesses. Devaluing relationships is also dangerous in a world where everyone knows everyone. That’s the part that gets lost in the “all press is good press” mindset. People forget that relationships are the real currency in business, which I know I’ve already said in this book ten times and will probably say ten more times before the end of the final chapter. Every time you protect someone’s privacy, every time you choose integrity over attention, you’re investing in that relationship. And those investments pay off. They show up in repeat business, in trust, in long-term loyalty.
I’ve seen it play out again and again. The people who chase fast press burn out fast, too. They get one big moment, and then they’re gone. But the ones who nurture relationships? They build empires. They get the callbacks. They get the deals. They get the second and third and tenth opportunities. That’s how you last.
You never know where someone’s going to end up, and remembering that has paid off for me in huge ways. If you treat someone like shit, they remember that, too. But if you always show up with respect, you build something that lasts. You also continue to put it out into the world that you’re a stand-up person and someone people want to know and be in business with.
That’s just been a truth for me from the beginning. One of the best examples of that is my longstanding relationships—personal and professional—with Steve Aoki. He’s been with me since the very beginning—like, nineteen years ago, back when I first opened LIV.
At the time, the kind of music he makes—electronic, indie, whatever you want to call it—was not mainstream the way it is today. Not at all. But we believed in it. We believed in Steve, and we believed in the importance of not just playing what people want to hear now but in trying to predict what they’ll want to hear in six months.
Now, of course, Steve is a household name around the world, and I know he remembers that I’m someone who believed in him before everyone else did. And what’s cool is we’ve both grown over time. There have been moments when my brand was bigger than his, and I used that leverage to help push him up. Now, he’s one of the biggest DJs in the world—still growing, still moving, still killing it—and we share deals and ideas and tips. We’re always checking in, making sure each of us is part of the next opportunity.
That’s what the long game looks like when your relationships are authentic. You’re not just helping someone when it benefits you directly. You’re investing in their future, and they invest in yours. It creates a special relationship where you’re able to vouch for each other’s character—when Steve was getting started, booking gigs as often as he could, he knew I’d always be happy to tell anyone who asked what a great DJ and person he was. In turn, if DJs were wondering about what clubs they should be trying to get into and who in the nightlife world they could trust, someone like Steve is unreservedly able to tell them that David Grutman is a good guy.
I remember when Sebastian Ingrosso from Swedish House Mafia first called me about Alesso. He said, “I have this great kid I’m working with. He doesn’t even have a logo yet, no branding, no nothing. We’re going to have to make it all from scratch.”
I said, “Okay. If you believe in it, I believe in you.” And we did it. I got involved, helped shape the visual identity, the positioning, the whole thing. And now? Alesso is one of the biggest gets in nightlife. Sebastian is someone who has been in my life for a long time—years and years. We’ve both grown in our own ways, but I’ve been there throughout his entire career, and he’s been there for mine. These are relationships built on time, mutual respect, and consistency. That’s the long game again—trusting the people you trust and investing early. I’ve met so many people where I’ve liked their vibe, or their talent, or their product, and that alone is enough for me to want to start to build a relationship.
A lot of people wait until someone has something clear to offer before they invest in the relationship. That, to me, is transactional in the worst way. It’s saying “I’m only trying to build a relationship with you because of what I think you can do for me.” I remember the first time I really noticed the DJ John Summit. He built a huge community of followers online, and every new track he released sparked genuine interaction from that community—likes, comments, real engagement. I knew this was someone worth investing in.
I decided to take a big bet. I signed John to a three-year deal, not because we were following trends but because I saw the potential to create something bigger. My goal wasn’t just to put him on the map—it was to amplify the community he had already built and give him opportunities to grow beyond it. I made sure he was seen alongside people who could elevate his profile: Tom Brady, David Guetta, Lenny Kravitz, Michael Rapino from Live Nation. I captured those moments and shared them widely, letting the world see all the people who were coming to John Summit’s shows. Slowly but surely, it helped position him as one of today’s most influential DJs.
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