Miami, FL
A day in the life of Robert Rivani, a 34-year-old real-estate mogul with $750M in deals who left LA to invest in Miami
Robert Rivani got a taste for business flipping shoes as a teenager in his hometown of Los Angeles.
At first, he said, he sold his own Air Jordan and Nike shoes to just afford other shoes, but when business took off, he was making $10,000 a month before he could legally drink. He dropped out of high school in the 11th grade. At 18 years old, Rivani said he was approached to sell his shoe collection for over $150,000 and he took it.
“The hustle came young because my family wasn’t wealthy or rich by any means, and I wanted to be able to afford nicer things in life,” Rivani, now 34, told Business Insider. “The only way for me to go about getting that done was by making it on my own.”
He started working in property management, helping run buildings in Los Angeles, and has stayed in real estate ever since. He specializes in buying more dated buildings, from restaurants to offices, and revamping them.
“I consider myself somewhat of an artist when it comes to designing the properties,” he said. “Painting a building a certain way or making it more aesthetically pleasing, from the facade or the landscaping, and then being able to have tenants buy into the vision. It was an amazing thing to turn around these dilapidated properties into something special or unique.”
Rivani left California in 2022 to make his mark in Miami, where he’s grown his real-estate portfolio.
His investment group, Black Lion, has a portfolio of restaurants, office buildings, and mixed-use buildings in South Florida totaling 500,000 square feet of space owned.
His hospitality real-estate investment firm has completed $750 million in transactions, he said.
In April, he paid $62.5 million for a building in Miami Beach with stores at its base and offices above. He plans to renovate the interior and exterior and rebrand it at The Rivani. So far, West Elm and Williams Sonoma are retail tenants.
“To buy my own office building at 34 years old for 60-some-odd million with no investors or no partners was a huge milestone in my career,” Rivani said. “It was a dream of mine since I was a kid to have that and then also have the building named with my last name.”
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Rivani is also known for his California home — a Beverly Hills castle inspired by “Harry Potter” and “Game of Thrones,” including a $50,000 replica of the latter franchise’s iron throne — which he sold for $22 million in 2023.
Rivani now lives in a 9,000-square-foot mansion in Miami. He let Business Insider take a peek inside a typical day, and described how he sets his life up for success.
5:30 a.m.
Although Rivani left California for South Florida, he still sticks to his West-Coast rituals and wakes up around 5:30 a.m. or 6 a.m. While working in California, he still had properties to worry about on the East Coast, so he had to be up early to stay efficient. Now it’s just a habit.
“I get anxiety if I sleep until 8 a.m. or 9 a.m.,” Rivani told BI. “I feel like I’m missing things. I feel like I’m being disrespectful.”
6 a.m.
Once awake, Rivani immediately spends 30 minutes to an hour catching up on emails he didn’t get to the night before and researching current market trends. He also takes time to meditate and visualize what’s ahead in the day.
Around 7 a.m. every morning he has tea with his wife, Krystal.
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“I can’t stress how important it is to have a healthy, stable marriage when you’re trying to do what you do in real estate because you’re always so busy 24/7,” he said. “I make sure I spend quality time with her in the morning.”
8 a.m.
Rivani usually hits the gym in the morning for about an hour.
“I’m a big, big believer in going to the gym at least four to five days a week — or at least staying active, whether that’s hitting weights or playing paddle or tennis or physical therapy to keep my body,” he said. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that without your health, there’s no wealth.”
9 a.m.
Rivani leaves his home in Miami to his office in Miami Beach — which can take up to 45 minutes depending on traffic. Even that 45-minute drive is valuable time, so his personal assistant or wife drives while Rivani texts and takes calls.
“I’d rather not text and be on phone calls,” he said. “A lot of the good old residential brokers do, and I see them on their phone. I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
10 a.m.
Rivani is a believer in intermittent fasting and has his first meal, usually a protein shake, at 10 a.m.
His next meal won’t come until dinner.
“I’m a big fan of intermittent fasting, so that’s why I decided to drink tea versus other drinks because I fast for 14 to 16 hours every single day,” he said. “I won’t eat any food or have any special breakfast routine.”
1 p.m.
On Mondays, Rivani is usually slammed with a gauntlet of meetings from the legal team, to the construction team, to designer meetings, so he’s usually in the office from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Throughout his meetings he’ll meet with his legal team and go over the status of pending deals. Meetings with the construction team checking in to see where they’re at with bids on new projects and ensuring current projects are on track. He’ll have interior design meetings to go over renderings for projects and help with furniture selection.
However, he’s a little more active every other day of the week. Tuesday through Friday, Rivani meets with tenant companies, potential vendors, and contractors.
Rivani has the luxury of having restaurants, including Delilah Miami, as tenants and can host multiple meetings in one location instead of bouncing around Miami.
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“I’ll set back-to-back meetings at one of my restaurant properties where I’ll just have people coming there,” he said. “So I try to be as efficient with my time. I’m never lapping the city to go to a meeting and going to another meeting — that’s just an inefficient use of my time.”
7 p.m.
About 65% of the time, Rivani eats dinner at home, he said.
“My wife loves to cook, and if I decide to eat out too much she’ll kill me,” he said. “On the weekends, that’s when we’re going out and having dinners. I’ll be having dinners much later than that, unfortunately.”
After dinner, Rivani winds down by watching TV for about an hour — he’s on his third watch of the History Channel’s Viking-age drama “Vikings,” he said.
Rivani said that because of the nature of the job, he’s still fielding calls up until bedtime.
“There’s no cutoff,” he said. “There are times when I’m talking to people right up until bed. I had a really bad habit where I would leave my phone on at night. But now it’s on silent and I don’t pick up anyone’s call. Once it gets to 9 o’clock-ish, my phone just goes on silent and time’s up.”
9 p.m.
It’s time for bed.