I first came across Iman Gadzhimagomedov in 2020 after seeing an extremely pretentious YouTube advert flaunting his wealth & amazing life. I clicked the advert, intrigued what life this seemingly deranged trust fund baby lives, only to find that there was no trust fund baby in sight. Instead, a young 20 year old sits in front of a camera & talks about Facebook Ads & his experiences running an advertising agency.
Now I have over a year of familiarising myself with the now 21 year old, is he actually a good entrepreneur? Is he as smart as he thinks, & what businesses does he own? Let’s break it all down.
Humble beginnings… the many businesses & revenue streams that made Iman Gadzhi rich 💸
Unlike GaryVee, Iman’s rags to riches story is seemingly true. Some details are conveniently missed out, such as the fact Iman went to one of the best private schools in the UK. This is a convenient thing to miss out, as most people would agree that part of why rich people can make money so easily is because of the connections they have.
Through his rich friends he was able to become a personal trainer, making most people’s annual salary as a teenager training his mate’s parents.
His private school tuition was funded by his father, who aside from sending him to private school had no other impact on his life. His mother struggled, barely affording to cover their basic needs.
Iman began his advertising journey creating content for his local football club whilst still in school, & built a portfolio of clients through sheer determination & hustle. Eventually he dropped out of education to focus on his agency full time. Since then, the agency has grown from strength to strength, now working with brands such as Oura & Evarae.
Whilst the agency initially took on all aspects of digital marketing (websites, content creation, lead gen, etc), they pivoted to focus on the paid advertising for ecommerce brands & online courses (such as using Facebook Ads & YouTube Ads).
Iman also expanded to provide an online course platform to teach other agency owners how to grow their own business, but more on that later.
Iman’s current revenue streams (he’s disclosed publicly):
- Grow Your Agency: His education platform. Self-reportedly making $67.5k per month (profit) in 2021.
- Gents Croquet Club – His membership club (NFT project) which made multiple millions overnight.
- Other: his YouTube ad revenue, cryptocurrency investments, watches, affiliate commission, etc.
Iman Gadzhi the online guru 💡
Before I start ripping into Iman, let’s be clear; the guy clearly knows about digital advertising. His agency self-reportedly made $70k per month, & to get an agency to this level is impressive. Because of this, I don’t think you should dismiss all of Iman’s advice, instead be selective of what you listen to.
One of Iman’s biggest revenue sources (not necessarily profit) is from Grow Your Agency, which is his online course business (he’d like you to see it as an education company). Iman ultimately aims to create something that disrupts the education system as we know it.
I have a feeling this goal has something todo with him being a dropout, as anyone who didn’t complete a higher education seems to have an issue with the university system. Probably because we had to grind whilst many students do no hard work, enjoy themselves socialising, complain about the economy, & are put on a pedestal above their peers working full-time.
Whilst I’m not going to review Grow Your Agency because I’m unwilling to pay for the course, reviews online are mixed. Some people complain that the course does not provide adequate value & that the course contents is readily available online elsewhere for free, others seemed to be very happy with the course. What I will say is that Iman making a course about how to grow an agency makes sense given his profession.
The course’s success rate is around 3.9% according to his own website – so I personally do not think it’s worth the money.
Iman may argue that I’m only judging the course’s success based on those achieving six figures in revenue or more. I would counter that for the amount he’s charging (multi thousand pounds for all his course contents) & as he talks so badly on the educational system, that you would want at least 20% of students to achieve six figures. After all, around 27% of his students apparently leave their job to pursue agency life.
I imagine if you compare the cost & value against a platform like Skillshare, you’ll quickly see that Iman’s approach to disrupting the education system is pretty dumb. If he really believed the education system could be disrupted, he would invest or create content on something like Skillshare which offers more than just advice in one industry.
Outside of his agency course, we also receive a huge amount of additional financial advice through his YouTube. This advice is… mixed.
From my perspective, it looks like Iman Gadzhi is a classic case of someone very clever in one subject (advertising) thinking they can easily become an expert across various other subjects with very little effort. Even if this isn’t the case, he implies it is.
Some of his advice includes saying that anyone buying a property is an idiot, and talking about cryptocurrencies as gambling whilst also promoting them as a safe investment.
I understand that he believes money invested in property could probably make a greater return elsewhere, but these more profitable investments are also higher risk. Property is generally low return & low risk. Most financial advisers would tell you to diversify across various risk levels for maximum returns, whereas he seems to believe in only higher risk.
The reason why a financial advisor suggests this is because the average person does not make enough income to impulse buy a house each year (like Iman), so when diversifying they can only put their income in so many investments, & therefore need to make sure they have one or two low risk returns, otherwise they may as well go to the casino.
Iman can afford a large amount of diversification across high risk investments, so if one provides a big return on investment it ultimately justifies any losses elsewhere. This is similar to how a venture capital business works.
Hilariously, if he invested the $1m he did in Bitcoin during March 2021 into houses on my street, it would have appreciate more than Bitcoin price. Sure, you could argue the value will drop in coming months (just like Bitcoin did, oops), but it still went up quicker than Bitcoin.
His failed & closed businesses 🤡
Recently Iman announced that he’s closing a couple of his businesses:
- IAG-Media: His advertising agency. Self-reportedly which self reportedly was making $70k per month (profit).
- Gadzhi: His clothing & apparel brand. Self-reportedly making $1k per month (revenue) outside of new clothing drops – although this has probably increased.
IAG-Media didn’t necessarily close because it failed, but I don’t think Iman has really disclosed the full extent of how the pandemic effected his agency’s revenue.
Iman publicly disclosed that he lost clients due to his public rants about COVID. I wouldn’t be surprised if the revenue lost was why he closed his agency. After all, why continue the agency when it would take years to make the profit which his NFT project can make overnight & require much more work.
Iman’s one failure was his clothing brand.
Iman talked about Gadzhi like it’s an LVMH brand (yes, he made the comparison). The eyewear looked alright (a tad overpriced for Specsavers looking eyewear), but the clothing could be from any uninspired YouTuber merch line.
Why would his current audience who are interested in entrepreneurship be interested in this ASOS quality shit?
For an aspiring upcoming “luxury fashion brand” Gadzhi is laughable. Iman is not a designer or industry disrupter – he’s a baby Tai Lopez – so his name being the brand is hilarious to me.
For someone who owned a marketing agency & has employees who are in charge of his fashion brand it was absolutely shocking.
SIR THORNEY 