How Iman Gadzhi went from high school dropout to a net worth of $85 million by the age of 23
BACKGROUND
His story begins in the small town of Dagestanskiye Ogni, located in southern Russia. Iman was born into a single-parent household, as his father, who struggled with alcoholism and was abusive, had left his mother long before he was born.
Due to their economic circumstances following the fall of the Soviet Union, Iman and his mother endured a life of poverty. Despite these challenges, his mother, who he refers to as his closest confidant and role model, tirelessly juggled three jobs to provide for them. As a result, he spent much of his childhood under the care of his grandmother.
He then moved to an exclusive area in London where he lived with his mother and stepdad. The eventual separation of his mother and stepfather meant that at the age of only 14, Iman had to take care of himself and his mum. His mother was on government benefits whilst she worked as a receptionist for the NHS and part-time at Selfridges. This situation pushed him to create his first business.
FITNESS TRANSFORMATION AND MENTAL HEALTH
According to Iman, “A strong mind is nothing without a strong body.”
He has been going to the gym since the age of 15 and initially was trying to be a personal trainer/online fitness coach. As of 2023, Iman works out of his home gyms in Capetown and Dubai, setting up CrossFit circuits to maintain condition. He also does boxing training 3 times a week.
In fact, he has even implemented a company culture whereby every employee gives their Murph time. This is the time it takes to complete: a 1-mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats and then another final 1-mile run.
However, when he first started, he would go to the gym 6 times a week and train purely for aesthetics, with bodybuilding style training. This is the rough workout routine Iman used to build his physique.
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In terms of diet, during his infamous periods of ‘monk mode’, he focuses on following a keto-based diet. However, he explicitly specifies that it doesn’t matter what diet you do, so long as you stick to it. This will improve your health and it’s going to remove decision fatigue from your day and allow you to practice discipline in everything you do.
Iman is a massive advocate of meditation. He recalls how he would meditate in his school’s bathroom during lunchtime because of all the physical/mental load he was putting on his body and only getting 4 hours of sleep a night. This meant that during the day was the only time he had to meditate so he wouldn’t fall asleep so he settled on lunchtimes!
He believes that simply meditating for at least 10 minutes every day strengthens the prefrontal cortex, improving reasoning, concentration and problem-solving. This is one of the non-negotiables on what he has coined ‘monk mode’. This is a protocol he uses for 6 months of the year to ‘pull in 7-figure years without wasting his youth’.
Monk mode encompasses the following:
- 10-minute meditation daily
- 30-minute exercise daily
- Abstinence from drugs and alcohol (caffeine too if possible)
- Consistent diet
- Limited screen time, don’t need more than 1 hour for business
- Delete Instagram
- Do a minimum of 1 hour on the specific thing that’s going to drive your business forward the most
- Hold yourself accountable and physically track
He believes that a large number of people who say they’re depressed don’t have the right to say that because they have a messed up gut microbiome (this changes how your brain functions/emotion). He also says daily masturbation, being obese and having no social interaction will all individually contribute to the perceived feelings of having a messed up life.
He has spoken about how he had a suicidal period in the summer of 2020. He thinks something he did really well to overcome this is to talk to his guy friends and break down when necessary, understanding the severity of bad mental health and the painful feelings it can induce. Money only fixes money problems and this is why it’s constantly important to look internally and address the root problem; especially for high achievers always chasing the next goal.
SOURCES OF INCOME AND ASSETS
In 2014, Instagram was starting to really become a major platform and there were lots of motivation and quote accounts popping up. Iman started a page called ‘fcuk the norm’ during this period which he would go on to sell for £1,000. At this time, Iman would then buy and grow Instagram pages and sell promotions to other pages or e-commerce brands. He would eventually flip the Instagram pages he grew for a profit.
In 2015, Iman became in love with the gym and fitness and aspired to become a personal trainer. He would reach out and network with high-level fitness coaches to understand what it took. He would sell 3-month personal training packages to other people he met at the gym, friends or the parents of people he knew. Around this time, Iman started posting fitness videos on youtube and this is when his skills in content creation grew. This lead him to shoot photos and videos for people, one of his clients being his old football club who asked if Iman could provide them with a monthly service. Here is when he earned his first recurrent revenue of £95 a week.
Over the next 7 months, he would seek out new clients. His second-ever client was Genflow who he charged $1900 a month. In the space of the next 5 days, he signed 3 more clients, meaning he spiked his income to £4000 a month in the space of 1 working week! By 2017, he had signed more clients and hit the £10,000+ a month mark at just the age of 17. This was all under his creative agency business, IAG Media.
By 2018, he was signing five-figure month retainers and felt like he was on top of the world. He had specialised from a creative agency to a social media marketing agency. However, Iman experienced difficulty when he began to lose clients because he couldn't prove their ROI. It was at this point, he stumbled upon ‘contractor arbitrage’ meaning he could outsource the actual digital service and allow him to focus on sales and operations.
As he grew in notoriety and wealth, people wanted personal consultancy on how they could similarly grow an agency. This pushed him to roll out the ‘six figure SMMA’ program on 50 students. This was the inception of GYA (Grow Your Agency), Iman’s e-learning business, which he started in 2019.
Iman says between 2016 and 2021, he used IAG media to go from 0-8 figures after tax but the multi-nine-figure play is his latest venture called AgenciFlow. This is Iman’s SaaS company which provides the software to streamline the operations of owning an agency. After various beta stages, the full launch happened in 2022. To focus his attention, he decided to close IAG media. His goal is to make no actual profit but to instead re-invest all retained earnings back into the business to grow its valuation for an eventual £100mn+ sale.
Iman projects $3.3 million extra in annual recurring revenue (ARR). When considering the 10x multiplier placed on $2mn+ SaaS companies, Iman will comfortably be growing the value of AgenciFlow by $30mn a year. It’s easy to see how in 3-5 years, AgenciFlow will be worth between $100mn-$300mn.
Other side businesses include his e-commerce brand Gadzhi, which specialises in blue light blocker glasses and Iman’s application-based NFT project called Gents Croquet Club which offers a 24/7/365 concierge service and a prestige networking circle.
In terms of investments, Iman has built a $10mn portfolio consisting of crypto, NFT's and a vast watch collection amounting to $4mn alone. His ideology is to make as much ‘fiat money’ as possible and then use this currency to buy things of tangible value in the real world to preserve and grow wealth, i.e. watches.
SOCIAL STATUS & LIFE SETUP
Iman has developed a rich business network, including the co-founder Agenciflow, Pierre-Antoine de Preux. Pierre is the son of a wealth management company owner based in Switzerland. He has numerous connections in the venture capital industry due to his experience working for various financial services firms like Probus Group, Kaz Capital and UBS. Despite being only 23, Iman’s mature and relaxed demeanour and outlook towards wealth have allowed him to be welcomed into these circles and mitigated any feelings of imposter syndrome.
Another example is Iman’s personal relationship with luxury watch brands. This means all his watch investments tend to be bought at retail price, so the second he leaves the store, he’s already in profit.
He has an incredible life setup, with a $10mn property on the Dubai palm and a $2.8mn Capetown mission. During his down periods from monk mode, his wealth and connections have allowed him to play life on cheat code. He takes private jets, helicopters and yachts to anywhere he wants in the world, often spotted with his closest friends and a team of models. This is boosted by his presence on Instagram and YouTube which he leverages for notoriety and to display his classy and lavish lifestyle.
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Iman describes his dating life as a ‘radical honesty’ approach. He is extremely lowkey with who he spends his time around, believing in keeping his love life private. He says he never wants to get legally married and wishes more people knew how much monogamy goes against human nature. Despite this, he says he also looks forward to settling down with one single life partner and having a family unit in the future.
Iman only has only had one publically known girlfriend called Natasha Vilaseca. It appears they may have broken up once he moved to Dubai in 2020.
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