Truth about Iman Gadzhi and tips he ‘guarantees’ will make you wildly rich: He says he was a millionaire at 18 but now we reveal his true upbringing and a string of failed businesses, bringing into question his ‘financially disastrous’ claims

He regularly boasts to his adoring followers that he made his first million by age 18 and had $30million (£22million) under his belt by age 23. Viewers who don’t know any better may assume he is an experienced investment banker or even a wealthy heir.

But no, Iman Gadzhi is a YouTuber with almost six million subscribers and sells courses on how to how to build an online business. He is one of a new brand of business gurus sweeping the internet that wax lyrical in sleek recording studios with promises of how you too can become rich, just like them.

The Russian-born entrepreneur has built his YouTube platform on luring in young, impressionable men with the promise of revealing the tips and tricks to make them wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

Gadzhi guarantees ways to transform you from broke student to millionaire in five years. He even says that by following his tips – with a little hard work – anyone in their 20s can be rich.

Tempting, right? His 4.1 million followers on TikTok and two million followers on Instagram seem to think so.

But can his advice actually make you a millionaire? A Money Mail investigation has uncovered a series of failed companies left in 26-year-old Iman’s wake and a tenuous backstory.

Today we shine a light on the questionable financial advice he is sharing with millions of followers.

We put his money tips to the test and asked financial advisers for their opinion. Financial professionals have warned that the young influencer is offering flimsy advice and that his money tips could cost savers – instead of make them wealthy.

Who is Iman Gadzhi?

The entrepreneur moved to London as a young child and dropped out of school aged 17 to pursue social media marketing full-time. He claims he had a ‘difficult upbringing’ and was forced to be the male figure in the household.

His early videos on YouTube chronicle the young boy trying to become a fitness influencer before he started his marketing agency after signing his first client at 16. He dropped out of school a year later – and ran a marketing agency.

Gadzhi claims he went from nothing to becoming a multi-millionaire by his early twenties.

But digging into his past, it appears Gadzhi grew up in a home in the wealthy neighbourhood of Chelsea, west London, and attended the exclusive private Southbank International School, which charges around £15,000 per term.

Gadzhi has admitted this in old videos and says it was paid for by his wealthy stepfather. Money Mail approached Gadzhi for comment but he failed to respond.

He now lives in Dubai on Palm Jumeriah, the famous man-made palm-tree shaped island. Popular property YouTuber Enes Yilmazer just a few weeks ago posted a video touring Gadzhi’s house – optimistically and prematurely titled ‘Touring the home of a future billionaire’.

In the video, viewers can spot the four supercars parked outside Gadzhi’s sprawling villa, and inside they can spy glamorous furnishings and fittings.

As Gadzhi walks around the massive home he even says he’d like a little more space as he has a full-time chef, live-in maid and driver. However, he has bought another home to be ready for two years, which is even bigger. He does still spend time in London, however.

How does he make his money?

Gadzhi claims he made his first million by 18 and now says his net worth is ‘over 100[million]’.

It is unclear whether he primarily made his money from his marketing agency, selling courses or through a selection of his other brands and investments.

However, Money Mail’s investigations into public accounts of companies owned by Gadzhi in Britain suggest the influencer has made the majority of his money by selling online courses and various investments.

Iman stopped running his agency – which he claims was very lucrative – more than three years ago and it was dissolved at the beginning of last year.

Explaining the decision, he said: ‘Doing it remote with no office… I tried. It was very difficult. There’s opportunities where you can make eight figures and there’s opportunities where you can make nine figures. I got to a point where I was only looking at eight and nine figure opportunities.’

Money Mail put these claims to Gadzhi but he did not respond.

Gadzhi has now switched to running a software company and running courses for young men hoping to become rich through SMMA – social media marketing agencies – and also selling digital products.

One of his latest iterations is the Digital Launchpad course – under his Educate.io platform – for $37 a month, which gets you access to more than ten ‘proven’ online business models (talked through by Iman and his team), monthly coaching calls with Gadzhi and live calls with his community of ‘eight-figure’ successful entrepreneurs.

He has also recently invested in platform Whop, described as a place to ‘launch and scale internet business’, and he is now a co-owner.

His flagship course is Monetise 2.0, which he launched in September during his Make Money Online Challenge for around $2,000 a pop. If you try to buy this on Whop, however, you’re asked to join a waiting list.

It has videos on introductions to digital products, developing a product, branding, motivation and more.

It offers coaching calls every week with live videos from Gadzhi and other ‘experts’ as well as access to his AI products Ghostwriter and Synthesise, which one user effectively called a slower ChatGPT.

Buyers also get access to Agency Accelerator, a separate course which has videos on how to set up an agency, learning how to make sales and ‘mastering’ outreach.

Gadzhi offers refunds within seven days for a selection of his courses.

He also owns drinks brand Big Day, software company AgenciFlow and eyewear brand Hills.

And he lures in customers for these courses by selling the dream on social media platform YouTube, where he is one of the most notable business influencers.

When he’s not bragging about his wealth of money, he tells of his meteoric rags to riches story as a business owner – and how you can grow your wealth, too.

Questionable money advice

With such an impressive rise to millionaire status, viewers would assume Gadzhi has reams of money wisdom to share with his followers.

But unfortunately even a quick glance at the guru’s money tips show they have little substance – and could in some cases be financially disastrous.

Gadzhi dropped out of school at age 17 and has no background in finance, and Money Mail could not find any evidence that he is authorised to issue any advice. However, he sometimes states the tips discussed should not be taken as financial advice.

Yet, he shares investment tips and money-making tricks on his social media accounts.

And in the last few months alone, Gadzhi has posted a video with the secrets to making $373 (around £279) a day from AI, another with a strategy to make $2,500 (£1,870) a week from the AI gold rush and another on a method to make $2,700 (£2,019) a week with digital products.

When Money Mail asked financial advisers to assess Gadzhi’s financial tips, one said that the influencer ‘ignores the fundamentals of wealth building’ and warned that one tip in particular was ‘misleading’.

Rebecca Williams, divisional lead of financial planning at Rathbones, warns that it can be financially harmful to take advice from anyone who is unqualified or unregulated to give financial advice.

Here’s a look at just a handful of Gadzhi’s misleading financial tips:

1. Drink coffee in affluent places to become a millionaire

In one amusing clip Gadzhi says one money tip to become a millionaire is to have coffee in affluent places.

Perhaps the technique will allow you to rub shoulders with the rich and famous, but it’s hardly a trick to building your first $1million.

Gadzhi, in a dimly lit studio complete with a microphone, says: ‘[When you’re having coffee] you’re going to look around and see what do wealthy people really wear.

‘Even just hear how wealthy people order. There’s a conviction, they have a different tonality in the way that they order. There’s even a different pace.’

Alan Barral, who advises entrepreneurs at wealth manager Quilter Cheviot, says: ‘That’s just another way of saying if you want to be successful, surround yourself with successful people. It’s hardly wisdom.’

Mr Barral, who has been in wealth management for more than 20 years, was shocked when he saw how many people are subscribed to Gadzhi’s YouTube channel.

He says: ‘These financial influencers… there’s not any substance to what that say. You have got people not qualified giving this advice. They don’t really give you anything to hang your hat on to build wealth. It’s hugely concerning – it is skin-deep research being shared with an audience online.’

Rebecca Williams, financial planning at Rathbones, says: ‘Frankly, if this were true, I would have become a millionaire many times over!’

One of the most surface-level videos in Iman’s arsenal is titled ‘The 5 money principles that will make ANYONE rich in their 20s’.

The kind of life-changing money tips he offers are as simple as don’t be afraid to try to make money in different ways, don’t let personal problems manifest in your business and make a promise to a loved one for motivation.

He also urges viewers to get rid of everything not ‘serving’ you, including throwing out unhealthy food and deleting the video app TikTok.

Fun ideas to better yourself? Sure. But a road to riches? Doubtful.

2. ‘Investing won’t do anything for you unless you have lots of money’

One of the most damaging tips in the video is that viewers won’t be able to invest their way to riches.

Gadzhi talks about his regrets over not investing earlier but says that ‘if you only have a few thousand dollars to your name investing won’t do anything for you’.

This ignores the benefits of investing as a route to building wealth over the long term. Of course, anyone considering investing should make sure they have a healthy emergency buffer fund in cash, too, as there is a risk you could lose your money.

Ms Williams says: ‘Contrary to what some influencers say, investing remains one of the most effective ways to build wealth over time, regardless of income level. Even small, consistent contributions can grow significantly through disciplined saving and investing.

‘Often, the not-so-secret recipe for building a seven-figure Individual savings account portfolio is patience. Many successful investors have benefited from decades of compounding – interest on interest – which over time becomes a powerful engine of growth.’

She adds: ‘There’s no magic shortcut to financial success – strategies promising overnight riches often lead to disappointment or worse, financial harm. Sound financial planning starts with understanding your goals, risk tolerance, and time horizon – not copying someone’s lifestyle or viral hacks.’

But Gadzhi even goes as far as to say if you do manage to grow $1,000 into $1million through investments, you wouldn’t be able to keep it or grow it because you wouldn’t be the ‘type of person who is worthy of that money and you would self-sabotage’.

And his revolutionary investment advice is just as basic – simply never invest more than you are willing to lose, he says.

He instead says to ‘invest’ in improving your skills to make more money. In another video he says when you make your first few tens of thousands of dollars, don’t invest into stock, reinvest it into yourself.

Mr Barral explains investing will be the route to wealth for most people. He says: ‘Getting rich slow is the way to go. Most people will be employed and investing steadily over the long term and benefiting from compounding returns and making sure you’re investing is tax efficient. It’s not as sexy but there’s not some magic formula to building wealth.’

3. ‘There are no benefits to gaining a degree’

One of Gadzhi’s most damaging opinions came in June last year when, sat in a luxurious sports car, he told his impressionable young audience it was an open secret that ‘unless you’re in an industry where you have to go to college [university], there are no benefits’.

This is despite university graduates earning 37 per cent more than non-graduates by age 31.

And those who go to one of the prestigious Russell Group universities can expect to earn as much as £1.5million more than their non-Russell Group counterparts over the course of their life.

There’s a swathe of other cringey tidbits from the guru, including his ‘monk mode’, which is simply an intensive period of focus and hard work.

Hollow training course

There’s no denying Gadzhi is an impressive salesman. He flogs his business courses to plenty of wannabe millionaires and gaggles of his devoted followers pay to hear wisdom from Gadzhi and his dedicated team.

However, his courses have received mixed reviews. This month he is running a free five-day ‘virtual event’ which is called the ‘AI Income Workshop’. He also ran a free three-day event in October titled ‘make Money Online Challenge 2.0’.

But punters must pay for his other courses. While a selection of Gadzhi’s fans have praised the information, others have been less generous.

One disgruntled buyer took to social media to say: ‘I bought his digital launchpad, it was absolutely s***, there was better info on generic YouTube videos.

‘There are very few things I regret, and spending money on that course is one of them.’

Another complains Gadzhi’s team, which you get access to with some of the courses, are not up to scratch.

‘The “hand-holding” team aren’t business owners and aren’t in the same position as you. The employees are just random people he hired and don’t have business knowledge. In other course groups, you’d get the main person or their well-trained team answering your questions so you know the answer is solid.’

One commented on YouTube that they asked for a refund from the course one day after buying it.

They said: ‘There is nothing special in there that you need. All the information can be found online this course is literally paying Iman so that you as the consumer start taking action.’

One buyer says the course isn’t needed and aspiring entrepreneurs can get the same information for free.

‘You can build a digital product business outside of Monetise, just sift through YouTube a bit. The coaching aspect of it is not required.’

Another claims: ‘The course does not have some super exclusive method you are not going to find anywhere else.’

Ms Barral, of Quilter, says that any aspiring businessman shouldn’t buy these courses and should instead pay for professional advice.

‘It’s not going to provide you with anything for setting up a business plan. I would instead buy a £10 book. There are brilliant books written by authenticated entrepreneurs.

‘These courses are almost preying on the insecurity of young people trying to find their place in the world.’

And if Gadzhi was making so much money with his marketing agency, it begs the question why did he U-turn to flog business courses?

It’s a point raised by Spencer Cornelia, another YouTuber. As Cornelia points out, at Companies House there is no shortage of companies registered in Gadzhi’s full name – Iman Gadzhimagomedov – but most are long-since dissolved and were short lived.

Gadzhi was listed as the officer on IAG Asset Holdings and Nice Stuff, which were set up and dissolved a few years later. There is also a company called AgenciFlow – Gadzhi’s business management platform – which is still active.

Another, IAG Media, was set up in November 2017 and was dissolved in August 2028 after doing nothing.

In Cornelia’s expose on the guru, he shows accounts filed to Companies House from IAG Online Services.

And the results were shocking. The balance sheet revealed his agency had £278,000 in assets during the year Gadzhi supposedly made £1million.

Accounts don’t always tell the full story, of course, as companies don’t need to keep large amounts in cash, but Spencer claims there was no indication from other videos at that time that other assets such as real estate or stocks were held. Plus, revenue is not reported in these unaudited statements

And then in 2023, accounts showed just a little more than £177,000 was held in assets. Gadzhi even posted a rebuttal to Spencer’s claims by showing his tax statement. He revealed his tax returns, which showed he made around £1million in profit.

His drinks brand Big Day on Companies House, which was set up in October 2023, is almost five months late to filing accounts and received notice for a compulsory strike-off in September.

The strike off has since been discontinued, as Companies House was shown ‘cause’ why it should not be struck from the register.

In his expose, Spencer also reveals Gadzhi’s brush with controversy at the hands of the NFT product, Gent’s Croquet Club.

NFTs – or non-fungible tokens – are one-off digital assets that shows ownership of an item, which may be physical and digital.

Gadzhi launched his NFT in 2022 with the promise of an exclusive members-only community alongside it.

It was supposed to provide ‘brotherhood’, ‘VIP access’ and a private research team guiding buyers on the ‘best opportunities in the market’. And the price to be in this community? It was initially $10,000 every year – and moved up to $12,000.

He claimed he made $4.4million on the launch day and took home about $2.8million.

But promises of this exclusive community fell short with Gadzhi failing to appear in the Gent’s Croquet Club chat to talk with those who purchased the NFT. Swathes of buyers voiced disappointment with the NFT and tried to get refunds – promised by Gadzhi’s team – which didn’t materialise.

Gadzhi failed to respond when contacted for comment.