Case study · Iman Gadzhi · 2024–2025
42.3 million long-form views. One year. Two channels.
How I turned Iman Gadzhi's packaging into an always-on system: every new upload tested, and every week older videos brought back to life.
- Client
- Iman Gadzhi
- Timeline
- 12 months · 2024–2025
- Scope
- All channels + company assets
- Role
- Thumbnails and repackaging
42.3M+
long-form views
640K+
new subscribers
32.4M
main channel views
9.9M
unscripted channel views
“Rishikesh joined as a thumbnail designer, but very quickly grew into that role. At one point he was leading all of the rehashing strategy, as well as assisting on the overall design strategy across all of our channels.”
The stakes
YouTube wasn't a side project. It was the business.
Iman's long-form videos were the main source of traffic for his businesses. Every video that underperformed meant fewer people entering everything downstream. The packaging couldn't be “good enough.” It had to win in one of the most crowded feeds on YouTube, look unmistakably like Iman, and keep doing it upload after upload.
The shift
From “make a thumbnail” to “run a system.”
Most channels treat a thumbnail as a one-off task: design it, upload it, forget it. I treated packaging as something that never stops working. Every upload went out with multiple concepts in the ring. The data decided the winner. And what I learned fed straight into the next video.
One upload: Disappear And Come Back Unrecognizable (7 Rules To Change Your Life)
A
B
CWinner1.9M views
9 months
Concept C won the test and stayed live.
The hidden growth lever
Old videos became new opportunities. Every single week.
Most channels never touch a video again once it's posted. That's a mistake. A video that's a year old can still be one of your best performers — if YouTube is still showing it and people still want the topic.
So every week, I went back into Iman's catalogue. I found the videos that still had life in them, and gave them new, timely packaging, so proven ideas could reach a whole new audience.
The back catalogue stopped being an archive and became a second growth engine, working in the background while the team focused on new uploads.
Same video, new packaging, back in front of new and returning viewers.
One identity, many formats
Business, productivity, lifestyle — still unmistakably Iman.
Two channels, very different kinds of videos, one visual identity. Every thumbnail had to feel native to the topic while staying instantly recognizable as Iman in the feed. Recognition compounds: the more people know your thumbnails at a glance, the more they click without thinking.
Want the same system on your channel?
Apply, and every call starts with an audit of your last 3 uploads, and the mistakes costing your business revenue.
Apply to work with me2 spots left for November